“There will be no white flag above my door” and Ricardo Semler

When I play "Wake Up" by The Living End on repeat in the corridor where I work and think …

Suicidal education
It got sold to our generation
Wake up to the manipulation
Wake up to the situation
Suicidal education

… the other occupants in the house know that I am struggling with identity, wrestling with who I am and what I do … they know that I despair of the real experience of school for so many kids and for other more grown up players charged with manipulating the edu game. 

They suspect that, (like Grandpa locked up in the level 3 dementia center), I mean to escape - especially when I join in karaoke style with the chorus – and they are not far wrong.  If they knew about Bill’s Nietzschean inspired Abyss coffee shops  they’d know that I was framing a proposal to take on the New Zealand franchise.

The problem is (and always has been) that thinking about “learning” is something I cannot surrender.  I am in love with ideas about learning …and always will be

“There will be no white flag above my door ““I’m in love and always will be” “- “I will go down with this ship” –  “I won’t put my hands up in surrender” Dido

I love learning because I know so little about it – I am in truth constantly surprised/ excited by my ignorance – Every time I think that I might be “ontoit” I am kneecapped – which is why I cannot let "learning" go

I know you will laugh but I had never heard about Ricardo Semler until "cj" outed him as an “interesting thinker” in an Artichoke blog comment today …

I checked him out and fell in love all over again …

“For nearly 25 years, Ricardo Semler, CEO of Brazil-based Semco, has let his employees set their own hours, wages, even choose their own IT. The result: increased productivity, long-term loyalty and phenomenal growth. ”  April 1, 2004 Ricardo Semler: Set Them Free

… he's turning his attention to something grander - shaping Brazil's next generation. Education without compulsion... The man who believes in managing without managers wants to teach without teachers. His Lumiar primary school in Sao Paulo uses tutors and 'masters' instead. The masters are architects, astronomers, painters, musicians real experts chosen by the students themselves to come for weeks at a time. It sort of helps if they are not teachers. The thinking is that children want to learn and that ordinary schools stop them.

There's a lot wrong with traditional education. The real question is why do we think we have anything to add to that field and what we find is that the adults that come to us after being uniformalised and homogenised over the years and calcified in the school system, they come to us ready to follow orders, to understand what it is we want them to do, and we've realised that the only way to change this, and it's very expensive and difficult and long to change it with the company, the only way to really change it is to start working at the moment that society does all the harm to them which is really at two. RICARDO SEMLER

In 2003, Semler did what we all blog_yearn about - he stopped talking about what was wrong and "founded the Lumiar School, a democratic school where children aged from 2-10 learn only about things that interest them."

How can I persuade the Magnet that we need to get to Brazil next year?

Comments

[nix]

Come on Arti, you need to present the magnet with an amazing vision.

I forsee a great travelling roadshow to [Sao Paulo] . A troop of coffee afficionados descending on the place searching for the holy grail.

Starbucks curriculum? Go to the source!

[nix]

Whoops - there was meant to be a Sao Paulo in that last comment.

[cj]

Gotta stop pressin' yer buttons Arti... I mean I'm sure you've got a real job! But hey is that man cool or sick or whatever the contemporary rave adjective is? Dee Hock is just as cool but fer different reasons. It's the old addage...following your heart/passion/fire in the tum.

[roseg]

Arti dear, there *is* an unconference in brazil next year and we've already got the beginnings of a New Zealand contingent attending led by the lovely James Knightly (a hostage we took in Willington who clearly is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but still...).

I imagine that arranging a visit to Semco would be as easy as wishing it so - the lovely Bee will be able to wave her wand (or proboscis or whatever bees wield - as you can see I was raised on Disneyland and not Discovery channel...) on that one I'm sure.

In the meantime, perhaps you could attract the Magnet to our shores for the Adelaide unconference?

[roseg]

whoops - forgot the link to James... heaven knows that things aren't real
unless they're hyperlinked...

[botts]

geez arti

i've just finished 5000 words on why traditional training methodologies in the workplace suck big time...and now i'm gonna have to go and find room for semler.... aarrrggghhhhh

botts

[Artichoke]

Hey Botts, Don't know if we will be able to scrape together the return airfare to Brazil next year - was touch and go for the ICCE in Beijing - but I want you to dream about it as a possibility - and start saving - would be such fun to explore Semler with like minds. Arti'

[SC]

If there's a discount for group booking to Brazil let me know...SC and a comrade have been toying with meeting the great Ricardo..and building something different!

[Artichoke]

Will do SC - would be magic BUT given my hapless Lunch Lady Doris employment history - forgetting to book for the non-carnivores, sending the order to completely the wrong school, doubling the order to the right school but on the wrong day and and in one case neglecting to order any morning tea at all - I must not be allowed any responsibility for organising the discounted group

[roseg]

Well in that case you must run for president. You're certainly qualified.

[DG]

How about the labour party!

[Rachel]

Hey Arti :-) I hear this song all the time, even sing along too but never really listened to it. Thnx for opening up my ears & eyes a little bit more. I have been reading a little Gatto & Llewellyn lately & find it hard not to feel for my Sophie when every morning (without fail) she says how much she hates school. & every morning without fail i send her out the door as i have to go to work... If she could have her way i am sure she'd choose to go to school at Habbo Hotel.

[strangecloud]

Love the Dido song. Hmm...I'm going to read up more on this Ricardo Semler guy...he sounds like quite a revolutionist in the cutthroat corporate world : P