Home schooling - for Dentists

by Colin Campbell on 20/06/20 18:00

Anyone who has children of school age has now become very familiar with the concept of trying to educate at home.

While this seems like an overwhelming task as we try to juggle our work lives and the future of our children, there is no question that there are some wonderful opportunities that exist and the concept of ‘never wasting a good crisis’ should apply if we can see through the fog.

The other week I wrote a blog which included a link to Ken Robinson’s beautiful TED talk about the importance of creativity and if you want and missed it you can get it here.

Along with that as part of your research into where the future of education might go and as far as I’m concerned the future of dental education it is worth telling the tale of an educational anecdote that I have used for years in education.

This represents the difference between teaching and education.

Imagine a group of 13 year old school girls who discover lipstick and then repeatedly paint their lips and decide to kiss the mirror in the school bathroom creating ‘Marilyn Monroe lips’ on the glass.

This leads to enormous frustration from the school caretaker who is having to repeatedly clean the mirror day after day and despite advising, coaching and shouting does not seem to get anywhere with the year group of girls.

The creative and clever educational caretaker asks the head teacher of the school if he is allowed 10 minutes with the 13 year old girls to provide an educational demonstration for which he’s granted.

He collects the girls together in front of the head teacher and shows them the mirror with the lipstick present.

He says to them “I want to explain to you how difficult it is to clean the mirror after you’ve kissed it” (snorts and giggles from the assembled group of girls) the caretaker then promptly takes a window brush and shoves it down the toilet before attempting to clean the mirror with the window brush “I have to do this everyday”.

The kissing of the mirror stops.

That is the difference between teaching and education.

Education changes behaviour (for the better in the eyes of the educator) that is the fundamental difference between teaching and education.

You can sign up to learn something but you have wasted yours and the educators time if your behaviour is not changed in the direction that was intended.

This is both the misconception and the heist of much online education.

Watch a Webinar, pay a subscription, don’t change the behaviour, move along.

In a few weeks time The Campbell Academy will launch a new way to be educated initially in dental business.

For years we have run a year long business course where delegates attend for six two-day modules, face-to-face and give them the tools to write a detailed and all encompassing plan for their business for years to come.

This is an ideal way to educate and influence but is not feasible for many people and in the light of where we find ourselves now, it will be tricky for the rest of the year.

What we will launch in a few weeks time is an online, self-directed teaching package based on Seth Godin’s ‘Bootstrapper’s Workshop’ which I participated in during lockdown.

This is an inexpensive course which relies on the motivation and self-direction of the people who attend to apply themselves for six weeks.

It will provide the tools to write your dental business plan for the new world to take you towards 2021 with a framework of technical information and hope.

All the details are coming down the track but the first one of these will be a beater test for a few individuals who are interested and we’ll cut the numbers off.

Going on from that it will be a course designed to accommodate whoever wants to come but not this time.

If it’s something which is of even mild interest to you then hit reply or email info@campbellacademy.co.uk .

Face-to-face education will not or ever stop as it is essential for inspiration and as a catalyst to the change of peoples behaviour but how that is linked to other aspects of education and the best bits of what we learn in the lockdown is the key towards a successful future.

Blog Post Number - 2405

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