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$216,000. It spent most of
this on "big budget high tech items". But for many others it has had to raise
the money. And here too it is one of many schools making the most of a joint venture with
Telecom, New Zealand's main telephone company. Tahatai is a Telecom site school. That
means 5% of the income from specified "family and friends" long-distance
calls is donated to the school. But those donations come only from homes and businesses
signed up by the school. So the program both helps pay for the school's computers and
personally involves its community directly in the funding and learning process.
In 1999 Tahatai became one of 23 model schools
selected by New Zealand's Ministry of Education to be the on-site staff-development
training centers for information technology. These centers are spread around New Zealand -
a country the same area as Oregon - so collectively they can cater to the needs of
principals and teachers across the island nation. This is an adaptation of the
"Navigator Schools" model used with great success by the Australian state of
Victoria.
The new Swedish models
Swedish innovators are seeking to blend the
skills of entrepreneurs with the best elements of a decentralized welfare state.
Swedish publishers Ingemar and Gunilla Svantesson, for
instance, have used The Learning Revolution as the "umbrella" to launch
other books. Their company has brought several international specialists to Sweden for
seminars, following several successful Vos tours.
Helena W. Wallenberg has gone even further, and set out
a plan for "a welfare renaissance". This promotes "an alternative which
changes the philosophy of welfare from welfare entitlement to welfare responsibility, from
educationally dependent to educationally empowered".2
With colleague Michael S. Bogolea and others, she has established The Carpe Vitam
Foundation. It has set up a model school-of-the-future, a multimedia publishing company, a
community educational center integrated into the business community, and a
teacher-training center.
Their new school is The Lemshaga Bernakademi, designed
as "an extraordinary school for ordinary children" - a school "valuing
chickens and computers" so that it links nature with the best in technology. It has
students from three to 15. From as early as three years, they are exposed to languages,
mathematics and science. Many aspects of the school are based around Howard Gardner's
concepts of multiple intelligence.
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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