Why I Started a School for Adults
Why is it that so many educated, employed, and capable people deflect responsibility for addressing social and environmental issues to big institutional structures of education and government intervention?
In the 1000’s of hours of workshops, classes, and facilitations I have run, I discovered a curious phenomenon emerging — adults like to think that educating kids will solve the adult problems that exist- from sustainability to politics. Big people want the little people to solve the problems when they become the big people, but all the big people are busy deflecting responsibility to the even bigger people. So, who does that leave to actually invest in the change that needs to be created?
There is a crisis of agency, and kids are by far the most lacking of said agency to act. After all, their sphere of influence is WAY smaller than even the smallest adult’s one.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. — Nelson Mandela
Education changes our worldviews, crafts our minds, forms our opinions and values, makes or breaks our opportunities in life — but so much of it is restricted to hyper-structured forces that are invested in maintaining the status quo, not changing it.
That’s why I started a school specifically for adults who want to activate themselves in a more significant way in the world.
Back in mid-2014, I was completing a PhD in how to make change through creative practice (which I was doing partly to lose the Ms. at the start of my name, and partly to overcome the structural forces that were limiting my own sphere of influence). I came up with the crazy idea to start a school for adults, designed to overcome the crisis of agency that exists between the knowledge of the world’s most significant problems and the action in creating alternatives to the status quo that would help change them. My experimental knowledge lab for creative rebels and change agents is called the UnSchool of Disruptive Design; it turns 2 today and has over 100 alumni that represent 32 countries.
“I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our concept of the richness in human capacity.” ― Ken Robinson
People want change. According to Aaron Hurst, The Purpose Economy is alive and here. FastCo reports that 50% of millennials would take a pay cut to work for a company that represented their values. That’s right- the almighty dollar is taking a backseat to the desire to be a part of changing the world so it’s more sustainable and ethical, as 90% of working millennials want to use their skills for good. But traditional education doesn’t equip graduates with the tools to activate and participate in the types of change we want to see. Seriously, we don’t even learn how to file a tax return in school, let alone develop the tacit relationship to agency that we need to operate as skilled influencers and change agents! Of course, some places do a great job of assisting with formulating the mental tools and the practice skills that help their students intervene in the world around them, but the vast majority of higher educational institutions are operating on archaic, siloed models that disempower more than activate (some light reading on the topic here, here, here and here. Ok, the last one is not light…but, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is an incredible critique of mainstream “banker-style” education systems.)
“75% of Millennials believe businesses are too fixated on their own agendas and not focused enough on helping to improve society” Deloitte
The UnSchool is designed to fill the growing gap between knowledge, action, and personal career satisfaction by providing a set of thinking and doing tools to activate agency. We base knowledge on synthesizing complexity, enhancing curiosity, employing adventure, and activating change. We are all about loving problems, busting cognitive biases, and actively participating in the design of the type of future want to live in. And we are completely on board with the idea that “the best way to predict the future is to design it.” There are no dry lectures or passive observers at the UnSchool.
The impetus to start a School was bit of a gestalt moment for me; at the time, I was vigorously questioning the ways in which I could use my skills and experiences to agitate and activate positive social change. I was increasingly critical of the academy as I squished myself into a pre-structured mold to get over the PhD finish line. And, to be completely transparent, I felt pretty frustrated by the status quo- where creativity is commodified to sell shit we don’t need under a guise that it will make us happy… when we all know, it won’t. Grappling with these questions and frustrations through my personal existential angst was enough to ignite me to initiate change.
“The only source of knowledge is experience”. Albert Einstein
Experimenting with Disruptive Approaches to Community Building
Experience-based knowledge transfer and community-centered agency activation for participating in social change serve at the center at the UnSchool. I was interested in how like-minded people could cross-pollinate ideas, enhance risky behavior, and encourage positive participation. As social beings, humans need communities to shift and shape our worldview, as well as build us up and tear us down — appropriately. Many of the projects, interviews, and experiences I had participated in during the past decade (working in sustainability, education, and design) led me to see the validity of community as informal education- perhaps even the place where we learn the most.
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”. John Dewey
Institutional education would have us all believe that it is the primary bearer and producer of knowledge (I should know, after going all the way through to get that PhD — which I think should just stand for Perseverance, Hard work, and Determination), but what we learn and what we know are two very different things. I know how to do many things well, yet I do many measures of traditional intelligence incredibly badly. Take spelling, for example: my brain just won’t, for the life of me, remember how to spell certain things, and it sees this as a low priority for retention. Yet, give me a book on neurological experience and provocations on the human condition, and my brain is off to the races!
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. — Maya Angelou
As a designer, I set about giving myself a brief: how do you create mutually beneficial, peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing communities, and what experiences can be curated to enable each participant to do cooler, more progressive, creative, provocative, and positively disruptive things?
I asked myself questions and began prototyping. What mechanisms can work to create experiences that challenge and support in equal measure? More pointedly, how could I mess with the mainstream education marketplace that is designed to capitalize from the segregation of knowledge, rather than the activate collaboration and synthases of it?
I also must admit, I had a strong sub agenda to figure out ways of increasing systems literacy that would lead to more people making positive social change and to create a methodology for a type of Disruptive approach to design. Aha! Born was the idea of a provocative non-school School that embraced divergent ways of transferring knowledge and activating change.
The ‘Un-School of Disruptive Design’ Was Born
When I tried to register the name “Un-School” in New York, the officiants quizzed me on whether we were part of the United Nations — no. The “U” and the “N” in the Un-School, is all about un-doing the damage that mainstream reductive education systems have done to us all. It’s a tongue-in-cheek jab at structural systems; we run classes (for adults); we have thinkbooks (on how to design systems interventions); we even have recess (no, just kidding, we have snack breaks)!
We are the place you come when you uncover that there is more to rigid, reductionist structures of thinking and doing. Most of our 100 alumni come when they are right at the frustrated career turning point, where they want to do more than what the mainstream is asking of them, where they get to integrate purpose and meaning into their career….but haven’t yet received the tools to accomplish those desires.
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering- we ditched the dash between the “un” and “school” to prevent any future mix-ups with the United Nations ;) I even mentioned it when I did a lunchtime talk at the UN headquarters a little while ago!
The UnSchool is for emerging and established leaders who have done the 20+ hard years of mainstream education, yet still feel unfulfilled and frustrated with their knowledge set. They are looking for a community of other creative, rebellious types who also want to tinker with the world and challenge the status quo.
Since I launched the School in September 2014, we have had over 400 people come to our drop-in lunchtime classes, and hundreds of people have come to our crazy community events in NYC. But for me, the most impressive thing is the number of people who want to be a part of our fellowships: we have run four 7-day emerging leaders fellowship programs in four different cities around the world (NYC, Mexico City, Melbourne & Sao Paulo, in early October will be Berlin)! Since June 2015, we had over 450 applications for just 65 spots across the programs (each program is limited to 16–20 disruptors). We now have over 100 amazing alumnus of UnSchool fellows and 25+ mentors.
It hasn’t been all rosy though, as with any start-up-especially unfunded, bootstrapped ones like this one- resources are always a problem. I’m constantly battling between burnout and elation at what the tiny team achieves. So after 24 months of crazy adventures into experimenting with divergent educational experiences, here are the top three things that starting the UnSchool has taught me:
1. You don’t need money to start something (although it really does help). I tried upfront for a hot minute to get investment and funding without any proof that my method would work, and quickly realized that I could use my time far more effectively rolling my sleeves up and just doing shit. So I did. It’s been tight, but it pushed us to deliver and be super agile and flexible. We tested the concept very quickly, asking our community to pitch in by paying to participate. Our fellowships are currently a non-profit endeavor, as we give away a lot of scholarships (over $55K so far!) to make it equitable, but we are building a strong foundation to continue growing.
2. You can’t please everyone (even if you really, really try). People are people; we are complex and filled with conflicting needs and desires, so it’s really hard to make all people happy, all the time. In fact, a well-placed challenging situation can have a far greater pay-off in the end if designed correctly. I struggle to not take it personally when someone is not happy, but I often realize that they would not be happy even if they were happy! Do your best work, be open and transparent, be willing to learn, and you will get close to 100%.
3. Knowledge is built on experiences (and every moment is an opportunity to discover something new). It sounds a little new agey, but I promise it’s not. Basically, our brains build connections and patterns of response based on our experiences of the world- the better the experience, the greater the learning, the deeper the cognitive commitment to memory, and ultimately, the more likelihood you have of making a lasting change.
There are many more major takeaways I have uncovered from two years heading up the greatest simultaneous challenge and adventure I’ve undertaken, but I will leave them for next time. I gotta get busy- we have a lot more disruptive, rebellious, change-inspiring tricks up our sleeve, and I hope you will join us for what’s to come next…
- Leyla Acaroglu
PS: We are launching UnSchool Online in two weeks! All of our classes in the Disruptive Design Methodology will be available for your educational pleasure. :)
PPS: I woke up to find this video from our alumni in my inbox, organized by the incredible Heidi Sloane, who has been with the UnSchool from day 0 and whom I can’t thank enough for all of her support, ideas, quirkiness and endless contributions in making this School happen! (and yes there were tears at my end)
