Teacherless Summer Learning in "Globally Cool" Seoul

More education. Less schooliness.

Teacherless Summer Learning in "Globally Cool" Seoul

[Update: Screenshots large enough to read now when clicked on.]

The “Year of Global Cooling / Concerts for Global Chilling / Viral YouTube Community Service 2.0″ project is already moving from talk to action, thanks to some adolescents here in Seoul who are adult enough to see the “have fun doing good” quality of an idea, and push “teacher me” out of the way to take over. They’re running with it.

This is so un-school-y to all of us, this grade-less, school-less, teacher-less year-long project (that will still be so full of learning) that we’re meeting in mid-summer vacation on a Sunday afternoon at a coffee house downtown to plan strategies, set deadlines, assign roles, and - film the whole meeting for what we hope will be a feature-length documentary about the journey of two dozen students trying to organize something more important than the prom, to get managerial and organizational experience beyond the Student Council, and to get the adult world in the larger community of this city to take these adolescents seriously.

What’s great is this: these young adults are stepping forward to volunteer the skills they have to contribute to making this happen. And Kathryn - ah, Kathryn, with whom I had one bad relationship as a teacher in the dreaded schoolhouse - is blowing me away by stepping up and taking the lead in organizing her peers.

I think Mr. Burell will feel pretty superfluous at this meeting. Maybe they’ll let me shoot some footage as they discuss their video storyboards, their website and logo designs, their ideas for getting corporate sponsorship, for securing a live music club for the Earth Day concert, for viral marketing with their Facebooks and MySpaces and our Global Cool YouTube Channel. For spreading this idea to their young adult peers worldwide without having to rely on the energy or vision of educators. Maybe they’ll let me bring them coffee re-fills.

I know, I know: a good start doesn’t mean a good end. But a good start is something to celebrate for the hope it instills.

And to beat the drum to you adults out there once again: all we’re asking from you is to think of one - just one - high school musician, videographer, or what have you in your community (notice I didn’t say “school”), and simply forward this post, or the link to the Global Cooling Collective Ning at http://globallycool.ning.com, and give the young adults (”teens”) in your area a chance to experience web 2.0’s power to do what we’re trying to do: “have fun doing good.” Then you can return to your regularly scheduled summer, while the youths embark on one great experience for their annual “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essay in skool this fall.

Here’s the page. Look how easy they’re making this huge idea, one step at a time (and click to enlarge):