Heads up: This post is 14 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
The world’s population surpassed 7 billion last year, with 50% of that living in cities. Across the world, people are losing their jobs and college graduates can’t even find jobs. The system we live in is breaking at its seams, it can no longer employ and sustain the rapid expansion of human population.
So, are you satisfied with just sending your children to school to get “educated”, and hope that they’ll do OK when they grow up?
How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies and ecologies of the 21st century, when millions of people have already been marginalized by the system right now?!
I share these same concerns with you because I’m a new dad of a 21 months old boy and a 2 months old girl. Even though I’m not an educator by profession, I’ve been learning a lot about Early Childhood Education methodologies like Montessori and the Reggio Emilia Approach, and using it in my own home! So much so that my wife and I have earned a Reggio Emilia educator certificate. (My wife and I are the only 2 in Hong Kong as far as we know!)
As a concerned parent who have been working at the forefront of online collaboration, creating systems that enable user innovations like the official LEGO crowdsource model creation site, and my own internet startup Makible that sells the most user friendly 3D printer in the world, (You can find out more about me and my experience in “User Collaborative Innovations” here.) I’m now starting a parents organized playgroup on the weekends. Besides wanting to provide the best for my own children, my goal is to create a simple system for parents around the world to collaborate and form their own parents led playgroups for children from 1 to 6.
This is an effort that requires parents to be highly involved, if you share the same values as I do, and have a child of similar age as my son (~2 yrs old, “trouble 2” beginning to emerge), then let’s do this together! We can meet at my apartment in Prince Edward, where I’ll provide an environment with “seeds” for exploration. Throughout the sessions, I’ll be taking pictures and documenting the children’s every discovery, trouble and growth. Parents will receive their kids’ documentations after each session.
If you’re interested in it please tell me a little bit about yourself on this form.
Looking forward to meeting other amazing parents and kids in Hong Kong!