TOC for Education, including classes of Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone and afternoon workshops in the educational centre TOC Pracownia, begins operations at the beginning of September 2015 at Olivia Business Centre. In the full-day educational space, specialist personnel will teach independent thinking and specific competences.
The Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone is a response to gaps in the traditional model of education which is becoming more distant from the needs of today’s world and new working environments. Specialist knowledge is rarely accompanied by competences – students aren’t able to think independently, reach beyond schemes, they have little entrepreneurial spirit and little creativity.
The Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone is an initiative of a team of 16 persons – teachers, psychologists and educators. They are parents of teenagers who see the weaknesses of the traditional educational model and in exchange propose an innovative educational space from morning till evening.
The students of the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone will be able to develop their competences as maybe required to function in the 21st century, such as critical thinking, creativity, initiative and responsibility, entrepreneurship and team and project work skills.
To this end, the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone will apply modern educational methods, e.g. tools of critical thinking TOC, gamification or flipped learning. Many classes will be held outside the school and within projects with foreign schools from Europe (United Kingdom) and South America (Peru, Mexico).
Starting on 1 September 2015, regular classes at the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone will be held between 9 am and 3.30 pm at O4 (Olivia Four building). The classes will have no more than 18 students.
„We have decided to create the educational space at Olivia Business Centre, the office complex that has been developing as dynamically as the world today”, says Maciej Winiarek, a co-founder of the Thinking Zone. “Free space, no desks or blackboard, lost of multimedia and even a scientific laboratory – an ideal place for such an innovative project. We also appreciate easy access to young entrepreneurs working in start-ups and micro enterprises with O4 and the Business Link Trójmiasto. We wish to address our afternoon classes also to them.
Apart from the school, TOC for Education opens an afternoon (4 pm – 8 pm) educational centre TOC Pracownia. The main objective is to develop interests of young people with theatrical, photographic, journalistic, entrepreneurial, mediation, philosophy workshops and many more.
„Education is one the four program pillars of the O4 innovation development space”, says Tomasz Woźniak, Chief Innovation Officer at Olivia Business Centre. “So we are very happy that we have established collaboration with TOC for Education. Its educational offer will be a great supplement to our existing program of training and conferences. Benefits will be available to OBC Residents as well as the young people from the Tricity who will be offered a valuable educational alternative”.
Open classes at the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone
What the classes are like at the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone you can find out for yourself during open classes planned for 18 September. On that day, students, parents and all those who may be interested will be presented what modern education is like and the differences between the Thinking Zone and the traditional school.
More information on the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone and educational centre TOC Pracownia at www.thinkingzone.pl
TOC for Education
TOC for Education is the only representative of the US TOCFE Foundation operating in Poland since 2006; its aim is to propagate the use of TOC tools (Theory of Constraints) in education. Within its operations at Olivia Business Centre, TOC for Education conducts the activity of the Non-Public Junior High School Thinking Zone, the first school in Poland fully sponsored by TOC and the educational centre TOC Pracownia, developing competences of people irrespective of their age and profession.
More on O4 and Business Link Trójmiasto
O4 is a space for innovation development dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, set up jointly by the Gdańsk Global Foundation and Olivia Business Centre. Now about 150 people from 25 companies work there. O4 is located on the ground floor and the first floor of the Olivia Four building. On the ground floor there is a multimedia conference centre while on the first floor there is various office space, co-working space and a social part. Soon O4 will be extended by another floor reaching the total floor space of 3 000 square metres. In its program the project relies on four pillars – support to companies in the areas of: financing, internationalisation, ongoing adjustment of office space (Smart Space) and effective education.
Business Link Trójmiasto – a branch of a national network of entrepreneurship accelerators, located in the Olivia Gate building at Olivia Business Centre. Membership in BL provided round the clock access to 10 branches, unlimited co-working, a virtual address as well as access to training, business mentoring and networking events
