Patterns are important because they form the underlying structure of all life. 

Cycles are important because they illustrate how different forms of life connect to each other and the planetary cycles.

Deconstructing any matter into building blocks will reveal patterns and cycles that, in turn, will reveal how they connect to their environment. As learning proceeds, connections will multiply to reveal the  interconnection and interdependency of all life on the planet.

These insights reinforce humanitarian teachings and our humanitarian instincts of care and respect for all forms of life.

Researchers have found that discovering and understanding patterns assists learners  on various levels:

1. Patterns help us to understand relationships in nature, mathematics, music, language and more.

2.  Understanding patterns on a basic level equips the advanced learner to find patterns and solutions on a complex level and enables them to rearrange and manipulate patterns for problem solving .

3. They learn the role of patterns in understanding and extending scientific knowledge.

4. They can prepare the learner for insights into the patterns and cycles created by ourselves in business, town planning, engineering, medicine and more.

5. Understanding the structural patterns in mathematics, language, nature, music, and art give order to areas of life that we could find overwhelmingly chaotic.

The map symbolises a learning journey for learners to explore.

Learners set out equipped with their innate mind energies, such as creativity, curiosity and intuition, in order to explore four crucial questions that are focused on a persons life long quest to survive and thrive.

The Qwisp Map is the learners anchor and guide, providing a structure to work from while giving direction, continuity, context, and content.

3

Qwisp® utilises our spontaneous energies

4

Qwisp® gives direction and purpose to our inherent curiosity

The questions put to the learner awaken their innate and unstoppable mind energies, such as curiosity, instinct, creativity, intuition, reason and imagination.

Qwisp calls these our spontaneous energies and harnesses them as assistants and energy for the learning journey.

Qwisp optimises the four questions as a natural extension of an innate human tendency to ask questions from an early age.

“We are by nature question-asking, answer-making, problem solving animals and we are extremely good at it, above all when we are little.”

—John Holt (1982)

Deconstruction into building blocks reveals patterns and cycles that, in turn, will reveal the  interconnection of all life on the planet, unveil the value of patterns to learning and research and pave the way to problem solving.

Exploring patterns and cycles will also highlight the relationship between connection and interdependence and the value of connection to all life, and especially to our well being.

Spiral Learning

The repetition of questions that comprise the Qwisp Map will result in a process of learning that spirals more deeply and broadly each year.

Looping Action

The looping action from year to year will ensure a continuity in learning.

The questions are repeated in a modular loop action which creates a continuum of learning from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, slipping the learner seamlessly through their grades . . .

. . . so that the repetition of the questions take the learner into a spiral learning activity where their knowledge and understanding grow deeper and broader with each passing year.

The repetition of questions that comprise the Qwisp Map will result in a process of learning that spirals more deeply and broadly each year, boring into the detail, covering more facts and deepening understanding.

The looping action from year to year will ensure a continuity in learning, creating a slipway from simple to complex through the curriculum.

Everything that lives is wired for survival.

Survival is our strongest instinct.

We are also wired with needs and spontaneous energies, both designed for our survival. 

In prehistoric times, when life was about living in caves and hunting to stay alive, human activity was focused on fulfilling daily needs; living in reach of water, hunting and gathering for food, finding or creating shelter from the weather and safety from predators.

People were wholly dependent on their instincts, intuition, common sense, creativity and more (spontaneous energies) to solve the daily challenges of staying alive.

We are still wired for survival and indeed survival remains our strongest instinct but our spontaneous energies have lost their status in our learning process and our set of survival tools.

If we use survival needs as the starting point for our learning, we could rekindle constructive and enriching values in our lives and bring our spontaneous energies back into play. These would give us a better chance of learning to really survive, thrive and secure the future of our planet.

Open any newspaper, magazine or educational journal in these unprecedented times and it is sure to have articles calling for changes that can bring education back from an abyss. Qwisp has much to offer. It has been in the making for upwards of 15 years and is now astonishingly appropriate for our present predicament.

Qwisp offers a universal design for a global education where the following educational values are integral to the concept:

The Qwisp Map is the learners anchor and guide, providing a structure to work from, continuity, direction, context, and content.

It symbolises the self;

our innate mind energies, such as creativity and intuition;

four crucial questions;

and our life long quest to survive and thrive.

3

Qwisp® utilises our spontaneous energies

4

Qwisp® gives direction and purpose to our inherent curiosity

The questions awaken the innate and unstoppable mind energies, such as curiosity, instinct, creativity, intuition, reason and imagination.

Qwisp calls these our spontaneous energies and harnesses them as assistants and energy for the learning journey.

Qwisp optimises the four questions as a natural extension of an innate human tendency to ask questions from an early age.

Deconstruction into building blocks reveals patterns and cycles that, in turn, will reveal the  interconnection of all life on the planet, unveil the value of patterns to learning and research and pave the way to problem solving.

Exploring patterns and cycles will also highlight the relationship between connection and interdependence and the value of connection to all life, and especially to our well being.

Spiral Learning

The repetition of questions that comprise the Qwisp Map will result in a process of learning that spirals more deeply and broadly each year.

Looping Action

The looping action from year to year will ensure a continuity in learning.

3

Qwisp® utilises our spontaneous energies

4

Qwisp® gives direction and purpose to our inherent curiosity

The questions awaken the innate and unstoppable mind energies, such as curiosity, instinct, creativity, intuition, reason and imagination.

Qwisp calls these our spontaneous energies and harnesses them as assistants and energy for the learning journey.

Qwisp optimises the four questions as a natural extension of an innate human tendency to ask questions from an early age.

Deconstruction into building blocks reveals patterns and cycles that, in turn, will reveal the  interconnection of all life on the planet, unveil the value of patterns to learning and research and pave the way to problem solving.

Exploring patterns and cycles will also highlight the relationship between connection and interdependence and the value of connection to all life, and especially to our well being.

Spiral Learning

The repetition of questions that comprise the Qwisp Map will result in a process of learning that spirals more deeply and broadly each year.

Looping Action

The looping action from year to year will ensure a continuity in learning.

Qwisp is education in perpetual motion, turning learning on its head so that we may approach it with common sense, creativity and intuition while developing our personal knowledge base, a robust intellect, and emotional strength and well being. It is thorough – from the ground up, providing a solid foundation on which to build an engaged citizen. It is a learning trajectory that offers . . . and hope!

‘Growing up in an unequal and unfair society, feeling constant shame, sadness and anger, stirs your guts like little else can do. Solution? Become a teacher so that you can go out and set the world right by teaching what you believe are honest ways and honest information. But be careful how you do it – you’re more valuable in your job than out of it.

Result? Burn out and more anger. You leave education to go and get your own mind back, but education doesn’t leave you. There has to be a way past this failing system!

Ten years after my resignation, when my anger had subsided, the puzzlement started to piece together the myriad of thoughts that teaching had stirred around an alternative and more positive approach to education. I had taught across the racial lines of the Apartheid divides, from primary school to teacher training, from the bushveld to urban and state of the art schools.

Now something was combining all these elements with my determination to unravel the mystery behind failing education systems. 

The system that has emerged from these experiences was purely a response from the gut and as it evolved, I realised I was combining my teaching experience with, and drawing inspiration from, theorists  such as Maslow, Bruner, Piaget, and Vygotsky.

It was further inspired and affirmed by my interest in Fibonacci, patterns in nature, passion for music, love of the arts in general, and the web of connection that nature has woven, ticking away in mysterious, functional, clockwork precision.’

Colette van Niftrik has a BA Degree (Psychology and English) with a Post Graduate Diploma in Senior Primary Education. She experienced teaching amongst a wide variety of cultures in South Africa where there are eleven indigenous languages. She is a second-generation Dutch immigrant and feels deeply enriched by the experience of growing up in the cultural cross-over.  

Qwisp®'s first public introduction was at TECH 2017, Transforming Education Conference for Humanity, organised by UNESCO and The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace in Visakhapatnam, India.

Where to from here?

The vision

Qwisp® has the potential to become a global educational app. It is also well-suited to a series of workbooks for learners who do not yet have access to the internet.

As the Qwisp approach is universal, the vision is for it to be used globally so that a vast number of children could be learning in collaboration – rich and poor; urban and rural - a global learning community with online facilities for teachers to support each other with materials and advice.

The prototype for such a web platform has been created.

The next step

To go into the pilot phase we need to set up an infrastructure and assemble a team to apply existing curriculi to the QwispMap® and design and build an interface. This will involve educators as well as IT specialists to maximise the reach of Qwisp® through the internet and mobile applications.

To bring this to fruition we are actively seeking collaborators, funders and supporters who share our vision.