Two and a half months ago we launched The Dandelion Project in Guernsey to make Guernsey the best place to live on earth by 2020. What has surprised me most since then is realising that one small thing can hold the world back more than anything else. It is the need for permission. We have […]
The Self-directed Life
By May 21, 2014 20 Comments
My wife and I have just come back from visiting an outlier education facility called North Star Teens, in Hadley, Massachusetts. They are early pioneers in supporting young people to adopt a self-directed approach to learning. It is really amazing to see how these young people are thriving in ways that most normal young people […]
The Answer Lies Within
By May 7, 2014 17 Comments
Last weekend, I deliberately went through the most terrifying and challenging experience of my life. It is probably not appropriate to describe it in a public forum, but all I can say is that I did it not to seek thrills, but to learn more about my past and my inner motivations. A lot of […]
Wanted: 20 Families to Reimagine Education
By April 23, 2014 28 Comments
For some time, my wife and I have been wanting to reimagine what is possible for education. Our greatest challenge has been to find the right community in which to base our education project. The search for the village to raise the child has taken us all over the world, but in the end, has […]
The Inconvenient Truth
By April 9, 2014 4 Comments
On Friday morning I woke up crying. I had spent the previous evening hearing how the health and education system are failing the most vulnerable members of my community. How incredible are the people impacted by these problems! The heartbreaking thing about all the stories shared was just how simple many of these tragedies are […]
The Kodak Moment
By April 1, 2014 9 Comments
In 1996, Kodak was a multinational company with a market cap of $28 billion and 140,000 employees. In 2012, it went bankrupt. In 2010, another photography company called Instagram was founded and two years later with just 13 employees, was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion. This very much redefines ‘a Kodak moment’ – an […]
Let the Revolution Begin!
By March 24, 2014 11 Comments
Last week we asked 100 people an audacious question: ‘How can you make Guernsey the best place to live on earth?’ This week, we are getting on with the job of making it happen, by 2020. We are starting this movement with no idea of how we are going to get there. We are starting […]
Why We Are All Going Back to School
By March 12, 2014 32 Comments
I look at my almost 3 year old son and I see that he is already where he needs to be. For him, everything is fantastic! He lives in the moment, has no problem being himself, doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and he will try anything. The bottom line is – he loves life. Forget […]
Bored Beyond Belief
By February 26, 2014 18 Comments
‘Bored Beyond Belief’ is the phrase I painfully scrawled on most of my folders at school. It was from a scene in my favourite Steve Martin movie – LA Story. Steve Martin wrote the phrase on a window during a period of utter boredom, living in a world that, deep down, did not connect with […]
Why Small Nations Can Change the World
By February 19, 2014 6 Comments
The outdated legislation and bureaucratic decision-making we face in the world today are major barriers to progress. There are good reasons for some of it, but compelling reasons to remove most of it. The answers to some of the biggest problems we face have already been solved – but government bureaucracy is holding them back. […]