These are changing times. Everywhere you go there are active pockets of home (un)schooling. People are taking real responsibility for their children’s growth and lives and education. Placing it firmly on their own doorsteps. Looking it straight in the eye. Getting to know what is going on and getting to know their children. Experiencing the immediate results – and the problems. It is far from easy, it is really hard. And you will often want to give in, just give up. Some days you will think that you have made a really bad decision and believe they really would just be better off (back – if you took them out in the first place) in the education system.

There are many definitions of what it means to take the education of your child seriously and many, many expected outcomes. With that in mind we have decided to play with the definition of ‘start up’ and ’education’ and what they are and what they can be when brought together.

Whether the education of a child can truly be referred to as a ’start up’ is probably beside the point. A child’s education should never just be a business, but that doesn’t mean that approaches and ideas can not be borrowed in a pursuit of growth, development and success. As Paul Graham has written, the only essential aspect of a startup is growth.

How it starts: taking a child out of mainstream education, getting them started, unschooling them, letting them feel ready, prepared, excited – a sort of Sprint 0 while they get out of old bad habits and get excited for learning growth, their potential, their own interests – what really interests them as drivers of their schooling.

This idea of start up education is fast moving and fast growing. Constantly offering opportunities to investigate different approaches and understanding of what children’s learning actually is and could be. Learning is remembering what you are interested in combined with turning everything into a learning system and opportunity.

What holds this approach together are ideas, lots of ideas, and the sharing of ideas. Everything is about ideas. The ideas become the rules and the ideas become the framework.

Everything has to start somewhere. A good place to start is with talking. Talking is a foundation to just about everything else. Young children’s talking and conversation skills are rarely seen as something that requires nurturing or developing beyond answering questions or replying to direction or requests. Being able to speak out loud with confidence and assurance and to make yourself understood is something that doesn’t always come naturally to a lot of people. So, why do we leave it so late (or if ever) to work on this vital attribute? If the issue is addressed when children are young, I’m sure it would be far more straightforward to assist them with ordering their thoughts clearly and for them to become far more confident and assured orators.

This start up approach doesn’t necessarily have to be repetition and practice practice practice learning but inquisitiveness first then practice. Better for the child to be practicing the thing that they have discovered by way of an inquisitive mind and that they buy cheap viagra are interested in than working at something they are not. Outside a traditional system it is much easier to think for yourself. You can use systems but you aren’t in the system.

Often the idea of (un)schooling seems to crumble in front of you – to barely exist at all. When you are pushing against accepted norms (children go to school) a

gnawing doubt will always be ready to start whispering in your ear. Your confidence questioned. A ship adrift.

Anyway, more to come on this. Biggest challenge of my life.

For the last 3 years we were lucky to have been sponsored by the country that we live in: wales.

(Big gratitude to Wales for helping us at the start, when there only a bunch of dreams)

We wanted to show that Wales was a small clever country that could attract the brightest minds on planet earth.

And we have been successful at doing that. Long way to go though.

The Guardian voted The Do Lectures in the top 10 ideas festivals in the world, so apart from not being a festival, it is nice to know we are on track.

People still find it hard to define us. So do we. People say we are like Ted, then they come and say we are not like Ted at all.

But The Do Lectures is not an event, or a conference. It is an experience that will stay with you all the life.

It may be small, tiny compared to others but by heck, there is nothing like it.

But as our contract with Wales has come to an end, we are looking for a patron to help protect it, to keep it special, and to maintain its importance in this world.

The next 5 years are exciting ones.

There will be the launch of the Do series of books, there will be more Do Lectures around the world, there will be apps built, they may be a festival and even a school one

day.

The reason to start this thing was that great, awkward, disruptive ideas change the world. They make this world a better place to be.

And that is a good thing to keep going, to share more of those ideas, to

help accelerate that change we want to see in the world.

So if you want to help, please let us know.

Best

david

david@thedolectures.co.uk

It can be too easy to make excuses, to tell ourselves that ‘we are what we are’, to decide that we are this way or that and that there’s very little that can be done to change. But there is a huge amount of evidence to suggest that how we decide to live and our approach to life can have a massive effect on how your body and mind ages. Tim Drake is an expert in this field, his latest book is entitled ‘You can be as Young as you Think’.

Drake’s experience and research has led him to think that we have 3 ages rather than just the one, our birthday. These are;

1. Birthday age.
2. Body age.
3. Brain age.

It is pretty well drummed into us that our physical health is massively dependent on us keeping active, but there is comparatively little emphasis on our brain health. Interestingly, Drake tells us that we can be 15 years either side of our Birthday age physically, depending on our lifestyle and level of fitness. Our brain age however, can be anything at all! You can check your brain age by using the app devised by Drake and his co author Chris Middleton, its free from the App Store, ‘Brain Age Test’.

There are certain key behaviours that give us away with regards to our brain age. Drake defines them

in the following way.

Young Brains

1. Open to Change.
2. Future Ready.
3. Positive.
4. Innovative.
5. Open to People.
6. Love Fun.
7. High Energy.

Old Brains 

1. Defensive.
2. Grumpy.
3. Anxious.
4. Negative.
5. Afraid of Change.
6. Uncreative.
7. Low Energy.

Do you still dream?

Dreams are kinda hard to entertain when you feel you have to be more concerned with the practicalities of life, the monthly mortgage payment or an impending hospital consultation. We tend to slip into survivalist mode as the years pass, we lose our naivety and start to feel like our role as an adult, worker or parent is to show as much stoicism as possible. Drake points out that this can lead to a dangerous state of stasis; “If you are not growing as a human being, then you’re in stasis or you’re going backwards.” He suggests we work towards a state of ‘enlightened selfishness’. It’s not about ignoring the wisdom we  accrue with the passing years, but more about staying open to new and better ways of thinking and living because society changes so rapidly. This is beneficial to those around you as Drake states; “Without learning and growing you can’t help other people to learn and grow.” This knowledge can help you formulate new dreams, helping you to keep striving for a life that is as happy and fulfilled as possible.

Drake’s 6 Wisdoms of Youth

1. Openness to Change.
2. Being open to people.
3. Action orientation.
4. Having fun.
5. Being positive & still dreaming.
6. Looking after yourself, then others.

Young brains work.

These considerations are no less applicable to the issue of inspiring those that we work with. Drake is emphatic about making sure you don’t forget how to bring fun into your life, including your work. He believes that fun is the key to unlocking the imagination. Another way in which this theory is being applied to the world of work is in the changing styles of people management. Drake has noticed a discernible shift from more traditional methods of people management towards providing people with leadership instead, which is a very different approach. He defines the differences between a manager and a leader as follows;

Management

1. Manages with control/by giving orders.
2. Based on job title.
3. Uses fear to motivate.
4. Covers up mistakes/Never appears weak.

Leadership

1. Supports by providing help where necessary.
2. Staff encouraged.
3. Motivation through inspiration.
4. Staff loved and nurtured.
5. Only human – admits mistakes.

Generally speaking, Leadership is based on a set of positive values and actions, whereas management plays on a more negative set of values and actions. The difference it can make to your life by adopting a positive rather than a negative approach can be huge Drake says:   “Physiologists

and psychologists will tell you that we are hardwired to respond to negative or positive – we cannot fight it.”

Another observable shift in today’s young brains is that people want to make a difference with their work. This trend has even reached the Harvard Business School, which is as capitalist as they come. Where its graduates used to aim to join the ranks of Wall St and become lawyers, they are now looking for more meaningful work. Drake found that 25% of 2010 graduates from Harvard went into jobs with the NGO or Not for Profit sectors. This hints at the more general shift from creating economic value to creating social value.

Drake’s 24 hr challenge.

So, if you think that maybe you could benefit from giving your brain a refresher course on how to be young, start by taking this 24 hr challenge. It is pretty simple but Drake claims it is very effective. All you have to do is;

 Say nothing negative to anybody, about anything, for 24 hours. 

So, no gossip, no tittle tattle, no moaning! If you find that you slip up and you say something negative – start the 24 hours again. Once you have done 24 hours, move your target to a week, then a month. Drake insists that once you hit a month of saying nothing negative your life will be changed for the better.

Watch Tim Drake’s Do Lecture 

It is

not

a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.
— Bruce Lee

If you don’t build your dream someone will hire you to help

build theirs.

— Tong Gaskins

Via DeisgnVerb

High Converting New Niche

High Converting New Niche

“You don’t stop doing things because you get old. You get old because you stop

doing things.”

R. Pilcher

“Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if

you are wrong” — Diego Rodriguez

Photo Credit — Pete Prodoehl

Yes, we change things through this viagra soft medium. We tell the world what we want to change, and why. We find people who want to help us, join us, fight against us. We tell the world our dreams, our frustrations, and our ideas for the future. Without our ability to tell a story, there would be no change.

The Do lectures – Wales.
April 25th-29th 2012.

Ideas+Energy=Change