Paul Romani talks about Education 3.0
The key to successful young entrepreneurs
Firstly, I think it’s worth stating that Education 3.0 isn’t a concept that I read about and adopted. I’m not the kind of person that hops on the bandwagon of idealistic trends.
For quite some time now, I’ve lived a life that has involved certain aspects of Education 3.0. I’ve been aware of the need for it in various societies around the world. In other words, I conceived of Education 3.0 because I perceived a genuine need for it.
Young people are suffering. They are currently receiving an education that leads to nowhere, because it was never designed to lead to anything that exists in the 21st century. It was designed for the Industrial Revolution – an era that has long since past. As a result, they are almost powerless to control their own fate in a world that is increasingly becoming economically unstable.
As a teacher, I can’t let young people face such a future. It’s immoral. And, ultimately, because we all live in the same society, we all suffer from the effects of unemployment, social decline, etc. experienced by young people.
I know that schools don’t teach enterpreneurship (and I don’t mean business studies). Yet, young people need this. They need to feel empowered and to realize that 99% of bosses are, actually, nothing all that special. They are human beings that just decided to start a business. Literally, that’s it. Perhaps they took over a family business, or just happened to have enough money to start some kind of business venture. Take Mark Zuckerburg, for example, I figure that a lot of young people idolize this guy. But, seriously, he’s just a guy with an interesting idea (well partly his idea allegedly) that made it happen. Or, to be more precise, other people helped make it happen. Even the cherished Jim Pattison admits that he’s ‘not all that smart’ to high school students – he simply did what others only talk about their whole lives.
And that’s the key to Education 3.0, it equips you with all the tools necessary to conceive of great ideas; to be willing to try them out; to mesh together arts, science, and technology; and yet it teaches you that significant achievements are near impossible without collaborating with other people – people who possess skills that we don’t. Self confidence and talent combined with such open-mindedness are the key to successful young entrepreneurs.
My ultimate goal is to help produce a generation of amazing young entrepreneurs that are focused on producing products and/or services that are environmentally and socially beneficial. I want them to create or be involved in creating Canadian businesses that remain Canadian, and are not sold off to American firms for a quick, easy buck. I want them to rediscover a sense of the ‘local’: local people, local communities, and local needs. And, of course, I want them to feel happy, fulfilled, and to have a deep understanding of their place in the world.