As a vocational teacher myself, I am proud to have one of the most important professions in the world.
Teachers hold a lot of power in terms of being catalysts for change in the world.
Teachers are those who teach all other professions.
Teachers make a difference.
What would the world look like without teaching professionals?
Only those who can learn everything by themselves need no teachers.
Teachers do not only teach specific subjects.
Teachers also teach manners, ethics, and morals and aim to integrate students into societies.
More often than not, teachers succeed in this. Sometimes, unfortunately not.
Nevertheless, teachers should not be blamed or given the whole responsibility of matters concerning parenting or the lack thereof, nor blamed for general problems in a country, region or society.
Teachers are not parents, although many teachers take on the responsibility when there is a lack of parenting. For many students worldwide, school or an educational institution is their only home/hope.
Never forget that as a teacher. Never forget that as a student. Never forget that as a citizen (of the world).
Remember to give thanks to all your teachers who made a difference in your life.
Stop blaming and putting all responsibility on your teachers, and start taking responsibility for your own behavior and for your own learning.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. – Buddha
Precisely one year ago I wrote an article about education, a topic close to my heart, that I would like to share with my global network on social media.
This is dedicated especially to those who know how to read, who enjoy reading or who would like to improve their reading skills. Reading is actually a skill that too many people in the world lack either completely due to illiteracy, or through various forms of dyslexia.
According to Unesco, at least 750 million people (more than half of them are women) worldwide are illiterate. Furthermore, it is estimated that an average of 20% of world population have some form of dyslexia. It is not tied to family origin: the King of Sweden Carl Gustaf and his eldest daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, are both dyslexic.
Dyslexia is of course no reason to stop reading or writing. It may just make reading and writing a bit more challenging or time-consuming.
Thus, this article is also dedicated to those who enjoy learning, in general, including learning foreign languages (I have been learning nine different languages beside my mother tongue Finnish, some of which I speak fluently, others less), learning about different cultures, learning about history, learning through traveling, and of course learning through life experiences. Dyslexics included.
It is an article about the possible consequences of when education is not being valued in a country, and about how dangerous it is when the wrong people get to run a country. In this case these were communists, but in the contemporary world a democracy can be torn down by any elitistic group of people who fail to understand the importance and the true meaning of DEMOCRACY.
Anne-Maria Yritys. MBA & Vocational Teacher. 27.8.2018.
Tasan vuosi sitten kirjoitin artikkelin koulutuksesta, aihe joka on lähellä sydäntäni. Haluaisin jakaa tämän kirjoituksen globaalille verkostolleni sosiaalisessa mediassa.
Artikkeli on omistettu etenkin ihmisille jotka osaavat lukea, jotka pitävät lukemisesta tai jotka haluavat parantaa lukutaitoaan. Lukeminen on valitettavasti taito joka puuttuu liian monelta ihmiseltä maailmassa: joko he ovat täysin lukutaidottomia, tai sitten heillä on jonkinasteinen lukihäiriö.
Unescon mukaan ainakin 750 miljoonaa ihmistä (yli puolet heistä on naisia) maailmassa on lukutaidottomia. Lisäksi noin 20% maailman väestöstä kärsii jonkinasteisesta lukihäiriöstä. Lukihäiriöllä ei ole mitään tekemistä sosiaalisen statuksen kanssa, eikä sitä tarvitse hävetä. Esimerkiksi Ruotsin kuningas Carl Gustaf ja hänen vanhin tyttärensä, kruununprinsessa Victoria, kärsivät molemmat lukihäiriöstä.
Lukihäiriö ei tietenkään ole syy lopettaa lukemista tai kirjoittamista. Se saattaa vain hankaloittaa tai hidastaa lukemista ja kirjoittamista.
Siten tämä artikkeli on myös omistettu niille, jotka ylipäätään pitävät oppimisesta, ml. vieraiden kielten oppimisesta (olen itse opiskellut yhdeksää vierasta kieltä äidinkieleni suomen lisäksi, joista osaa puhun melko sujuvasti, toisia vähemmän sujuvasti), vieraiden kulttuurien oppimista, historian oppimista, oppimista matkustamisen kautta ja tietenkin oppimista elämänkokemusten kautta. Mukaan lukien lukihäiriöiset.
Artikkeli kertoo mahdollisista seurauksista kun maassa ei arvosteta koulutusta, ja kuinka vaarallista voi olla kun väärät ihmiset päästetään valtaan ja johtamaan maata. Tässä historiallisessa esimerkissä kyseessä olivat kommunistit, mutta nykymaailmassa demokratian vaaraksi ovat kaikenlaiset elitistiset ryhmittymät jotka eivät ymmärrä DEMOKRATIAN tärkeyttä tai DEMOKRATIAN todellista merkitystä.
För exakt ett år sedan skrev jag en artikel om utbildning, en fråga som jag ställer stor vikt på. Jag skulle vilja dela denna artikel med mitt globala nätverk via sociala medier.
Artikeln är tillägnad speciellt för människor som kan läsa, som tycker om att läsa eller som vill förbättra sin läsförmåga. Läsning är tyvärr en kunskap som alltför många människor i världen saknar: antingen är de analfabeta eller så lider de av någon sorts dyslexi.
Enligt Unesco är minst 750 miljoner människor (över hälften av dem är kvinnor) i världen analfabeter. Dessutom lider cirka 20% av världens befolkning av någon slags dyslexi. Dyslexi har ingenting med social status att göra och det är ingenting att skämmas för. Till exempel Sveriges kung Carl Gustaf och hans äldsta dotter, kronprincessan Victoria, har bägge två dyslexi.
Dyslexi är naturligtvis ingen orsak att sluta läsa eller skriva. Det kan bara komplicera eller sakta ner läsning och skrivning.
Denna artikel är också tillägnad åt dem som överhuvudtaget tycker om att lära sig nya saker, bl.a. främdspråk, (Personligen har jag lärt mig nio olika språk vid sidan om mitt modersmål finska. En del av dessa språk behärskar jag flytande, andra mindre flytande), lära sig om andra kulturer, historia, lära sig genom resor och förstås lära sig genom livserfarenheter. Inklusive dyslektiker.
Artikeln handlar om möjliga konsekvenser i ett land där utbildning inte uppskattas, och hur farligt det kan vara när fel människor får makt och leder ett land. I detta historiska exempel handlade det om kommunister, men i nuvarande världen blir demokratin hotad av flera slags elitistiska grupperingar som inte förstår vikten eller den verkliga betydelsen av DEMOKRATI.
Citing On internet privacy, be very afraid, a scholarly article published by Liz Mineo on Harvard Law Today on August 25, 2017, where she writes that “Americans in general tend to mistrust government and trust corporations. Europeans tend to trust government and mistrust corporations”. Although Mineo here refers to general government surveillance, the statement that Europeans tend to trust government and mistrust corporations is, in my opinion, a generalization.
This informative article about internet surveillance allowed my mind to awkwardly transit from one topic to another concerning our educational system in Finland and mis/trusting government.
In Finland, where I currently live, the very basis of our educational system is to provide free-of-charge, public education at all levels and to every (EU) citizen living in this country. However, following the recession that begun in 2008 as a consequence of a series of world events and as a conclusion of many factors, our current government decided, against earlier promises not to make any cuts into the educational system, to make a major cut (600 million euros) in Finland´s educational system.
As a consequence of these decisions, many teachers, university lecturers, professors and researchers lost their jobs, many of whom are now either unemployed or found new vacancies in universities around the world, e.g. in our neighbouring country Sweden.
Teaching used to be a rather secure profession in Finland. That, however, has drastically changed. Today, many teachers not only graduate to become unemployed or work with constant temporary contracts, but also have to face continuous challenges in their profession e.g. caused by the fact that teachers, in general, are no longer as valued as they used to be at schools. What happened to authority and respect?
Especially since Finland has ranked so high in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) surveys and has for long been a leading country as of having one of the best educational systems in the world, the recent drastic financial cuts into our educational system have received a lot of attention both on national and international levels. Finland, a leading country within research and development, received notes from a number of sources: the academia, private individuals, economists, the European Commission, and OECD, only to mention a few. The news was shocking to many.
Is this a method of psychological influence, a straight way of destroying intellectual capital in a country? Who can estimate the long-term effects of our current government´s decisions upon the future of Finland that has, historically excelled at education. Especially now that our government, simultaneously to making these unreasonable financial cuts in our educational system, makes efforts to export Finnish education to the world.
The financial cuts into our national educational system remind me of what happened to teachers and other academics/intellectuals in Cambodia in the 1970´s, where a communist regime, the Khmer Rouge, suddenly took over the country only to slaughter at least two (2) million (according to some estimations, the number was more than 3,3 million people, which at that time was 25% of the total population in Cambodia) of its own population within a few years as an effort to get rid of educated people in the country. Finland is neither a communist state nor comparable to Cambodia, but I keep asking myself what exactly our current government thinks they are doing.
Furthermore, it is highly questionable why a country invests such a high amount of tax payers´ money into an educational system that quite clearly no longer works. Why does this country offer free-of-charge (financed through tax incomes) education to its citizens widely, when it simultaneously and/or as a consequence leads to academics and highly educated people ending up being unemployed, or, basically being more or less forced to either a) employing themselves b) starting their own businesses and/or c) leaving the country to live and work in a country where academics are still held in high value?
There is something very wrong with our current educational system, and it remains to be seen what exactly the consequences of these decisions will be. For it is certain that drastic cuts into the educational system will have consequences, both short-term, and long-term.
All great leaders have had one characteristic in common: The willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. John Kenneth Galbraith
Much is being taught about the essentials of leadership, including who is capable of becoming a leader, how leadership can and should be developed, and perhaps most importantly, how any individual can create, develop, and improve leadership skills within himself, or within herself. In the 21st century, leadership itself has become not only a skill to be developed, but also an attribute already available within any individual to tap into improving not only personal results, but also to influence people, environments and societies around us with an effort to raise awareness and create constantly improved results, triggered through positive actions and efforts made by, and achieved through, collectively enhanced performance leading to the development of higher consciousness, and enabling higher learning.
On an individual level, the six most important leadership skills in the 21st century are metacognition, media criticism, time management, information management, social skills, debating as well as argumentation and/or reasoning.
1. Metacognition as a core leadership skill
Metacognitive skills are helpful for any individual and/or leader in the adaptation to new environments simultaneously with a digital world and culture demanding efforts in the usage of information and communications techniques in leadership development, higher education, continuous learning and organizational development.
2. Media criticism as a core leadership skill
Media criticism, and the capability of being objective in regard with any media, has become more important than ever. Any individual, and leader, must know how to stay objective in terms of media. This is especially true in the 21st century, where media creation and distribution has been made easily accessible to almost everyone with the explosion of various online media tools and platforms. Media criticism requires for a leader not only to be selective about what he/she reads online, but also what he/she personally shares to other people. It is also about understanding how to filter relevant, reliable and valid knowledge shared through various sources of media. It is worthwhile keeping in mind that all media is being created by individuals whose main purpose is to influence other people through their media presentations, regardless of the type of media.
3. Time Management as a core leadership skill
We have all been given the gift of life upon Earth, wherefore personal time management is one of our most important leadership skills. Time management is essentially not only about managing your professional time on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis. Time management, in its real meaning, is about realizing your purpose and meaning for being, and for living, this lifetime. Time management is also about understanding what changes you possibly need to integrate into your life holistically in order to make the most out of your time upon Earth. What is your meaning and purpose for being here? If you are investing your personal life time into meaningless activities, make sure to start planning and managing your time in a truly productive way – in a way that supports your personal leadership development and learning, which therefore will also benefit everyone around you.
4. Information Management as a core leadership skill
Are you actually managing information, or is information managing you? This is certainly something worthwhile reflecting upon, no matter how progressive you may regard yourself to be. With an immense increase of information in this digital era, a definitely much-needed leadership skill is the capability of managing information. Are you merely absorbing information, and if, is it the right kind of information, relevant to your personal and/or professional development? And, if you are a creator of information, how much worth do you put upon actually creating, developing, maintaining and sharing information that is of real benefit and relevance to individuals, leaders, people, organizations, and societies?
5. Social skills in core leadership capability
It is not enough to estimate your social skills on a personal level – developing and improving social skills is a matter of continuous work and efforts, including the capability of socializing with individuals and people around you in a fruitful and mutually beneficial way. Social skills do comprise a number of capabilities and attributes, most important of which is general emotional intelligence and the ability of communicating and interacting with all kinds of people who may cross your personal or professional road. Not all roads do lead to a beautiful destination, and it is about your personal leadership capability and social skills to define which choices, and which paths indeed are worth taking, and stepping into.
6. Debate, argumentation and reasoning as core leadership skills
It is worthwhile noticing that debate, argumentation and reasoning are essential parts of overall negotiation skills, and therefore also an integral part of core leadership for any individual, in any kind of personal or professional setting. Argumentation, debate and reasoning are attributes of leaders with a capability of discussing complex issues in a multifaceted way, sometimes even leading to possible conflict situations that can be mastered through an intellectual capability of dealing with, and handling conflicted situations. Although active listening is a major influential factor in the development of leadership, really progressive leaders do possess the quality of intellectual debate, argumentation and reasoning in achieving their goals.
I am writing this letter to provide you with guidance and support on your exciting, upcoming, life-long learning and development journey as a coach, facilitator and mentor in your continuously evolving identity work with individuals and people who you will meet, exchange ideas and thoughts, interact and communicate with.
However important theoretical knowledge is I would like to pinpoint the fact that your role as a knowledge worker includes a number of factors that you might want to put an emphasis upon especially. After all, the greatest asset of someone involved in human/humanitarian work, is the ability, interest, and willingness to be involved with other social beings, who all have their personal beliefs, value systems, and minds. Becoming, and being a coach, facilitator and mentor is a calling, and although not comparable with the profession of a doctor or a psychiatrist, your work can greatly affect and influence those around you. Therefore, and because you have chosen to work with minds, there are certain aspects in your work that you should especially keep in mind. These include:
Acceptance
Your role as a coach, facilitator and mentor (one of these, or all combined), is not to force change in other individuals. Rather, your role is to accept people and individuals as they are. Depending upon the coaching/facilitating situation, and/or the group of individuals/people you are working with, you will have to tailor your work accordingly. There are differences between coaching, facilitation and mentoring situations/sessions, but you will always have to accept people as they are and not force change in them. Rather, seek to be a role model through your own behavior and through setting an example, and let individuals find in themselves the power to become who they were meant to be.
Balance
You will have to be in balance with yourself in order to create balance in your learning/teaching environment. Focus upon being in balance, and notice how you can affect your environment through the expansion of your personal energies.
Communication
Your work is all about communication, and about developing these skills in other individuals, including not only public speaking, but also non-verbal communication and listening skills. As a coach and mentor, you will have to develop your personal communication skills in order to create and get to desired results.
Creativity
Life is not about finding yourself, it is about creating you. Creativity is the lifeblood of everything, so nurture, develop and make use of your creative potential and allow for others to express their creativity as well. There are many ways of communicating and expressing creativity – just let your imagination flow freely and do not be afraid of creating completely new paths through audio, visualization, or kinesthetic learning and development solutions.
Development
As a coach/facilitator/mentor, you will not only deal with continuous personal development and learning, but most importantly, develop individuals and people who you work with. You will also learn to understand that development occurs at all times, although you may not always see the results immediately. Sometimes, it will take years to create and to get to the results that you seek to see through your work, but learn how to use certain types of tools for receiving feedback and making sure that at least some development is noticeable within a specific time frame.
Empathy and emotional intelligence
Empathy is part of emotional intelligence, but emotional intelligence stretches far beyond simply being empathetic. Your life work with human beings and individuals is all about social interaction and communication that require being emotionally intelligent. Developing emotional intelligence in your personal life and in other individuals is an essential factor in achieving success through your work.
Identity
As a coach, facilitator, and mentor you will get in acquaintance not only with your personal identity, but also with the identities of those who you work with. Teaching is identity work.
Improvisation
Improvisation, drama and theatrics are developing, learning, and teaching methods that allow creativity and imagination to expand. Improvisation is also sought-after, especially in unexpected circumstances and situations. If you have no materials to work with, improvisation allows you to create learning situations using your/your student´s minds and physical bodies to create completely new learning situations.
Journal/Learning Diary
If not already, learn how to journal and write down your (learning) experiences, and teach the same to those you work with. A journal/learning diary may be expressed in many forms/ways. It may be very personal, or shared in public with others. It may be expressed in a number of ways, through creative writing, poems, audio, or video. Make it a regular habit, if not daily, then at least on a weekly or monthly basis.
Memoir
Write a memoir about your life, and about your experiences. You can combine your journal/learning diary with your memoir, and keep it only for yourself unless you are/will be ready to publish it officially at some stage in your life. Writing/keeping a journal is a great way of learning/developing, and who will most benefit from your personal learning and development, if not you yourself, as well as your students.
Negotiation skills
Negotiation skills are essential in all areas of life, and business. Also in coaching and developing yourself, and other individuals. Be prepared to learn more about, and develop negotiation skills because you will need these in every aspect of your life, not least in coaching/mentoring situations.
Objectivity and open-mindedness
Being objective is perhaps one of the most difficult skills a human being can ever possess, since all our actions are based upon our personal beliefs, and value systems. As a coach/facilitator/mentor, however, you will have to develop objectivity and be open-minded.
Perseverance and persuasion
Coaching, facilitating, mentoring, and life in general, are all about learning how to persevere and to persuade. However, as already once mentioned, do not force your ideas upon other people. Rather, be a role model and allow them to tap into their greatest potential through acceptance, encouragement, and allowance.
Spirituality
Working with your personal mind, tapping into, and working with other individual´s minds requires for you to be spiritually open-minded and constantly open to spiritual development. Do not fear about creating and developing spiritual connections with people whom you work with.
Tolerance
During your career, your will have to experience, and deal with a number of situations, requiring for you to be tolerant with how things, and people, behave and unfold. However much acceptance and tolerance you will have to develop in yourself, you also will have to learn how to draw boundaries and protect yourself from certain kinds of behavior. You will also have to learn how to develop a thick skin, unless you have developed this in yourself. Be tolerant, yes, but make sure to know how to act in challenging situations.
Uniqueness
You are a unique individual, working with other unique individuals/personalities. Always have respect for your uniqueness, but also respect the uniqueness of others.
Vision
As a coach, facilitator, mentor, or all of these, you will have to have vision in the work you do, and help other individuals tap into their vision in creating their futures.
Wisdom
It may take a lifetime to develop true wisdom, something that only experience can teach us. However, seek to develop wisdom in yourself and in your students because wisdom allows us to raise our vibrations and evolve into human beings with a higher spiritual consciousness.
(Aquamarine on White Background. Artist: Boykung/Freedigitalphotos.net. ID: 100258224)
Live the life you were truly meant to live. You create the experience that you choose to have. There is no limit to what you can be, do, and have. You are an infinite creator of your reality. (Indigo Wisdom #391)
The future is now. We have entered the New Age long ago and there is no turning back. What a relief is that, knowing that we can fully focus on the existing present, creating the future we want with lessons from the past acting as our guidelines towards the future that humanity and planet Earth not only wants, but needs in order to continue thriving in our endless Universe. We are doing pretty well already, but imagine for an instance what our actions and lifestyles, on the average, may look like to more advanced civilizations in the Universe? Yes, we all citizens of Planet Earth are responsible for how well societies function, how humanity in general thrives, how we treat each other, how we treat nature, and how we treat animals. We can and should all take part of the blame, but instead of focusing upon living in guilt, blaming ourselves and other human beings, let´s concentrate our energy upon improving the way we live and interact with ourselves, and with other living creatures that our ecosystem depends upon.
The vibrations of our planet, across countries and continents, are already being raised by conscious and aware individuals, who are spiritually more in tune with both themselves and have a higher understanding and connection through their strongly developed intuition, allowing them to comprehend intangible matters and to some people, currently invisible dimensions and the spirit world that we, in fact, all live in.
Indigos and Crystals are living among us, helping us with the necessary changes that will lead us into a brighter future for mankind, and Planet Earth in general. They are here to teach us valuable lessons, and also to helping us develop the same qualities in ourselves. We are all spiritual beings with so much untapped potential, indigos and crystals who can, and will, shape our present into a future where everyone has enough of everything, a shared wealth and well-being.
If this topic is completely new to you, you may want to increase your understanding by reading e.g. The Complete Idiot´s Guide to Indigo Children, an enlightening approach to nurturing an Indigo child, written by Wendy H. Chapman, Director of the Metagifted Education Resource Organization (metagifted.org) and Carolyn Flynn.
Please also learn more about Indigo´s and Crystals by watching following videos:
CNN – Anderson Cooper – Indigo Children:
and
5 Signs You’re An Indigo Child or Adult:
Anyone that encourages intellectual, emotional, artistic or spiritual growth is worth keeping. Don´t let them go. (Color me Indigo on Pinterest).
Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting and learning. Peace and blessings.
Anne-Maria Yritys 
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