After my first full week with the SSE and in the
UK, I think I am starting to grasp the basics of both. It took me a while to
get used to the light switch, the traffic system and the British slang, but
it’s amazing how quickly one adapts to a new environment. In my first week here
at the office I’ve been trying to get a sense of the SE sector by poking around
on the web and working on different projects for the network team. At first I
was a bit overwhelmed by all the different companies, names, terms and slang,
but it’s starting to sink in gradually .
One of the things I’ve been working on is the Social Enterprise
Ambassadors programme
, led by SEC and assisted by a
consortium of different organisations, including of course, SSE. It’s been
very interesting to read about the very inspiring individuals that make
up the ambassadors group and I very much look forward to meeting them at a
training session towards the end of my stay in London.
Although the SE Ambassadors are amazing people, and have been chosen to promote the
movement, what’s been inspiring to me so far is my
encounters and interaction with the students and Fellows
of SSE. While social change was an abstract term to me at school, my meetings
with these people have shown me that change doesn’t occur in the abstract or (necessarily) on
the macro level, it happens in our local communities, mostly at a smaller scale.
My challenge in the months to come is to figure out a way to bridge such
practical solutions with an abstract learning model that will work for my college back in Minnesota. SSE programmes are very much about learning, rather
than teaching…and focused on the practical and personal, rather than the
academic and generic.
Since I’ve also learned that much of the conversation
about social change indeed occurs through blogging I
would love any input /responses to this question:
How can Social Enterprise/Innovation/Entrepreneurship be taught in an academic setting?
One site you might like to answer that question is the University Network (universitynetwork.org). They have various thoughts about theory and curriculum. You can also find the people that are currently teaching social entrepreneurship in academic settings.
Thor, this is an excellent question, so good, in fact, that I can’t imagine anyone answering it in a single comment!
Here are a few thoughts, though.
I think one thing that can help instruction in social entrepreneurship is an openness to unpleasant facts and critical points of view. There’s a natural temptation to want to encourage everyone everytime they want to do good, but one unfortunate side-effect of this is students who wilt in the face of obstacles.
Another recommendation: training in how to find useful resources. Most students will forget most of what we teach in a course, but if they get in the habit of frequenting useful sites & references (and knowing how to filter out the bad from the good), we’ve given them a tool that can last a lifetime. Plus they’ll also be likely to reciprocate by sending the teachers links to cool stuff, which can be a real help, if not a fun distraction!
A third thing I’ve become obsessed with is transforming students from information consumers to producers. Social enterprise is a perfect field for this, really–we should be changing education even as we’re engaged in it.
Congrats on your internship at SSE!