Floating the Idea
This website is currently undergoing revision with the new posting of it slated to happen early in the New Year. Thank you to those who have visited it in its current form. Best wishes for a Happy New Year.
Richard
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Vision 2020 by 2020 is at the idea stage. To move it forward it needs the support of people who believe in human rights. If you are one of these people, please consider joining this effort. You can do so with no cost or obligation. The objective at this point is simply to gauge the level of moral support for the Vision 2020 by 2020 campaign. To show your support, please post a response on this blog or send an email to contact@vision2020by2020.com. You can stay informed with how the campaign is progressing by following it on this blog or on twitter.
Overview
The Vision 2020 by 2020 campaign is being initiated on the premise that the human rights of no group will be secure until those of children are secure. The goal of the campaign is to contribute to our understanding of how to treat children as equals and how to evolve autocratic school systems into democratic learning communities.
The action plan is to get small pilot studies of democratic learning underway in 2020 public secondary schools around the world by the year 2020. The collective findings of these studies are expected to provide a clear vision of the benefits to both human rights and quality learning that the democratic learning model offers.
The CHIP Program
CHIP, which ran for two years in a Canadian secondary school, provides a concrete example of the kind of pilots to be run. It was a democratically governed school-within-a-school that provided students with far greater control over their learning. No additional funding or changes to ministry of education directives were needed. Details of CHIP can be found by following the link.
Modeled on Success
Vision 2020 by 2020 is modeled after a campaign described by the Heath Brothers in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Donald Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) initiated a program to save 100,000 patients’ lives in only 18 months. Hospital administrators voluntarily undertook to implement six very specific interventions that were not common practice. Within two months of the campaign being launched over 1000 hospitals had joined the effort. Major obstacles faced were the same as ones being faced by people wanting to change public education. Like the medical professionals, educators first of all need to admit that their current practices need altering, and then they need to overcome decades of old habits and routine.
Please follow the Vision 2020 by 2020 campaign on this blog or on twitter and contribute to it when you see a way to do so that fits for you.
Vision 2020 by 2020 
It appears to me that a CHIP Program in Canadian schools will give students the opportunity
to interact, learn, grow, and mature in ways that the current educational system is not able to, given it’s current structure.
The current education system is a 20th Century model, that over time has been modified and changed from ‘within’.
The question now is ‘how will the educational SYSTEM respond’ now that the pressure for change is happening from ‘outside’ the system.
The 21st Century is an exciting time to be alive but also a stressful time in many ways
Developing the abilty to adapt, innovate, share, grow and cooperate together are skills Canada’s young people will need, and that the CHIP Program will enable them to learn before they face the real world.