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march 5th-7th, Porvoo - Borga, Finland
We decided to organise a conference, but today I heard that what we did was actually an unconference. After having participated several conferences our team wanted to arrange a conference where people would meet and not the papers. A conference with insightful encounters.
Little did we know when we made the decision, which is good because otherwise we probably would not have done this. Something which started in our team with less than ten people ended up being a network of lots of different people. This conference planning gathered together students, teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs in a totally new way. I was able to see changing roles, growing professional identities and passion. There were of course moments of despair, feelings that too many balls were in the air.
I did not know anything about how to organise a conference. In that sense this really has been a journey of learning to me. By having people with different backgrounds and expertise areas working together we were able to come up with something new. Good example of this is all the visual elements, which started from planning the conference web site. As we also had Fokus Fabrik’s designers in our planning group they were able to see how design could be used in our conference. And students continued on the same path when they were planning e.g. the feast lunch. There all the visual elements were really beautiful.
For me the best part of planning and organising this conference has been the co-operation with students. They did really wonderful work. I am really proud of them! We have great group spirit in the team and I have seen that the traditional roles are disappearing. I am not that much a teacher any more but we are becoming more like colleagues. I have never seen such motivation, such smooth co-operation in any learning process. I do not think that this kind of learning process which touches also identity building could be achieved in traditional learning environment.
Several persons have asked us to arrange this conference again or productise it. We worked on this conference with our body and soul. Can it be reproduced? Can we ever again come up with something, which would be even close to this? How did we achieve this? Once again I can quote Gergen (1991):
‘Knowledge is not something that people possess in their heads but rather, something that people do together’
What an amazing conference week and eight months planning process!
After breathing for a while I started to think about what I have learned during this whole process. I could list pages of hands-on skills that I have learned, still I give more value to the metaskills and general working life competences that I gained, which are also so many that I won’t start listing them here. However I think that the most important insight for me was realizing who I am, what I am cable of doing and what I want to do – growing as a person. I also realized many things about people in general. We are not that different after all.
I was supposed be sitting in the classrooms, listening to lectures and copy pasting reports this spring. But here I am organizing an international conference and wondering the “truths” about learning.
Starting to think about learning and “teaching” and questioning the norms we are used to is what brought me here. I don’t believe that I learn enough just by listening to a lecturer who knows a certain amount about of a topic, gives us parts of that knowledge, asks us to write reports based on ready given questions, and gives certain pages to memorize for the exam. No thanks – too easy! (Don’t understand me wrong, I am not underrating the knowledge of our educators, just bringing out my opinion on how we would learn better and how the educators could better promote this learning)
I learn by doing – by solving problems, by making mistakes, by finding questions and reading the literature when knowing what I am looking for. I find it also important to discus about the problems, processes, findings and insights. Not to forget that without having motivation towards what is being done it is impossible to do proper work.
This conference planning is a good example of this. Nothing was given to me ready, not even the questions, starting from the first meeting eighth months ago when I was wondering what I am expected to do. The answer was “you need to self figure out what you want to do – and do it”. That is what I did, and as usual, in the end took maybe too many responsibilities, but I managed and learned a lot. I got a lot of support and guidance but was expected to always first try to solve the problems by my self.
One of the parts from which I learned the most was coordinating the student group involved in the planning and executing of this conference. Supporting, guiding, giving problems to solve, trying also my self to not give the answers too easily. The skills that I enhanced were how; to be a leader, to organize things, motivate people, and to work with different actors, and getting different actors to work together. What have been the most difficult ones to learn are to delegate things and to “trust” people to do the tasks given to them. I have had to learn to understand that I am not the only one who can do the things. Waiting for weeks for someone to do something – that could be done in half an hour, never getting it and it the end doing it by my self – has tested my patience and teached me that at that point I failed as a “leader”. Also the ability to give enough positive feedback and right kind of negative/constructive feedback in different kinds of situations is still under construction.
At the end of this process we, students and “teachers” together, came to a conclusion that the more responsibility and liberty we give to studnets, the more they feel that they are appreciated and needed and the better work they do! Now we just need to get the other teachers to understand this – to trust the students!
Looking for… what? I really don’t know, right now.
Something interesting, surprising, and fresh, I hope. At the moment, something like this would do me good, surely. I have just finished off with a significant load of teaching work, together with (too) many students. This is the first day “off the load”, and you may imagine how it feels - and how brief this illusion of freedom often is. Or is it only my imagination that keeps faking me out? Wasn’t it “insightful encounters” that I have been after together with my colleagues and the students for the last 7 weeks? Looking for alternative ways of knowing, for issues and stories that call into question the “taken-for-granted”, the “real”, the “rational” or what ever. Creating space for something new, stumbling along towards insight and learning, or what?
From Helsinki towards Porvoo I guess… something interesting, surprising, and fresh, I hope.
The winter vacation started today in southern Finland. Schools are closed and many people have travelled far away to find either snow or sun – both being elements that we haven’t really seen here this winter. I wouldn’t even call it a winter. However, yesterday was the first day that it felt that the winter could finally start!
Yesterday it snowed. The white ground engendered a glimpse of hope, and although the snow melted away, it smelled like winter this morning. The biting frost, fresh air, and the beautiful sun rice at seven thirty a.m. were just peaceful. If I wouldn’t know better I would say that there is still hope in getting a winter! However, it is already mid February so we are moving towards spring.
The day, meaning the amount of hours that we have light, is beginning to be more human. It really makes a huge difference, whether we have six hours of light or almost nine and a half hours like we have here in southern Finland now. Now some of us can actually see some light before and after the work day. People are starting to wake from their hibernation and look more alive. We can see more and more smiling faces and friendly gestures around us. Especially today, when the sun is shining and the birds are singing!
Perhaps that bird singing isn’t a sign of the long-awaited winter – it must be the spring! Either way, anything is better than the dark and rainy weather we have had for months. After giving it a thought, yea, let’s hope it is the spring; we can take the snow then next year.
We had a planning session in Timbaali, which is a local restaurant specialising in snails. It was great to go and have a meeting somewhere other than normal. Timbaali is also one of the places where we shall dine and have lunch during the conference.
We started going through the whole process and tried to think who is taking care of what. One of the first things on Tuesday and Wednesday will be taking care of the arriving guests. Only less than half of the participants have informed us how and when they are arriving. Ela said that she could take care of most of the airport shifts, because she loves airports! How great!
We really had a feeling of doing and planning together and as it is in these occasions time really flies. Monika and I (the so called teachers) had to leave after three hours of planning but the others (so called students) did not even notice us leaving. The roles really have changed! I started to wonder that what makes this kind of role change possible? What makes this conference planning so interesting to all of us? Will the participants also notice the difference?
I am happy to be able to be part of all this!