The Future of RCE Making Change Stick
The goal of RCE Making Change Stick has been to help grow a movement that brings rights respecting education to the mainstream. It presents a problem in need of a solution and can be equated to taking any idea from dream to reality. From this perspective, My Life, My Education and the Rights-Centric Education Network – RCEN can be regarded as prototypes that are not taking off, but they have taken us a good step closer to something that could fly.
What Has Been Learn?
- Respect for human rights are essential to wellbeing. A person’s mental health is impacted when their rights are violated, but the focus on rights is being questioned. It is suggested that it be shifted to wellbeing in order to resonate better with the general public. There is consequently a call to create the next prototype with wellbeing the core, and there appears to be interest among some people to get it defined.
- A problem that would partially disappear with the right prototype is that of establishing buy-in from the community of people who are already disciples of rights-centric education. Despite over 160 of them founding the RCEN and a considerably larger number signing the Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education, they are largely playing no part in getting the movement off the ground. “Group collaborative capacity”, a term John Jones of World Systems Solutions has brought to the discussion, is lacking. His document titled Conscious collaboration is informative about what is needed to build that capacity. Defining a problem is the first step to solving it and it can require asking some tough, inconvenient questions. Moving forward requires a serious investigation of why the tribe is not stepping up to make change happen.
The AERO and IDEC/EUDEC gatherings are coming up with many key people getting together. What transpires in the lead-up to and from them will largely determine the future of RCE Making Change Stick. Hopefully, serious attention will be given to creating the next prototype and building our collaborative capacity. The prospect is that RCE Making Change Stick will itself evolve into something more fruitful.