Add your thoughts here!

Jutta Croll: "The role of information coaching is to constantly foster the spirit of curiousity and wish to improve". Both have to be developed first of all and then one has to take good care of these feeble plants. Fostering might be a later step.

Dear Franz

I send You some my remarks about RIC position

RIC's position and his tasks should be differed regionally and in proper attitude to countries situation. For example in Poland still it's hard to imagine that RIC would be employed by national or regional administration and state institutions, especially in less developed regions. And even if he/she would be employed, he/she would have additional tasks in frames of an office or school, which after longer time will bring her/him to routine of everyday administrating. Governmental employment also don't provides appropriate financial gratification nor proper motivation. It may discourage many potential RICs. That's why I think they should be able to work as independent actors or be employed by NGOs. And maybe more - they should become social entrepreneurs working in knowledge based economy (KBE).

These type of people we're trying to prepare here in Poland during programme of creating theme villages, we call theme here "village managers". Their task would be to support villages in process of specializing and moving into earning in KBE.

In times of KBE changes are attaching also the meaning of education understood as transfering knowledge & informations. One of the reasons of crisis in current educating system is people's discourage to learning, to getting the knowledge. It connects also with fact, that as number of knowledge needed to be transfered grows, learning process sometimes becomes forced.

Learner (Student) wants to be a teacher's partner. If we'll maintain strict division between teacher and student, partnership will still remain fiction. Solution is in changing scheme giving-receiving knowledge into exchanging knowledge. It opens a way to real empowerment participants of learning process. But then learning will become strictly connected with creating knowledge.

Here we need to look wider on what really means knowledge? We need to legalize informal knowledge, hidden knowledge, knowledge of hands and mind, we need to legalize meanings of different intelligences. Exactly on this ground village inhabitants can show their power, they can become partners - they would have something to exchange. It attaches also to kids and youth captivated by present system of education. In times when increases meaning of creativity, youth's resources are suppressed and replaced by teaching. In system where they need to wait many years to show their skills, to become someone, by this time they loose treasures of joy, youth's creativity and fun.

RIC's role seen from Polish marginal rural areas perspective should be creating socio-economic ventures, which will bring villages' inhabitants into KBE. Only in process of acting, of creating wealth it is possible to learn, to exchange knowledge, to empower people on rural areas. Only initiation of that process makes knowledge important and acceptable. Exchange of knowledge should take place in action, in real, not simulated, artificial situation.

According to above RIC should, using rules of appreciative inquiry and learning by doing, discover and empower resources of informal and hidden knowledge. In many cases these resources are unfortunately on low level. It's possible to strengthen them by showing them in background of global knowledge resources and create in villages (on base their specialization) axis of knowledge crystallization. Good example may be here Austrian village Herrnbaumgarten specializing in absurd and gathering knowledge on this theme or Polish village Wylatowo specializing in ufology, or stork villages in Poland and Germany. Currently we're starting to create village specializing in theme of world's end. Inhabitants of such village gathering informations on world's end in culture some day will become specialists in this issue. In such village there will be workshops, seminars, conferences, probably a museum of world's end and other eschatologic ventures.

To resources of hidden knowledge we should also add ability to play, to have fun. This knowledge is a main resource of Polish village Sierakowo, where during last 5 years we're creating Hobbits village (based on Tolkien's novel). Hobbits and their culture becomed pretext to discover meaning of play and earning on it. Inhabitants of Sierakowo, earning on play are also starting to learn it, to learn again how to play, how to have fun. They are starting to watch others, theme of their talks changes, there are getting into the process of learning and creating knowledge.

RIC's role is influencing on local society, not only on single persons, because rural people are learning in frames of society. Learning is connected mainly with widening set of roles and changing mental models. These models are intersubjective, they can change together with change on society level.

best from Koszalin!

Waclaw

mailto: wisalix(AT)poczta.onet.pl