“I did work once in education, at the HvA (The Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences), but my contract wasn’t extended. My students performed terribly when it came to their test scores, I think the worst ever in the history of the school, but conversely I did get the top scores ever in student feedback.  That’s because I had an alternative way of working with my students: I went out and did things, as opposed to sitting in class.  It was all a little strange I found, my training as a lecturer and the subsequent instructions about what I had to do. It was all very specific and regimented, which just didn’t make any sense to me, especially in context of my field, marketing. So I got removed from my lecturing position, but the school did subsequently hire me to do other things. At the moment I am, for example, the initiator of the minor Sustainable Leadership and Entrepreneurship. 

Three years ago I came across the concept of the famed KAOSPILOTS school in Denmark; two guys here in Holland were setting up a Dutch version of the school. I immediately joined them and have never left. Since then the KAOSPILOTS school has become a formal educational centre, which we didn’t want to become, so we parted ways and redefined our program under the Knowmads concept. So it’s a new start for us. In February we launched the new programme with 12 students and in September another four students will join us.  

The core principle of our school is that students must earn while they learn, and learn while they earn. We find it strange that you can determine three years upfront what a programme’s curriculum should be, what students should be learning. The world is changing so fast! Our approach is to connect the curriculum to real life assignments. We currently have five partners—companies such as KLM and Royal Haskoning—who bring to us some of their core strategic challenges.  They come here to the school to present these issues to our students. Then it’s up to the students to come up with potential solutions. The school facilitates that process obviously, but the way we do that is pretty unique.  

 

Our students each pay a €4,500 fee for the year-long course; but that money is in fact an investment in their education.  We ask the students to form a limited partnership in which they all become shareholders. Our first group of students decided to form a cooperative; they had the choice to form a limited company too. As a group—we call them the Tribe—they then prepare project proposals for our partners. These proposals for action must include a clear outline of objectives, the time-line and obviously the costs—which they then present back to the partners. The partners can then decide to go ahead with the project or ask for some fine-tuning. The whole idea is that the projects are a combined effort—a form of co-creation; we want our partners to be very involved.  

 

Once the plans have been approved, the school then looks the expertise that is needed. Some of it can be found in-house but much will need to be brought in from external partners. For example, in our project around environmental sustainability for Royal Haskoning, we felt it was necessary to take a closer look into the Cradle-to-Cradle concept. So we’ll fly in the relevant experts to do a workshop here at the school. Now the point of that workshop will not be to give a general presentation on Cradle-to-Cradle theory; no, we ask them to customise the workshop to the specific needs of our students’ project. The whole point is that these projects succeed and that the cooperative earns its dues, that it is profitable or at least break even. In a way, we’re both a school and a business; we’re a crossing between the two. This has certain implications. For example, in the summer we took a three week holiday, as opposed to the 6-8 week holiday that is typical in education.

As a school, our job is to facilitate the process of learning. We provide the building and the IT infrastructure, we arrange at least four projects from partners, and we have a team of seven people who help facilitate the process and organise workshops with external experts. But ultimately it is up to our students; if they decide to do nothing, then nothing will happen. You don’t take an education here; you make an education.  

 

We also commit to a number of underlying principles. These include team learning, action learning—we firmly believe in action, in doing things in the real world—and diversity.Our students come from all over the world and we, as a school and a Tribe, purposely seek out this diversity. The selection process for new students is very rigorous, involving interviews and workshops around real-life assignments from clients. The point is to build a diverse and committed team of individuals. And when it comes to the second intake during the year we involve the existing students in this selection process. Thus, in September four new students will join the coop. That’s life; in business people also leave and join teams.

The basic programme is one year in length but students have the option to extend it for another 6 months; it’s up to the group. Beyond that students may want to carry on with the cooperative or some may want to start their own business. We help them with that, using the Startup Wheel, an action-learning method developed by David Madié from Copenhagen/New York. We’re also planning to expand our floor space here to build a type of Hub, an incubator of sorts for starts-ups. This would be fantastic for the programme since we could involve our resident entrepreneurs as coaches. A third option for graduating students is to connect to an international project.  Again, this is something we can help them with. For example, in our last programme under the KAOSPILOTS umbrella, we all went to Israel and Palestine where we worked with local NGOs and companies.  

I’m optimistic. A lot is happening in education circles in Holland. The HvA (The Hogeschool van Amsterdam) and the HAN (Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegem), for example, are both trying to adopt entrepreneurial and action learning principles.And the response from other educational establishments to Knowmads has been amazing. We’re getting a great deal of positive feedback and media attention too. Also abroad there are some very exciting concepts, like Yip (a social entrepreneurship school), Hyperisland (a media school) and the Vega School in South Africa. In a way, they’re all trying to do similar things: they’re trying to prepare students for the future and they’re playing a pioneering and active role in society.  They’re actually creating things and playing a pro-active role in their environment. That’s what education should be in my opinion. 

 

Education should be front-running but too often it isn’t; it simply follows the evolution of the market. Education has the opportunity to play a much more pioneering role in the market and society. We need to give young people a new way of learning, of engaging with the world. We need to encourage them in the belief that they can change the world, that they can create a better world. And that means working with head, heart and hand; most schools focus exclusively on the head, on knowledge, when experience and feeling and action are equally important.  I’m a happy guy, but I would be really really happy if education were truly front-runner in society.