UniC a Magical Theatre in Education

Before I became consulting educational, profit and non-profit organizations, I started out as an Interior Architect. About ten years ago me and my wife quit the shop we ran, parallel to my designing business, and we started focusing on people and teams and how they can make the best out of their talents and possibilities.

The interior designing work and the interest in people synergistically came together in designing brand new ways of educational interiors, to enhance new ways of interacting between teachers, students and the system they have to operate out of. Combining the ideas of Office Innovation and New Ways of Working with our Educational Vision.

One of our first successes on this field of education was the mind-blowing new school interior vision at UniC. UniC is a public school in Utrecht Holland. For children aging 12 - 18.  HAVO – VWO,  preparing for University. 

This school was on the national television as it opened 8 years ago and still gets mentioned in national newspapers every time they write about progressive education. 

UniC started in an old office building and is organized around changing groups and their changing activities during the day. 

I designed the interior and was the “critical friend” of the principal in discussing almost every aspect of the newly invented educational format. 

The interior is divided in spaces to communicate and areas to concentrate and this in different levels and different sizes. All meant to facilitate differentiation in the learning process, making it fit to the special needs of special children (though this is a “regular” public school), as everyone is special. No two kids are the same according to Howard Gardner and his Multiple Intelligence Theory and everybody has a unique way of learning.

Two years ago UniC moved to a totally new building specially designed to fit the UniC way of learning. Again I designed / coordinated the interior and played different roles in selecting the building architect, writing down the demands for furniture and being the interior project leader. Collecting the wishes of the teachers and connecting them with the results out of the design team and further on, the building consortium.

To show You the results I attach 2 links to short films on my website about UniC. Klick on the lines beneath to see the movies!

1^st:   http://www.erick.nl/referenties-vaxa/onderwijs/unic

2^nd : http://www.erick.nl/referenties-vaxa/onderwijs/unic-video

The first film is about the interior and the way the building is used. The second film is a music video the students made, which gives a nice view at the internal surroundings and the creativity of the school as a whole.

I understand that the way UniC is designed and operates, will not directly match the educational systems in other countries all over the world. But it might give educational leaders a clue an what progressive learning in Holland looks like.

UniC has now 600 students and will need to extend their facilities within a few years. Parents, students, teachers and the principal are still very proud of and satisfied with this building. They tell me every time I see one of them that they feel lucky to be able to make use of these kinds of space and that they know it is far from naturally to feel this fit between the environment and the tasks that they have to fulfill.

To me it feels like a present every time I walk in. The vibe, the energy, the sense of success, the freedom of movement and of choice, the energizing colours, the charming look of self-disciplined awareness of the older students, or the search to get a start with something difficult of the younger once (who start and end the day in Fellow Circles (maatjes circles) to help each other out),  everything is washed with enriched consciousness of being part of something beautiful and bigger than Yourself. 

(Nice point: I know of no school building that looks so clean and fresh after 2 years of intense use! And that is not because of the sweet kids, because they are no more sweet than children at other schools, but because we used smart products to cover walls etc. and because students and teachers feel a kind of ownership! And probably because they feel less frustrated so there is less urge to molest something?)

Stephen Covey speaks about the “Magic Theatre” in his book “The 3rth Alternative”. A room where people come together to work on idea’s, prototyping them, together co-creating the future in demand for synergy. To me UniC represents the Magic Theatre in Education.

Even though the students will not always notice the difference between the UniC environment and “normal” schools, they love the way they learn. And the parents know that some of their children would not have achieved properly in those “normal” schools and at UniC they excel. Notwithstanding the self-discipline they have to develop, the creativity and flexibility they need to enrich and the social skills they have to practice all the time.

But hé, those are exactly the skills students / people / teams / organization need to develop, to create & navigate in the complex & dynamic world we all live in!

The Paradox of learning and education

In July me and my wife Anita Wuestman have been to the Asian Pacific Conference on Giftedness 2012 in Dubai.

Besides enjoying the strange qualities of Dubai and surviving the heat outside, we were thrilled about  the Union of Cultures we met at the conference.

My wife joint the presentations she thought were most interesting for her line of work = Counselling teachers and students in the field of Giftedness. I went for the speakers about change and creativity. Of course these things grow together. That is exactly why we are both interested in human development and organizational values and change.

What we saw was remarkable. Every nation is convinced of the fact that they need to prosper creativity and innovation and they know You need great and open minds to make that happen.  But at the same time they look for blueprints and matrixes, to frame the Gifted students and push them into “smart” directions.

I spoke to several delegates and exhibition participants about this paradox. In my view, talented Excellence can only be achieved if the surrounding aspects ( I call that the environment) of leadership, direction, facilities, tools and ways of rewarding are aligned. And in the Asian, Pacific and Gulf states situations they apparently are not, as the people I spoke with agree. Only they seem to feel the friction, but did not know how to point a finger to it.

Using blueprints and hard ways of pointing out how something has to be done, is making people obedient, but You do not trigger their brains. To achieve creative goals one has to have a mind-set of critical thinking, which is the exact opposite of obedience.

One can be an Excellent repeater of what the teacher or the book said, but that does not make You practice Your thinking muscles, Your creative muscles nor Your leadership muscles. Not to mention all the different talents and muscles keynote speaker Prof. Howard Gardner pointed at in his Multiple Intelligence Theory.

Education that triggers talents and minds should not look like a blueprint at all. Maybe behind the scenes there can be a curriculum, something like an intentional path to give us all some hold. But the admission to tools and a “Magic Theatre”  (a place where people meet, creativity and Synergy flow and one can express and further develop one’s idea’s) can have all kind of colours, but bleu.

The use of colours in expressing value systems is taken from the Spiral Dynamics (SD) theory of prof. Claire w. Graves. I have explained this in a summarizing Blog of Aug.1 about the implication of these value systems and colours. 

It looks as if the Asian, Pacific and Golf nations are doing well in discovering Gifted children and they nurture the great minds as good as they can. But they focus on the good achievers who are specialised in Math, Logic and Languages. The underachievers on those fields and multiple intelligence talents on other terrains  are left out. Not because the governments does not want them to do good, but they simply do not know how to find them, as they stay beneath the radar at bleu (SD) schools and bleu ways of monitoring and discovering.  

And by doing so they neglect the opportunities to create great chances for their countries to Enhance Excellence in Innovation. As breakthroughs never come from the book, but from the hearts and minds of brilliant people who dare to be different. Who learn how to survive in doing so and achieve great goals as a result of practice, experiments and being allowed to make great mistakes!

In Holland we have the same problem as mentioned above. Only we are on a path of recognising the challenge and we are looking for ways to differentiate within schools. To try to get away of the Bleu rules and find smart ways to avoid the growth killing context of traditional educational methods.  That is not easy and dumb and old-fashioned governmental rules hit in hard now and again, but I am proud to have been consulting with educational institutions that have succeeded in innovating education into learning again! 

Such as UniC, the school described in the next Blog!

If You agree, or disagree, or have some kind of an opinion about this, please post a remark! 
About 80 people read this Blog up to the 17th of august, but I have no image of the people who read this and I would like to know how they feel about it. So if You would like to respond? Please do!

Synergy and Lack of Trust

To me Synergy is a magic word! I have seen miracles happen as soon as people get together in an open and cooperative setting. You feel the energy going up. Old paradigms step aside and new ways of looking at the world and the possibilities in it, start to go loose.  

But there is something weird with this image I have of Synergy and the way lots of others seem to see it. My experiences with creativity, innovation and creating new options and chances are for real and the effects are measurable and very valuable. Even though I am certain of the quality groups of people can achieve I often think I stand alone on this.

Here is one painful example of that! I tried to get a group of very diverse people into creating a new multifunctional building that would mean being able to share all kind of facilities, getting a new building, low on energy, high on comfort and nothing but quality to win for everyone. And this held against the existing situation that all these parties cannot keep their out of dated solitary current facilities in a good shape, because of the lack of income they get out of their shrinking clientele in this small village were more and more people are getting older and youth is getting out. As You might see as well, I sense a huge opportunity to grow something new out of the interests and energy of these villagers and their associations, who have everything to loose and a lot to win.

But it did not turn out to become Synergetic. It went the exact other way. A lack of Trust with one particular party closed the door every time new options came nearby. We did not succeed in getting their real pain on the table and trying to discuss aspects that would mean gaining for all stakeholders, got stuck in hiding behind virtual walls of "meaningless fears" in the eyes of others. And instead of better, it got worse every time we tried to get closer to one another.

Metaforely spoken  I sometimes explained it as if we thought we had a good conversation and made a step forward. But as we turned around and saw the effect on the board we tried to communicate with, we seemed to have knocked over another precious vase and they reacted as if we had left them with only bits and pieces.

In this environment we could not make Synergy take place and I still feel very helpless about that. After years of hard effort with different kind of volunteers, the outcome is that there will be some kind of pitiful surrogate alternative that is no fraction of the possibilities we had in mind with our team. This result will mean nothing to most of the involved parties, who will still have the same trouble keeping their heads op in the coming years. And some of them won't, I am particularly sure of! 


Despite it took years, money options dried up because of the crisis kicking in, and university research turned out that the mentioned party had closed up on society for the past ten years, I still think we where almost there several times. Close to high energy solutions, making use of each others idea's and creativity to arrive at real Synergy.

The lesson learned to me is that I should never stop working on Synergy, even though others seem not to be able (or willing)  to reach for the skies. Because we have so much to win and so much to loose if we don’t. But at the same time all energy must go to gaining Trust instead of trying to convince others. As long as there is no real appreciation of what the group as a whole is trying to achieve, there can and will be nothing but losers!

Tribute to Stephen Covey, a Highly Effective Hero

Years ago I read Covey's book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. It was like coming home. His principle based way of looking at the World and the way people behave, opened my eyes and I absorbed it all. At least I thought I did. Getting it out of our library every once in a while I discovered new things and I don’t know if I did not notice them the first time or that I forgot. Later on I read his “8^th Habit”, with some valuable movies on an attached DVD.

The book of one of his sons about “The Speed of Trust” came as a prove of synchronicity. All my contacts and networking partners are talking about the lack of Trust around the World, in Politics  and especially within and between  organizations. The damage the Lack of Trust creates is huge and we don’t understand why others keep on acting as if Trust does not exist and cannot be Trusted anyway.

A few days before the death of Steven Covey I started reading one of his latest books, “The 3th Alternative”. And again it is as if he took the words right out of my mouth, but even before I was aware of the Impact they have. Not that I accuse him of stealing of course. But everything he explains in his easy, almost simple way makes me realise that that is exactly why I like my World and my  Work.

Really listening to people, trying not to judge  and doing so with a clear image of what You are (I am) as a person, with emotions, professionalism, personality and lots of possible shortcomings, is the only way people can make real contact. Authentic listening as they called in in a Leadership Course at the University in Rotterdam. And only after real contact and getting a clear table (every not previously noticed theme out of the way) opens up the road to Synergy. Not my Way, not Your Way, but together working on a Better Way, the 3th Way. If people succeed in creating Synergy, one and one can be seven, or seventeen or even seven hundred. I have seen this happening in many occasions and it feels like magic every time it takes place. It cannot be explained by creativity of brilliant minds. It has to do with energy and the frequency of the minds gathered in the room. Something like that.

Reading about Covey’s 3th way I realised, that what I like about my role as a Value Engineer (among other things and roles), is exactly about all this. Getting multidisciplinary groups together and having them cooperate in a Function Analysis, paves the path to a 3th alternative.  Through the WHY and HOW questions they get to know each other’s wishes and points of view.  All that Values their interests gets on the table and from there, creativity can boost, as well as the co-creation. And the Trust that grows instantly by doing so, forms  the fertilisation of the process.  Amazing in what short notice teams can come up with astonishing results. You want to know WHY and HOW? Read Stephan Covey’s book(s)!

Enhancing Excellence, the Urgency is Feld in all Parts of the World!

Recently (11 -21 Juli 2012) me and my wife Anita Wuestman have been to Dubai. As members of the Dutch Delegation we took part of  "The Asian Pacific Conference around Giftedness, 2012". About 1600 (?) people from all over the World where gathered to share knowledge about how to create the best kind of education for children with High Abilities, or Talent or Giftedness, whatever it is called trough out the World.
As President of the Dutch version of ECHA (European Councel for High Ability) Anita was curious about the status of Giftedness in Asia and specially in the Moslim communities, as it was the first time this Conference took place in an Arab area. Lucky for me I got invited to come along.
For me the Conference was a great way to discover the different ways of  trying to achieve Excellence in a lot of different society's. To give You some examples: I spoke with Australian Government people and teachers from Tasmania, with Male and Female Arab delegates as in professors and Education Foundations, Professors from Hong Kong, an Enthusiastic lady from Greece, great teachers form Singapore and a very smart en nice girl of a price winning new kind of Education in Dubai. And this is only the short list!!
In the next weeks I hope to translate some of my tools and articles to send them the materials that I promised them. 
They all were interested in the way I tried to explain them my view on the World, by using Spiral Dynamics as a reference. 
The thing is that all the speakers off the Asian en Arab World say they need Creativity and Innovation to flourish in their Countries. But on the other hand they keep on pushing Models, Projects and Plans into the situation, with very straight ways of applying, where the children / students have to sit still and Listen. This Context will never make them Critical Thinkers and as long as the System remains Blue (Spiral Dynamics color terminology) You can not expect Students (ore Teachers, ore Headmasters) to act Yellow (SD!)
The participants to the Conference seam to feel this Paradox, but do not know how to pinpoint it. My VAXA Compass Dashboard turned out to be very helpful in getting this on the Table. 
Hopefully in the coming month's we can develop chance's to go there and not only talk about this Paradox, but to help them and start doing things about it!


A prominent Arab Keynote speaker said that as the Oil Reserves will once dry out, it will be more important to discover Brilliant Minds then it is to discover new Oil Fields ore Gold mines. And that if a Country does not succeed in creating the best possible environments for Gifted People to flourish, they will loose their Talents and then loose their influence on the Economy and the Position of their Country. In other Words: There is a Huge Sense of Urgency. But at the same time as they put a Great Show on Stage, You See the Worries from the people working on the school floor, once You get to know them a little better.

There is Lots of Work to be done. And as ECHA tries to cover the Field of Children, Youth and their Teachers, I would very much like to step up to the Alignment of Context, Leadership and Knowledge. To Create the Environment that not only Children and Teachers, but all grown ups can Enhance their Excellence.

Blogging Away!

This is my first Blog. I will do the Blogging in English, to make it readable to my Foreign Relatives, knowing that most Dutch Professionals and Friends can read English as well.
It will be a good practice for me, to get more grip on my English and at the same time to keep my Blogs short and to the point.
I hope this try-out will work out well and soon I will start my brain drain at this new medium.