The Swedish publisher Bookhouse is today releasing “32 skäl att bryta mönster” (32 reasons for pattern breaking), a free pdf e-book, inspired by Seth Godins “What matters know“. Here is my contribution, quickly translated by Google (with minor corrections, as soon time permits I will do a better job).
DE-SCHOOLING
Let us create history’s best start in life for really young people! This ambition spans more than that School must be replaced by new institutions, based on today’s opportunities, which act for future needs. Do not believe that School is all about education. It has also become a repository, surrogate parent, sorting mechanism, social welfare and above all a labor market fix. A political weapon in a stadium where the game appears to be played in the 1920s.
Legislation, Media logic, Employment system, and Education structures are deteriorating. Slowly grows the realization that institutional solutions have been patched beyond reasonable limits. I have chosen to invest in the future, that is, those we used to call children. The starting position offers outdated ideas such as: one should not start work until one turns 25, you must go to school to learn something, children should mingle daily with peers born the same year, and core subjects lasts forever. But also opportunities arising from the fact that more than half of everyone over the age of four [in Sweden] share insights with people all over the world via the Internet.
The reasonable conclusion is that we must do something radically new. We start with questions about what School deliver and society’s future needs. Then we may concider innovative solutions and how they will be realized. This task should by no way stand in the way of all the amazing developments already going on in today’s schools.
[The Swedish post also makes a note on that I am sort of leaving “social media” behind. There is nothing new going on there, as it is maturing and spreading. Instead I am focusing my efforts on the implications and opportunities from “new” technology on a larger scale. In short: Bye social media. Hello new mankind.]