Berlin Commons Conference/Workshops/Education
People engaged: Silja, Thomas, Nakorari, Franco, Annette, Juergen, Arthik, David, Diego, Heiner, Franz, Hala, others ...
How can we teach the commons?
- set up a course within academia about reflecting education in terms of the commons - teach the gift economy as a good example for the commons - innovation comes with the approach, put more focus on the process and the different kind of managment systems - transform the perspective and explore the cognitive blindness in ones own field - share contents for teaching the commons - education needs trust, empathy for and knowledge about the learners
==== How can we bring the aim of "Bildungsfreiheit" (German for freedom of
education/learning) in the context of the the commons? ====
- break with the traditional structures and norms (in academia) - establish participative education - engage the whole person - make the teaching methodologies explicit and give the learner/student/pupil a voice - make expectations transparent and give learner power over the assesssment
How can we fight the resistance and opponents of teaching the commons?
- teach the teachers - create autonomous communities besides the academic institutions
How can we strengthen the commons?
- set up free open access online courses => open courseware - support live in rural areas, strengthen villages and rural places, educate youth how to survive in their homeland/region - teach DIY methods for setting up local digital communication infrastructure (e.g. Wi-Fi in rural areas) where needed - discuss the "global crisis" with the youth - interview the elder people and pass their local content/knowledge/experience to the youth - work for the revival of traditional commons (ask elder), etc ... - build a repository for and about the commons - relearn to be helpful to eachother - build forums and community structures - earn trust and establish relationships
How can commons be communicated better?
- use digital media for distributed story telling - set up a "Global Villages TV" for exchange between the global community of local commoners - tell ones own version of a story to the public (with blogs, etc.) - integrate local content into the "official" history - bring the local people's history/artwork/impact back into the conscious - use oral/audio for story telling/education - local culture is essential for learning, adopt to the local learning cultur - rediscover communalities in the sense of content - read Rob Hopkins "Pattern Language" - watch/distribute the Film "This Land is our Land" by David Bollier ;-)