Building human capital - Strengthening the Spark!

Dear colleagues and friends,

I’m here on a call to invest in human capital.

I’ve been to a conference about human capital at The Mofet Institute for Research and Development in Education.

I thought the conference would be about building students’ human capital, yet it was about teachers. Indeed, an important issue, as well. Do you have a human resources representative in your school to take care of teachers?

I got immersed in Dr. Shlomit Kaminka’s talk. She is the mother of Human Resources in Israel. She presented a pyramid model for building human capital. At the basis is personal and occupational safety. Going up the scale is physical and mental health. Then relationships, followed by personal and career development. And at the top – meaning!

I would like to suggest that meaning should be at the basis. Everything grows from it. I asked the CEO of the Education Department, Meir Shimoni: “If a teacher fosters students’ creativity, does that give the educator meaning?”. He replied: “Of course!”.

You see, this is what we should start with. If we’d wait until all the stages in the pyramid are fulfilled to get to ‘meaning’, we might never reach it. Meaning drives it all.

I later realized that I mixed 'human capital' with 'cultural capital'. A quick Google search taught me that human capital is a term financially related. Yet, if we take from ‘cultural capital’ the concept of assets the students gain through years of nurture, add it to ‘human capital’, then agency grows by learning about the world while building inner worlds. That could enhance financial advantage. Yet, social and personal advantages, as well. First, school, then the world. Meaning toward balanced fulfilled life in the middle.

The human intelligence is the capital!

So, yes, when we grow out of our comfort zone, try out creative, communicative and caring teaching strategies, we invest in our own human capital, and that of the students.

I know that problems employing such a craft may come about. Yet we have a strategy to tackle them: The 5 E’s – Explore, Experience, Examine, Elevate, Express.

We explore the problem, experience with 4 solutions - try to develop them in the directions

of the Star-Compass-Heart. Examine what the results might be. Choose the solution that is the most applicable and relevant to our initial problem, or to how we see it after having thought it through. Then express inspiring teaching based on the one elevated solution.

How do we build human capital? Well, we can promote it. Yet, it comes from within. See this article’s painting? One of the ladies has balance yet in an uncomfortable way. Her fan of air and life is small. Her throat is thick with overload.

The fluent woman has a sunshine fan. She lends a hand to the stagnant woman, the other side of her own self.

Two Sides of Herself by Michelle Korenfeld (C)

Learn more about my SPARK program for communicative, caring & creative teaching: 50 rich learning units based on my books, 25 classroom tools, 15 group sessions and 4 personal consultations.

The program includes resources by which students learn about the world without noticing, nurturing a rich inner core. Teachers will outline their personal continuing path to professional development, gaining assets continuously. Let me lend you a hand. Or should I say, lend yourself a hand!

For Israeli English teachers the PD, units, tools, group sessions and personal consultations, are available as Gefen programs, as a holistic package, or per your request: 54003 (Primary), 55484 (Junior High, High School).

Good luck, Michelle Korenfeld - Helping educators spark communicative, caring, creative literacy. Raising Creative Thinkers!

Michelle Korenfeld's website Raising Creative Thinkers logo. Click the image to visit!