This was the very first outline of the ideas and philosophies infforming the Idea Source School

1. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ
idea factory shcool
The first international school in
Sihanoukville- the Idea

2. When I hear, I forget
When I see, I remember
When I do, I understand
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3. • “Play is the answer to how anything new comes
about.” - Jean Piaget
• A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and
improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and
come up with creative solutions to the massive global
challenges in economics, the environment, education,
and more.
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4. • Games have a positive educational influence
that no one can appreciate who has not
observed their effects. Children who are slow,
dull, and lethargic; who observe but little of
what goes on around them; who react slowly
to external stimuli; who are, in short, slow to
see, to hear, to observe, to think, and to do,
may be completely transformed in these ways
by the playing of games.
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5. • Play is changing dramatically from a world
invented by children to a world prescribed by
parents and other adults.
• “the resourcefulness of children’s culture has
eroded, as children have become less skilled
at transforming everyday objects into
playthings.”
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7. • Many Montessori schools were begun by parents who
were concerned that their own children have a solid
educational experience.
• Recent research demonstrates that success in school
depends on what happens before kindergarten. Simple
activities like reading to a preschooler, singing nursery
rhymes, and learning the alphabet can set the stage for
a lifetime of success.
• Parents today often do not have the time or resources
to engage in these important activities with their
children. Some parents even wonder if they have the
know-how to work with their children.
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8. • Aim is to create an inital pre- and early years
school of 30 children aged 3-6.
• Then add more as the first cohort develops –
the next stage will be 6-9 in year 2, and then
9-12, 12-15, 15-18 every two years as one age
group develops.
• Bigger premises, more schools…Kep, Kampot
• This proposition of Idea Factory School is
informed by several developments…
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9. Developments
in IT
Montessori
Developments
in
understanding
learning
Chinese junior
MBA
Mind mapping
NLP
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10. • We define learning as a process where a living
being experiences certain relationships
between events and is able to recognize an
association between events, and as a
consequence, the subject's behavior changes
because of that experience – typically for its
betterment
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Developme
nts in IT
Montessori
Developme
nts in
understand
ing learning
Chinese
junior MBA
Mind
mapping
NLP

11. Scientifically proven educational practices
and environment that will help children:
1. Realize and develop language as a system,
2.Build confidence,
3.Develop skills in design creativity, problem
solving, system thinking, team working,
critical thinking, commerce and project
management
4.All from an early age – the foundation or
formative years.
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12. • Nothing could be said about language because
that meant you had to use language and try
imagining a thought, an idea, without words.
• You can’t.
• We are prisoners of language. language isn’t a
prison because it is so fabulously powerful.
• Why is English taught using strange,
inappropriate and non-relevant concepts – like
‘snow’ in Cambodia?
• Why are American or European businesses used
to illustrate business theory?
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13. • We are inside a bubble. It is a bubble into which we are
placed at the moment of our birth.
• At first the bubble is open, but then it begins to close
until it has entirely sealed us in.
• That bubble is our perception –of things, people and
nature.
• We live inside that bubble all of our lives. And what we
witness on its round walls is our own reflection… The
thing reflected is our own view of the world.
• That view is first a description, which is given to us at
the moment of our birth until all our attention is
caught by it and the description becomes a view.
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14. Is “A”
only for
apple?

15. • Children viewed as open systems where a prepared
environment consisting of materials and communications
help them build internal associations, behaviors, and skills
which will help them better versatility to integrate and
intervene in a positive way within their communities,
society and the world.
• The individual child, his class, his family, his community, his
province, his country, his world
• His letter “A’, his interests, the classes’ interests, his
community’s interests etc.
• What do our children really need to invent for themselves
in such a manufactured, overly structured world?
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16. • Every year science is pointing to the fact that the brain
is a constantly evolving dynamic and reorganizing
system which changes throughout one’s life.
• Neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-
old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging - the
brain is “like a living creature with an appetite.”
• What we feed it to some extent determines how it
thrives. When we engage our brains it matters what we
do with them.
• Our hands are one limb (play on words intended) of
the great triumvirate (the other two being ours ears
and eyes) that provides most of our knowledge about
the things of the world.
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The human brain consists of about one billion neurons.
Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other
neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If
each neuron could only help store a single memory,
running out of space would be a problem. You might have
only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space
in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that
each one helps with many memories at a time,
exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage
capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a
million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked
like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes
would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows.
You would have to leave the TV running continuously for
more than 300 years to use up all that storage.
The brain’s exact storage capacity for memories is difficult
to calculate. First, we do not know how to measure the size
of a memory. Second, certain memories involve more
details and thus take up more space; other memories are
forgotten and thus free up space. Additionally, some
information is just not worth remembering in the first place
- Paul Reber, professor of psychology at Northwestern
University

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Neurological
filters
Internal or
cognitive sounds
and feelings
Linguistic
capacities
and
filters
Linguistic
map,
conscious
mind,
description
The social
world of
other
people,
physical
world of
objects and
machines,
and the
natural
world of
plants and
animals - all
composed of
sub-atomic
particles
output
input

20. • Everyone experiences the world differently.
We all have different experience of the same
reality.

21. Moving
towards Moving away
from
Necessity
PossibilityDifference
Similarity
Universal
Specific
External
Internal
Self
Others

22. Culture-bound perception
3 – 7 years
8 - 10 years
11 - 15 years
17 - 39 years
Age of acquisition of New Language
LanguageScore
High
Low
Acquiring Learning
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23. • Children are just as apt at learning sign language as
they are at learning "normal" language. – there is
plasticity in their learning.
• Development of language precedes more advanced
"topics" of thinking, usually involving degrees of
abstraction – and different literacies – visual,
economic, IT etc
• It also allows for stronger self-reflection.
• Reading is a multifaceted process involving word
recognition, comprehension, fluency, and motivation.
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24. • I associate an aural word with an object or action; the written word
adds to my reliable sorting of the MEANING of that word–with all of
its associative extensions–in my mind.
• Producing (WRITING) it in cursive script adds again to the selectivity
and reliability of my representation of the idea of that word. A
pictograph of that word adds again.
• From the operations of my hand in cursive or in drawing, I
CONSTRUCT that idea in its sound and visual parts. From ALL of
these sources, I add to the richness of my associative elaboration of
meaning associations.
• How is the brain is engaged when a person a) sees an image of a
hand; or b) when a person thinks about their hand; or c) when a
person sees a word that expresses a hand action?
• intelligently combinative audio-visual-manual training strategies
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26. New understandings of how we learn
• Relevant, meaningful activities engage students
emotionally and connect with what they already
know help build neural connections and long-
term memory storage (not to mention compelling
classrooms).
• Effective teaching helps students recognize
patterns and relationships between things and
put new information in context with the old - a
crucial part of passing new working memories
into the brain's long-term storage areas.
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27. • The mental processes that go into creating and
appreciating art and that drive the social
contracts underlying economic and political
systems. Coastal resources in Sihanoukville
provide the foundation for socioeconomic and
environmental activities. Benefits from fishing,
tourism industry and port services, provide for
local people's livelihood. They should feature
strongly in the education.
• One example is deep history— the study of the
peopling of the earth, the diversification of
languages and cultures, and the transition from
foraging to farming and civilization.
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28. • Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind
best understands facts when they are woven
into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative,
mental map, or intuitive theory.
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30. • The prestigious magazine Science detailed a
well-designed study that found some
measurable advantages for the Montessori
method.
• 59 Montessori students were contrasted with
53 kids who followed traditional methods.
• By the end of kindergarten, the Montessori
students outscored the others on standardized
tests of reading and math, treated each other
better on the playground, and "showed more
concern for fairness and justice.“
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31. • Larry Page and Sergey Brin, self-directed and
self-starters Founders of Google.com, Jeff
Bezos of amazon.com, some of the youngest
and richest people on the planet, credit their
Montessori Education for much of their
success
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33. The uncluttered simplicity of the Google search
engine page masks that there is an unimaginable
amount of data, information and knowledge lying
beyond it.
Anyone can access it – if they know the word or
idea – they key in the word and get millions of
links sorted relevant to their interest and their
capacity to ask. They are only held back by their
ability to ask, order and blend ideas.
Imagine a school and teaching system which did
the same…. showed at the right pace, asked the
right questions, the right amount, the right
difficulty, the right thing at the right time
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34. The uncluttered simplicity of the Google search
engine page masks that there is an unimaginable
amount of data, information and knowledge lying
beyond it.
Anyone can access it – if they know the word or
idea – they key in the word and get millions of
links sorted relevant to their interest and their
capacity to ask. They are only held back by their
ability to ask, order and blend ideas.
Imagine a school and teaching system which did
the same…. showed at the right pace, asked the
right questions, the right amount, the right
difficulty, the right thing at the right time
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35. Values Equal Profits: today'sentrepreneurs found businesses that
embrace their values with the intent of sharing and spreading those
values
Boring is Death: we now can overlay real-time information,
collaboration and gaming engines on everything and no one ever needs
to be bored again
Think Locally Scale Globally: satisfy a single need for those who are
right here, right now, and then quickly replicate that all over the world
The Future is Evenly Distributed: smartphones and the mobile web are
enabling children and women everywhere to connect with global
markets, changing the face of business and work forever
Virtual is Real: we are not porting ourselves into a virtual reality, but our
porting the virtual into our reality, permanently altering what we each
experience and perceive and care about
Child Mogul: for the first time in the history of humanity, the very tools
that adults use each day for work, connectivity, influence and wealth
generation are in the hands of children. And they better understand,
leverage, re-make and profit from these tools.
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36. New understandings of how we learn -
systems
• Everything in the world we know is
connected in systems.
• People are connect and act in social
systems, goods and services and
production move through
manufacturing and distribution
systems, language itself is a system
of letters, words, sentences,
paragraphs and stories and reports
• The economy is a system, nature is
built from systems, molecules, cells,
organisms, populations,
ecosystems, planets and so on.
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37. New understandings of how we learn -
systems
• To get his creation to the masses,
Edison and his team of engineers in
Menlo Park, N.J., spent years
building the entire electric system,
from light sockets and safety fuses
to generating facilities and the
wiring network. Only then did the
electric light flare into the
innovation that lit the world.
• Edison beat all his predecessors at
one crucial task: managing the
whole process of innovation, from
light-bulb moment to final product.
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38. New understandings of how we learn -
senses
• The child, especially from 2.5 - 5 years of
age, develops senses of sight, sound, taste,
touch, etc. through manipulation and
experience with his surroundings.
• Sensorial development in a Montessori class
aims at providing the child with a nourishing
and rich environment with sensorial
materials to help refine, develop and perfect
the function of his/her senses.
• Children develop and internalize concepts of
qualities, similarities and differences,
classification and serialization with regard to
length, width, temperature, color, shape,
sound, etc. The Sensorial materials also
enhance development of other skills, such as
language, mathematics and music.
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39. • Marc Prensky argues that students today, digital natives as
he calls them, having grown up in the Digital Age and learn
differently from their predecessors, or digital immigrants as
he terms them.
• As such, the pedagogical tools we use to educate the
Natives are outdated.
• Our entire educational system—primary, secondary, and
tertiary—must utilise pedagogies very different from those
developed for the Industrial Age model of education, which
in many ways is still used today.
• You have witnessed change, we can hardly imagine what it
will be like in 15 years time when these kids are ready for
university!
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41. the components
Equipment
Building
Teachers
IT
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42. • Teachers should be chosen who have a
genuine interest in children and have the
patience to deal with them.
• They should have sufficient English so that
they can be adequately trained by native
English speakers.
• Training should begin immediately
• Salary will be based upon strict performance
measures, mostly how they cope and deal with
children in the class.
• They should exhibit leadership potential – they
will eventually become trainers and managers
tomorrow.
• Potentials for spin-offs supplying training and
consultancy, even teachers for other schools.
Teachers
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43. • IT resources – hardware and software - will
have to be costed and installed.
• Where possible touch screens will be used –
i.e. Apple i-POD
• Access will be restricted to only those
resources deemed relevant for the child
• Video monitoring of the classroom area should
be available to parents online as should daily
and weekly reports on their child
• Eventually software designer/engineers be
hired - potentials for spin-offs supplying
software for other schools
• Potential for sponsorship from internet
providers
IT
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51. • A full range of Montessori equipment
needs to be purchased or made – this
includes child size furniture and brushes
mops etc.
• Neilhaus in Australia make very high quality
materials but expensive – first purchase
from them with a view to replicating
• Hiring of a carpenter or outsourcing to a
reputable carpentry firm to make child
sized furniture and teaching aids
• Potentials for spin-offs supplying
equipment for other schools
Equipment
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52. • The child has a dialogue with the
materials which puts the child in
control of the learning process.
• In time, he will be able to see it
and will correct his own errors.
• First gain mastery over physical
equipment and real social settings
before IT
.
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53. • A block of wood, in which the child
places cylinders of varying sizes in
corresponding holes, is an example
of control of error designed within
the materials.
• If the cylinders are not matched in
the correct holes, there will be one
cylinder left over. Again, it is not the
problem alone that interests the
child and aids his progress.
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55. • First, the difficulty or the error that the
child is to discover and understand must
be isolated in a single piece of materials.
• This isolation simplifies the child’s task
for him and enables him to perceive the
problem more readily.
• A tower of blocks will present to the child
only a variation in size from block to
block – not a variation in size, color,
designs, and noises, such as are often
found in block towers in toy stores.
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58. • The materials progress from simple to
more complex design and usage. A first set
of numerical rods to teach seriation vary in
length only.
• After discovering length first set of
numerical rods to teach seriation vary in
length only. After discovering length
sensorially through these rods, a second
set, colored red and blue, in one meter
dimension, can be used to associate
numbers and length and to understand
simple problems of addition and
subtraction……
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60. • The materials are designed to prepare the child
indirectly for future learning. The development of
writing is a good example of this indirect preparation.
• From the beginning, knobs on materials, by which the
child lifts and manipulates them, have acted to
coordinate his finger and thumb motor action. Through
the making of designs that involves using metal insets
to guide his movements, the child has developed the
ability to use a pencil.
• By tracing sandpaper letters with his finger, he has
developed a muscle memory of the patterns of forming
letters. When the day arrives that the child is motivated
to write, he can do so with a minimum of frustration
and anxiety. …..aids the development of self confidence
and initiative.
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63. • The materials begin as concrete expressions of an
idea and gradually become more and more abstract
representations. A solid wooden triangle is
sensorially explored.
• Separate pieces of wood representing its base and
sides are then presented, and the triangle’s
dimensions discovered. Later, flat wooden triangles
are fitted into wooden puzzle trays, then on solidly
colored paper triangles, then on triangles outlined
with a heavy colored line, and finally on the
abstraction of thinly outlined triangles.
• At a certain stage in this progression, the child will
have grasped the abstract essence of the concrete
materials, and will no longer be dependent upon or
show the same interest in them
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64. • "Control of error" is any kind of
indicator which tells us whether we
are going toward our goal, or away
from it…. We must provide this as
well as instruction and materials on
which to work.
• The power to make progress comes
in large measure from having
freedom and an assured path along
which to go; but to this must also
be added some way of knowing if,
and when, we have left the path.
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65. • Self-efficacy is a cognitive construct that
represents individuals’ beliefs about their
ability to act and successfully produce
outcomes at a given level (Bandura, 1977).
Self- efficacy theory provides explicit
guidelines on how to enable people to
exercise some influence over how they live
their lives.
• A theory that can be readily used to enhance
human efficacy has much greater social
utility than theories that provides correlates
of perceived control but have little to say
about how to foster desired changes.
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71. The prepared environment
• Building needs to support the ‘prepared
environment’
• 5m square per child.
• Large open space.
• Simplicity or elimination of clutter.
• Open-ended nature ensures that the
children had endless opportunities to
experiment, construct, explore and invent
• Needs to look and feel modern and high-
tech
• Needs to have areas:
Building
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72. Freedom
Structure
and Order
Intellectual
Environment
Beauty
Nature and
Reality
Social
Environment
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73. Freedom
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74. Freedom
Within the prepared environment, the child
must experience freedom of movement,
freedom of exploration, freedom to interact
socially, and freedom from interference
from others. This freedom ultimately leads
to a greater freedom: freedom of choice.
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75. Structure
and Order
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76. Structure and Order in the Montessori
classroom accurately reflect the sense of
structure and order in the universe. By using
the Montessori classroom environment as a
microcosm of the universe, the child begins
to internalize the order surrounding him,
thus making sense of the world in which he
lives.
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Structure and
Order

77. Intellectual
Environment
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78. Five areas of the Montessori curriculum
(Practical Life, Sensorial, Language,
Mathematics, and Cultural subjects)
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Intellectual
Environment

79. Beauty
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80. Montessori environments should be beautiful. The
environment should suggest a simple harmony.
Uncluttered and well-maintained, the environment
should reflect peace and tranquility. The
environment should invite the learner to come in
and work. If students do not feel comfortable in a
classroom setting, they will not learn.
Beauty
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81. Nature and
Reality
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82. Nature
and
Reality
Montessori had a deep respect and reverence for
nature. She believed that we should use nature to
inspire children. She continually suggested that
Montessori teachers take the children out into
nature, rather than keeping them confined in the
classroom. This is why natural materials are
preferred in the prepared environment. Real wood,
reeds, bamboo, metal, cotton, and glass are
preferred to synthetics or plastics.
It is here where child-size real objects come into
play. Furniture should be child-size so the child is not
dependent on the adult for his movement. Rakes,
hoes, pitchers, tongs, shovels should all fit children’s
hands and height so that the work is made easier,
thus ensuring proper use and completion of the
work without frustration.
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83. Social
Environment
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84. Where there is freedom to interact,
children learn to encourage and develop
a sense of compassion and empathy for
others. As children develop, they become
more socially aware, preparing to work
and play in groups. This social interaction
is supported throughout the environment
and is encouraged with the nature of
multi-age classroom settings.
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Social
Environment

85. • Place for children to store personal items,
such as coats and indoor shoes
• Place for children to store projects, both in-
progress and completed works
• Plenty of open space to move around easily
and comfortably
• Adequate open space to sit together during
circle time
• Low shelves which form a variety of activity
areas without closing off space or visibility
• Neutral-colored walls
• A few interesting, real-life pictures placed at
the children’s eye level
• A hard floor surface that is easily cleaned
• Large carpets for working on the floor
• Child sized tables and chairs which can be
moved easily
• A few beautiful objects that break easily
• Variety in texture and color of furnishings
• Living plants
Building
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91. All acting together in concert
Equipment
Building
Teachers
IT
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92. Social and interest groups
Teachers and
administrators
Outside
agencies
Students
Parents
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93. • Students will be sons and daughters and
grandchildren of ‘new money’.
• Their interest is to provide a world class
education for their children without having
to send them away - even to Phnom Pehn.
• The aim to prepare them for overseas study
as they progress or to continually update
and provide a world class education right
up to university level as the school grows in
size each year.
• Khmer, barangs and Russian
• Scholarships could come from corporate
sponsors for children of lesser means – i.e.
working with M'Lop Tapang and other
NGOs
Students
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94. • We need to thoroughly understand what
these parents and grandparents expect from
their children’s education. We may also have
to inform them regarding the aims of the
school in a series of invitation only wine and
cheese evenings at an appropriate local
venue. Senior government officials should be
invited, as should prominent Oknia as should
distinguished business representatives.
• We must highlight the existing problems in
education emphasizing where we will do
better
• We must show how our IT approach will give
them 24/7 access to their children’s learning
• We must cultivate and project an appropriate
high-class high-professionalism identity to
the parents and grandparents. We can offer
them free training in accessing the web-cams
and reports online.
Parents
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95. • Outside agencies include
overseas universities,
businesses, government
departments, overseas
memberships to
associations, Digital Divide
Data and so forth.
Outside
agencies
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96. • Rather than ‘teaching’ or
‘instructing’ - methods of
observing facilitating and
supporting the natural
development of individual
children.
• Uses physical materials and
teaching aids - harnessing
the power of IT.
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administrators

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98. • Use suspense and keep it fresh. Drop hints about a new learning unit before you
reveal what it might be, leave gaping pauses in your speech, change seating
arrangements, and put up new and relevant posters or displays; all this can
activate emotional signals and keep student interest piqued. Datsuzoku (脱
俗) Freedom from habit or formula. Escape from daily routine or the ordinary.
Unworldly. Transcending the conventional. This principles describes the feeling of
surprise and a bit of amazement when one realizes they can have freedom from
the conventional.
• Make it student directed. Give students a choice of assignments on a particular
topic, or ask them to design one of their own. "When students are involved in
designing the lesson," write Immordino-Yang and Faeth, "they better understand
the goal of the lesson and become more emotionally invested in and attached to
the learning outcomes.“ Profundity or suggestion rather than revelation. Yugen (幽
玄)
• Connect it to their lives and what they already know. Taking the time to
brainstorm about what students already know and would like to learn about a
topic helps them to create goals -- and helps teachers see the best points of
departure for new ideas. Making cross-curricular connections also helps solidify
those neural loops.
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THANKS