Why a new approach?

Education is in crisis. The rapidly changing technological environment coupled with the widespread devastation of our natural environment has left humanity floundering. We are inextricably linked to our environments and each other on a global scale. It is time that our general approach to education reflects this.

Qwisp® offers a new approach to education with human equality and sustainability as the cornerstones. The process is facilitated by the QwispMap®, a simple mind map structure that comprises trigger points of four questions that are repeated yearly in a spiral of continual learning. Learners are guided to understand who they are, what is around them, how they fit into the world, how to survive responsibly, and the consequences of a lack of mindfulness.

By focusing on universal needs, it can be illustrated that the similarities between all living things (plants, animals and humans) create an interconnected and interdependent web. Basing education on this premise facilitates the realisation that good ethics are synonymous with survival and not a disconnected issue requiring isolated self-discipline. 

Qwisp® is a curriculum framework designed to be used as a tool for lifelong learning. The Qwisp® educational model can provide children with the practical, intellectual and emotional wherewithal to face life as a challenge with awareness, respect, confidence, responsibility, knowledge and pride in their own sense of having a positive contribution to make to our global cause. 

What is Qwisp®?

Qwisp® is essentially a framework of guidelines on which a comprehensive curriculum, which leads the child naturally from the simple to the complex by revisiting areas of knowledge, can be built. The concept was initially inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and embraces some of the philosophies of Rousseau, Vygotsky, Dewey, Piaget and Bruner.

The Qwisp® framework provides an organising structure for information and a map of the terrain to be learned. It provides a continuum for the education process to flow from early childhood smoothly into primary and high school levels.

It embraces the individual’s creativity and imagination as sources of energy for learning and self-discovery with the emphasis on holistic learning through patterns, covering all subjects and providing many opportunities for philosophical contemplation with scientific rigour.

Qwisp® and Science

Qwisp® starts the learner's journey into science with what they can see and touch in their environment. As learners progress through their grades the building blocks will be deconstructed from arms, legs, teeth and eyes into their elements of atoms, molecules, cells, fluids, organs and more. These are approached as the building blocks of the planet.  They will be led into the depths of science seamlessly without any preconceived fears or trepidation.

Through this process, the learner will steadily become aware that the concrete matter they started with is a construct of many patterns of particles that shuffle and interconnect. They will learn that combining building blocks, no matter how small or large, can produce different results such as more or different matter.

They will later easily recognise that life is made up of endless patterns and cycles and that the patterns and cycles are connected in such a way as to be interdependent and that they themselves are part of these patterns and cycles and therefore also dependent on them.            

They will learn how to use these constructs to further their knowledge, make deductions, draw conclusions and solve problems. This awareness is crucial to Sustainability.

Qwisp® and Humanity

Globally, we are inextricably linked to our environments and each other. Different environments have created different cultures but in our needs we are simply all equal. 

By focusing on universal needs, a powerful undercurrent of similarities between people of all cultures, animals and plants can be created. An awareness of our mutual needs and interdependence can become a powerful force in shaping our attitudes to many facets of life and can impact meaningfully on the material, emotional and spiritual make-up of each individual. 

This awareness can engender empathy rather than judgement, peace rather than animosity, respect and responsibity rather than thoughtlessness.

By exploring this interdependence at a primary school level, children can learn how taking care of others means taking care of themselves and vice versa. From this is born the realisation that good ethics are synonymous with survival and not a disconnected issue requiring isolated self-discipline. 

Qwisp® learners understand what sustainabilty is, why we need to strive for it, where we seek it and how to contemplate problems in order to resolve them. 

Through Qwisp® we are given hope that sustainability is within our reach.

Each learning journey takes a high-impact need as its subject matter so by dedicating a route to each need we are stressing how important that need is to our survival.

The Qwisp® Map is a constant reference point for all users: Teachers for their curriculum and learners to understand context all the time.

By revisiting areas of knowledge repeatedly, each time in more depth, the journey is essentially an evolving spiral: the route is repeated at every level, constantly growing more complex.

It also creates a groundwork of reference points that will enable learners to stretch their thinking into new territory. The repetition facilitates memory and reinforces consolidation, while at the same time, the discovery of breaking new ground avoids boredom as each level delves deeper.

Learning is constantly contextualised because the learner is in direct and constant contact with the point of reference, the self, and the destination, survival and flourishing. The subject matter is therefore personal and anchored in the familiar.

The Qwisp® Map has a specific goal, and that is to lead learners through a thought sequence that will bring them to understanding who they are, what is around them, how they fit into the world, how to survive with responsibility and the consequences of mindfulness or the lack thereof.

The route itself contains our sense of purpose and is a constant reminder of the value of our journey and our destination in the learning process.

We are drawn by nature into a quest for survival and so by default the learner is drawn into this learning process on spontaneous, non-didactic terms. They are led by questions that could lead them into a knock-on chain of their own questions which become their own knowledge base.

The substructure of the Qwisp® Map is a pattern in itself, a sequence of thoughts. Patterns emerge from this as learning mechanisms and awaken an awareness of the planet as being an interconnected mass of patterns that together form an enormous ecosystem of which we are a part. 

This curriculum leads the learner from the simple to the complex by starting with the concrete building blocks of science and seamlessly slipping into the abstract and so into the conventional subjects of the sciences. 

When patterns start to emerge from the building blocks their value as learning mechanisms become apparent and are put to good use by Qwisp: building blocks create patterns, patterns create matter and patterns are the basis of natural cycles and life cycles and ultimately explain the ecosystem through their interconnectedness and their interdependence.

The Qwisp Map® triggers a network of study topics and lessons, providing leads, more questions and points of debate, multiple options and possible solutions and answers. All of these combined create a learning journey where learners are led through a thought sequence from which the lessons or research possibilities emanate and inspire philosophical contemplation.

The perfect learning partner for this scenario is the internet as it enables independent study at the learner’s own pace.

Although Qwisp® does not teach reading, writing and arithmetic, it can be used as a significant inspiration for mastering these skills.

Qwisp® presents a proposal for one tool, in the form of a specifically designed Qwisp Map® that embraces all of the above concepts. It puts ‘self’ at the centre of learning and yet, it is globally applicable. The learner knows and is contained by the purpose and direction of the learning process from an early age.