Imagine this. You gradually realize you have a passion for a certain topic. You learn about it, and as you learn about it, you figure out a project you want to do.
Maybe it’s forming a community association, or making a tiny library, or raising goats. You make a plan, and you start. Of course it doesn’t all work out perfectly, and you need to learn more, and do some things over. But looking back after a while, you see how far you have come!
That’s our goal with this program: That everyone in this world would have things they are passionate about, that everyone would know how to learn more, that everyone would have the agency to take action and the courage to persist through challenges, and that everyone would experience the intense personal joy of their own achievement. And, that they would have all these things in all parts of their life, whether within the structure of school or work or not.
So often at school, everything about the learning is prescribed by the teacher. The teacher decides what you will learn, when you will learn it, how you will learn it, and what you will do with that new knowledge. Bit by bit, students learn that in order to succeed, they need to give up control. That leads to learned helplessness, a state in which we stop trying to change what is around us, or control what happens. Then, to leap ahead, the problem-solving and decision-making in our society is made by the few who retain those powers. Instead, we want everyone to know and feel their ability to have agency and get things done.
Here's the paradox. To achieve that state of free agency, most of us need to start with some support, and practice. Some structure and learning has to be provided. How do you put together a team, if you want one? How do you gain consensus on a topic? What are some good ways to learn about it? How do you manage a project?
But the more rules and processes that are imposed, the less people feel free to think. Once a process is proceduralized, that is, explained and streamlined with rules and steps and forms, the creative thinking by the participants is squelched.
We start thinking about the next step, instead of why you are doing it and why you care and how it could be done better.
