Over the past decade, I’ve travelled the world speaking at hundreds of conferences about education innovation. And everywhere I go — Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas — I meet people with the same unmistakable look in their eyes: that spark.
Executive summary
The aim of this article is to describe a way to enable access to high-quality education to everyone globally through re-organizing the EdTech ecosystem.
The approach is based on the notion that everyone has the right to quality education and solutions that improve learning can come from anyone and anywhere.
Democratic Education is a pedagogical concept developed during the last 100 years, where students are in charge of their own learning (self-directed learning). For example, the kids participate in the decision making, enjoy the freedom of movement and exploration, and learn in the company of adults who are there to support them. In short, in an environment free of medication and full with positive emotional connections, democratic education supports youth´s empowerment to become independent and conscientious citizens and promotes a sense of belonging and well being.
In the industrial society the majority of people needed to know how to follow orders, sit still for more than eight hours per day and not to question authority. Only a small share of the people needed to understand the essence of what was learned, to be able to become scientists, engineers etc, to bring the society forward. Unfortunately this skill set is not suitable for the needs of information society as to achieve success the people need to have good ability to quickly analyse information to be able to differentiate relevant from irrelevant, truthful information from fiction and most of all, be able to recognise their own strength and interests to build upon them.
