Etikettarkiv: #school spring

What’s my legacy?

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Am attending a two day Independence intensive with Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler and we are asked to play the deathbed game by answering two questions:

What’s my legacy? What contribution do I want to make in the world?

We get a 5 min reflection time, to ponder these questions and our own mortality. Meanwhile Allison Crow is the visual recorder at the event and she’s capturing the deathbed game this way:

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I pick up my phone and start to write an email to myself. My mind immediately wanders towards the Swedish movement the school spring, aka #skolvåren, that I am one of the initiators of, and which for me is a conduit for one of the great passions of my life: the set goal I have to change school systems globally by 2020.

But what lies behind that, what’s the passion driving me? Why do I want to do this?

Well, in short because I see so much wasted and untapped potential just withering and shrivelling away, going unused, perishing. And that’s to the detriment of us all, I tell you. We have challenges today and tomorrow that require something else from humanity than what created the problems now challenging us. And to paraphrase Albert Einstein, you cannot solve a problem from within the same state of mind that created it in the first place.

So, I want more of us (all of us!) to level up. To climb up the ladder of consciousness, to a higher level. That’s what I see is in store for us, for humanity. We have but one way forward if we want to remain here on Earth and that is to level up. There is no doubt in my mind on that one.

I want a world inhabited by people who are consciously creating the world, rather than just reacting to what happens. And that’s why I want to change school systems on a global scale – because in today’s modern society school has a HUGE impact on all of out lives. So we need to make sure it’s an impact for the better, for the good of humanity, for the lives of the born and the unborn.

In short, that’s my contribution to the world.

What’s your legacy?

Bye bye 2013!

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What a year 2013 has been for me. I am so grateful for all that has happened, but more than anything I am thrilled about my part in making it all happen. Because it hasn’t ‘just happened’, it has been created in the tension that occur where being and doing meet up!

I am zooming out, looking at the year as a whole, and these thirteen instances show up. All of them have been very significant in some way during the past year:

  • Skolvision
    Just before Christmas 2012 Sanna Nova Emilia asked if I wanted to be one of thirteen school visionaries – how could I resist that? During the spring we are hosting three conferences together with other driving spirits from the Swedish school system and I can’t wait!
  • #Blogg100 challenge
    I started to blog daily thanks to this challenge, which to me is the best form of self-coaching and as such is absolutely invaluable!
  • #skolvåren aka school spring
    #skolvåren was born on Twitter at 10 pm in Friday the 15th of February in 2013 – and my life hasn’t been the same since! What a treat to be a part of this phenomenon, and thinking back I have to say that it’s been life changing.
  • Coach Rasmus
    I hired Rasmus Carlsson as my coach with the purpose of building a coach practice, which I am in the midst of. Thanks to Rasmus I have also had the pleasure of experiencing:
  • Master Mind-group
    Rasmus invited me to a master mind-group, and without a doubt this has contributed enormously to my growth as a human being this year.
  • Make a great day
    One of the things I will carry with me forever from this year is the saying Make a great day, which was introduced to me by my friend Inga-Lill.
    Try to exchange a passive word (have) for an active one (make) and experience the difference that can make!
  • SuperCoach Academy 2014
     Rasmus also introduced me to SuperCoach Academy, taking place during 2014, but already in full swing in the virtual world. It’s already affected me and my understanding of the world in a very basic way. Who knows where it will end?
  • Global summit for Transformational Presence Leaders and Coaches
    In March me and another 50 TPLCs gathered in Holland with Alan Seale and David Robinson – since then I am riding my wave of energy AND can put words to the experience!
  • Mentor Max
    In Holland I met my soon-to-be American mentor Max, whose monthly Skype talks give my thoughts something to strain against and also provides me with strength to keep on asking Why.
  • Gotland
    I tackled Almedalen together with loads of school springers and right afterwards I took a week of much-needed vacation on the island of Gotland, along with my family who joined me there.
  • India
    India played a huge part of my professional life, during the first 3-4 years as my own employer, and now, the rest of the family have also experienced this fascinating and unique country. We spent just over a week in Kerala, in the south of India.
  • Clever girl
    During the fall it became more and more clear to me that I am a great coach for Clever girls (a pattern that boys can also attach themselves to) who have come to the realization that it’s a pattern what doesn’t fully serve them.
  • Mjölby
    #skolvåren back-office gathered for 24 hours in Mjölby in December, which was unique, as all previous physical meetings have taken place during #afk:s with school spring, which means focus is on that. But during these hours we could focus on meeting each other – and what a meeting it turned out to be!

20131231-101042.jpgThanks to all the school visionaries, Rasmus, Charlotte, Inga-Lill and Wivan, super- & TPLC coaches, Alan, David, Max, Ann, Therese, Susanne, all of my old time and new found friends and especially my beloved family – you all enrich my life!

As I write this I realize how much more there is, big and small, that has contributed to the year of 2013. I truly live a rich life. A life full of mountains and valleys, highs and lows, and I learn from it all! I wouldn’t want to be without any part of that which we cal life. So from the bottom of my heart I’d like to thank you for enriching my life!

I hope you’ll accept my thanks?

Present vs Future

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Stumbled across this quote the other day:

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As someone deeply engaged in creating a better world, a sustainable learning society, this quote really hit me heard. Because this is exactly what I believe.

It is so vital to take a long good look at what we are doing right now, in the present moment. If it doesn’t resemble the future we dream of – why, then we should stop immediately and ask ourselves Why?

Why doesn’t the present look like what I’m dreaming of?

What I’ve discovered since initiating the #skolvåren-movement (aka the school spring) is that many people actually lack a dream of the future. Their image of the future is simply ‘more of what we have today’, and they cannot fathom something else.

For me – that implies that they have lost the ability to dream.

For me – that implies that we are at our societal peak, i.e. this is as good as it gets, and society cannot become better than its current set up.

For me – that’s not good enough.

However, I don’t have a clear view of what a sustainable learning society looks like, in detail. I cannot predict the future so I have little clue. But what I can do is envision what that future would feel like, to me. When I close
my eyes an think ahead – I can awaken the feeling I want to have, from the settings of a sustainable learning society.

And you know what? I think that’s sufficient in and of itself!

I don’t need to know the What and How of the future, not yet. Because, if my Why if strong enough / the What and How will fall in place. I go one step at a time, and each step will bring me closer to the feeling I am striving towards.

So, look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming.

Is it?

The road less traveled

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The other day Robert Frost came to me. Well, since he’s no longer alive, he didn’t come to me in person, of course, but in spirit. Frost wrote about a diverging road, and when he came to the crossroads and had to chose, he took the road less traveled by, and stated that was what made all the difference.

Hear the full poem here, and read the final phrases here:

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I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– Robert Frost

The message I take from these words revolve around the School spring, the movement that I devote a lot of my time to. It’s based in Sweden, and is called #skolvåren in Swedish. #skolvåren ask the question ”Why school?” to get people to think about it as the powerful tool it is. School is a tool for creating the society we live in.

For me, taking the road less traveled is a must for #skolvåren, as we are in reality questioning an entire system. And how can we do that if #skolvåren itself turns into a predictable system or set up? Why not question a traditional way of doing things (i.e. the school system), in a way that has never been done before.

If we take the road most often traveled, going for a traditional organization, we loose the edge that makes it possible for us to question the traditional school system. If we run it the way everybody else would have run it had they gotten involved with the movement when it came to life on Twitter in February 2013, there would be no magic, no sparkle, and for me, no thrill.

Would you chose to take the road less traveled?

Gandhi has a question for us

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That’s what my US mentor Max told me the other day, over SKYPE. I had to laugh, as this was when I was preparing for my speech at Rotary, and I had witten down a quote by Mahatma Gandhi a few days earlier, thinking that I wanted to use it in my presentation of #skolvåren (aka school spring).

Be the change you want to see in the world. – Gandhi

What Max said was this:

How will you provoke a response from the most powerful leaders in the land? – Gandhi

And in connection with #skolvåren, that sure is a good question to ponder! We have already made good headway, but it’s a long way to go.

So when my husband later that week asked me whether I would like to watch the movie about Gandhi with him, even though we have both seen it many years past, I just had to face that fact that someone’s trying to give me a message, indeed. Third time’s the charm!

So yes, I am listening. I am recalling the insights that came to me while reading a good biography a year or so ago, and also there’s the book ”Mahatma!” by Zac O’Yeah on my bedside table, that is just waiting for me to pick it up and start reading.

20130819-151034.jpgI am picking up several messages. One has to do with going at it a person at a time. Gandhi managed to awaken 350 million Indians, and while it took some time, the goal of India, free from the English, was succeeded in the end. Patience, that’s what Gandhi is telling me. And I feel patient. The rolling stone is moving already, and there’s no stopping it.

I was given a message, and it came to me in many forms.
Have you experienced this? If yes – did you listen to it?

#skolvåren aka #school spring

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I have attended several trainings for Transformational Presence Leaders and Coaches by Alan Seale, and was very thrilled when I was given the opportunity to share #skolvåren, that is #school spring, in his newsletter The Transformer.

Transformer”School Spring” – Transforming Education To Create A World That Works

by Helena Roth

(Helena Roth from Sweden is a graduate of the Transformational Presence Leadership and Coach Training program. She first shared ”School Spring” with our community at the first Transformational Presence Global Summit in The Netherlands in March 2013.)

Three and a half years ago, I became the chairwoman of the parent association of my children’s two schools here in Sweden. Thus began my journey into the world of schools. I have read, watched, listened, talked, and then read some more, until, more recently, my interest has become a raging passion for school development. Or, better said, a passion for creating a world that works, with schools as the foremost pathway to get there.

Having set aside some money in my company, I decided to dedicate 2013 as my year for school development, even though I didn’t know if, and if so, how, this project would put bread on my table. I also took advantage of the ”early bird” price for the Transformational Presence Global Summit that was held in The Netherlands in March, knowing that the energy kick I would receive from the Summit would serve me for the rest of 2013. Little did I know when I first reserved my place at the Summit that it would not turn out to be a kick to get anything started, but instead would be ”superfuel” to kick into overdrive what had already begun.

On February 15th at 10 pm while on Twitter, I made a connection with a teacher in Varberg, Sweden. We began planning a meeting in Varberg for June 18th and 19th to discuss schools and society, and we opened the meeting to anyone else who wanted to join us. This was the start of #skolvåren, or #schoolspring in English, paraphrasing the ”Arabic Spring” and tapping into the power of life that spring brings.

With #schoolspring, we began by asking ”Why?” in order to find the direction for ”How?” The Swedish school debate is in a sorry state, with lots of name-calling and blame games, and is almost solely concerned with ”How.” There are no visions, no talk about the world we want to live in today and tomorrow. Therefore, it seems that we as a society no longer really know what schools are for – what their purpose is. So in #skolvåren, we ask ”Why?” over and over again as a first step in gaining clarity about what education in today’s world needs to be about.

Now, three months later, the event in Varberg is fully booked at 130 registered participants with more than twenty people on a waiting list. Among the participants will be politicians and major business CEOs, as well as many interested citizens who are eager to explore together ”Why school?” The school debate in Sweden has started to come alive, and #schoolspring is clearly fueling the conversation.

My personal goal is to change the school systems on a global scale by 2020, and I know there are many people around the world with similar interests and goals. Sweden is certainly not the only country where education systems are in trouble. This is a global issue. For me, the larger goal is to create a world that works. I believe that vibrant, empowering, creative, and effective schools can be one of the most impactful ways to do that. School systems of today are one of the primary filters that most children pass through. So why not ensure that we have set up the best systems we can possibly have, enabling and empowering children to be all that they can be? That’s the world I want to live in – a world where each and every person is encouraged, coached, challenged, and expected to be all they can be.

There are many signs that this wants to happen, including well over 28,000 visits to the #schoolspring blog and more than 1,400 followers on Twitter (@skolvaren). In addition, we have attracted the attention of Richard Gerver, author of the best-selling book, Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today. His interest in our cause is also making a difference.

I invite anyone who is interested in transforming education to be in touch with me to talk about how we can work together to take this movement to the world.

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Thank you Alan for providing this wonderful opportunity to share #skolvåren across the globe – because for me, the goal is a global transformation of school systems, in order to create a world that works. Because I believe we have not reached the pinnacle of human achievements yet – I believe we can do better.

Are you with me on that?