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Despite the useful tools and resources now made available, the role of educator as a

 

Catalyst of associations needs community support. In this New Paradigm where

 

identification, assimilation and proliferation of new knowledge are pivotal to nurturing

 

grass-roots creativity and invention towards innovation, the educator needs

 

supportive policies to set expectations about the shift in emphasis of their role from

 

being data and information conduits, to working with students as individuals helping

 

to customize learning, assessments of progress, and provide more philosophical

 

foundations that enable the student to set appropriate boundaries and become actors

 

within the interconnectedness of their learning and their communities. As part of this

 

catalyst function the educators have also a mentoring and leadership roles.

 

 

This new role requires leadership training, a foundation in ethics and philosophy,

 

community relations education and facilitation skills that extend cross-cultural

 

boundaries to equip the educator for their role in global knowledge and relationships

 

sharing. “Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’ame” – François Rabelais.

 

 

One domain where the issues of interconnectedness, learning, and innovation must be

 

managed more expeditiously is public health.  The gap between technological

 

innovation and social elements (i.e. culture, politics, law) is becoming untenable in

 

terms of the effectiveness of politics. And the question then becomes: is there a new

 

operating model that is made possible with the help of educators?

 

 

Educators, because of their daily work with students, have an opportunity to enable

 

structural coupling (Maturana and Varela, 75) rivaled by perhaps only the television.

 

Might this offer the possibility of instilling a set of operating principles within students

 

that enable our next generation to move with a higher velocity while protecting the

 

concerns of the community? And if so, how do these operating principles get decided?

 

And how do you manage the local and/or global development of these operating

 

principles? The challenge with this question is: what we mean by community, do we

 

mean geographic community, national virtual or multiple communities that we are all

 

a part! The definition of our sense and need for belonging is at stake.