The Battle between #TVOH and @musjes

"During the repetition I forgot the first sentence of my own talk, is someone interested in taking over my spot at TEDxDelft?". This was tweeted today by Musetta Blaauw (@musjes) and gives you an indication about how she's feeling on the rehearsal day of TEDxDelft. Musetta Blaauw will be creating history as a speaker at TEDxDelft  tomorrow from 10:18h till 10:30h.

As a prelude to TEDxDelft I want to share with you the sincere Twinterview (Twitter+Interview) I had with Musetta on Friday the 14th of October. This was "cleverly" planned to start at 20.30h, which is exactly the same time as The Voice of Holland (TVOH) starts on rtl4 ;-)

I was really grateful that Musetta wanted to make time to cooperate with my request of interviewing her via Twitter. During the interview, and also when evaluating how it went afterwards, I perceived the openness in her answers which made the Twinterview an exceptionally genuine and honest online conversation. You can read below the entire Twinterview extracted from Twitter, based on the hashtag #TEDmus. 

The Twinterview took place in Dutch, and I will place it here in Dutch as I think that a lot of meaning is otherwise lost in translation.

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Vrijdagavond 20.30 uur. Tijd voor een Twinterview met TEDxDelft spreker Musetta Blaauw!

Zit je er helemaal klaar voor @musjes?

Helemaal klaar! Kom maar door en let niet op de spelfouten :)

Fijn! Dan gaan we meteen van start met de 1e vraag! (en ik zal niet doen op de spelfouten letten)

Via je blogs las ik over de heftige periode die jij en je gezin hebben doorgemaakt. Is er inmiddels weer wat rust in je gezin?

Echt rust met 3 kleine kinderen heb je in een gezin nooit, maar we hebben wel alles weer goed op de rails.

Ik kan me voorstellen dat de operatie op 23 april 2010 waarbij je baarmoeder is verwijderd erg emotioneel was. Hoe voel je je daar nu over?

Het is inmiddels bijna 1,5jr geleden, maar ik denk er nog regelmatig aan. Niet zozeer de operatie zelf, maar wel aan de gevolgen die het had voor mij, mijn gezin en de dromen die we hadden.

Dit was vast ook een heftige periode voor je gezin. Wat hebben je kinderen er van meegekregen?

Ze hebben alles meegekregen. We zijn er, ook naar hen, heel open over geweest. Wat er was gebeurt en wat voor gevolgen dat ook voor hen had. Ze hebben er elk op hun eigen manier hun emoties rond gehad...

Een van de gevolgen van de operatie was natuurlijk dat jullie droom voor een 4e kindje jullie werd 'ontnomen'. Deze 4e kinderwens lijkt nu heel centraal te staan in jullie leven. Klopt dat?

Tis een van de dingen waar we meebezig zijn. Tis niet overheersend, alhoewel dat van buitenaf wel zo kan lijken. We proberen onze hele toekomst in te richten: verhuizen, ontplooiing op werkgebied en ook ontplooiing van ons gezin. Dat laatste gaat het minst gemakkelijk :)

Waar komt de wens van jou en @hotzki voor een vierde kindje/groot gezin eigenlijk vandaan?

Tja, waar komt een kinderwens vandaan... geen idee. Het komt van diep van binnen of het puntje van onze tenen... Als we kijken naar onze kinderen dan beseffen we ons dat we zo gelukkig zijn met hen en dat er nog ruimte in huis en hart is voor nog zo'n geweldige gup. Of misschien wel 2 of 3. geen idee... 

Is dat hetzelfde gevoel als de kinderwens bij je eerste kind?

het gevoel is sterker dan mijn wens bij de eerste. Ik weet nu hoe t voelt om moeder te worden, hoe het voelt om je kindje te leren kennen en hoe het is om samen met hem/haar de wereld te ontdekken. En elk kind ontdekt weer anders en maakt je een ander soort ouder. Elk kind laat je weer nieuwe dingen zien van de wereld, leert je nieuwe dingen over jezelf.

 

Mooi beschreven. Bijzonder ook om te lezen dat je kinderwens nu sterker is dan bij de 1e. Komt dat ook doordat het nu lastiger is dan bij de 1e?

Bij de eerste wisten we niet of het ooit zou lukken, maar we hadden wel goede hoop. Nu zijn we eigenlijk officieel al afgeschreven om ooit die wens in vervulling te zien gaan. Kans is vele malen groter dat het niet lukt dan wel. Dat maakt de wens niet groter, maar vraagt wel meer volhardendheid. We worden meer aangevallen op onze keuzes en dat maakt ook dat we veel bewuster bezig zijn met nadenken wat we doen, welke stappen we zetten en hoe we dat naar buiten brengen.

Via je blogs heb ik gelezen dat jullie de wens voor een 4e kindje proberen te vervullen door middel van draagmoederschap. Wat als het nou niet lukt om op deze manier een 4e kindje te krijgen, zou adoptie dan een optie voor jullie zijn?

Adoptie is een optie die we ook hebben proberen te doorvoelen. Maar er zitten nogal wat haken en ogen aan adoptie en dan spelen er ook meer belangen dan alleen 'mijn' wens. Ook belangen van bijv. onze andere kinderen spelen dan een grote rol. Gezien de lengte van procedure, leeftijd van mijn man etc. zouden we waarschijnlijk alleen in aanmerking komen voor een kindje van ouder dan 3 jaar. Hoe ouder het kindje hoe groter de kans is op een onveilige hechting en daar zouden de andere kinderen de dupe van worden. Op dat moment moet ik eerst voor mijn 3 kids kiezen en heeft de wens 't nakijken.

Tja, dat zijn goede argumenten inderdaad. Lijkt me een lastig dilemma, draagmoederschap versus adoptie.

Je bent een voorstander van langvoeden, thuisonderwijs, en je bent het traject van draagmoederschap ingegaan. Dit zijn over het algemeen geen gangbare standpunten in onze maatschappij. Zie je jezelf als een controversieel persoon?

Ik ben geen 'voorstander' van thuisonderwijs of lang borstvoeding geven, maar ik kies ze wel voor mijn eigen kinderen. Ik ben vooral een voorstander van eigen keuzes maken, gedreven door wat voor jou goed voelt en bij jou en je gezin past en daar vloeien deze 'controversiele keuzes' uit voort. Ze passen bij mij, mijn gezin en ze voelen goed. Wij worden gelukkiger als we deze weg volgen in plaats van de weg die de grote massa volgt. 

Ik begrijp wat je bedoelt. Het is inderdaad belangrijk om je hart te volgen en je eigen pad te kiezen.

Online ben je erg open over alles wat je mee maakt en de keuzes je maakt. Wat wil je hiermee uitdragen?

Ik wil er niet perse iets uitdragen. Wil vooral mijn eigen weg volgen en daar, net als iedereen open over kunnen zijn, ook al roept het controverse op of weerstand. Het is mijn leven en ik geloof erin en dat hoort bij mij, dus schaam me er niet voor. En dus ben ik er net zo open over als ik ben over de 'gewone' dingen die wij doen.

Het TEDxDelft event op 7/11 komt al erg dicht bij, nog 3 weekjes. Ben je er al helemaal klaar voor? Is je TED-talk al af?

De TEDtalk is in concept af, maar de ontwikkelingen op dit vlak liggen niet stil, dus zit nog af en toe te sleutelen... Ik heb vandaag de aula gezien en dat is nog wel ff slikken grotezaal. Dus nee, ben nog niet klaar, maar heb ook nog 3wk.

Nog een laatste vraag. Heb je al vaker een presentatie voor zo’n groot publiek gegeven? Ben je er zenuwachtig voor?

Ik heb wel vaker voor publiek gestaan, maar 900 mensen nooit op deze manier, in mijn uppie op een podium. En ja, daar ben ik best zenuwachtig voor. Het is toch een heel persoonlijk verhaal dat ik ga vertellen aan 900 wildvreemden.

Kan ik me voorstellen! Maar ik denk dat het een erg bijzondere TED-talk wordt! Ik kijk er erg naar uit en wens je heel veel succes! 
Dank je... ik ga mijn best doen :) 

Ongelooflijk dat we bijna een uur hebben volgemaakt! Ontzettend bedankt voor je openhartigheid! Nu lekker TVOH kijken ;-) 

Graag gedaan! Veel plezier :) Ik volg geen TVOH, maar lees elke week op twitter dat ik vanalles mis :)  

Deze blogpost vind je ook hier.

Twinterview with Musetta Blaauw!

Musetta Blaauw is a mother of three children and had planned to have a fourth child. Unfortunately, last year she lost her uterus during a life saving operation. Her child wish, however, has not vanished. Will she choose the path of accepting that a fourth child is no longer an option or will she be able to create an opportunity to have the family with four children she always dreamed of. On November the 7th Musetta Blaauw is a speaker at the TEDxDelft event, which is promising to be a mind blowing event! Read more about Musetta Blaauw in this previous TEDxDelft blog post I wrote.

On friday October the 14th at 20.30h, Musetta will give a live-interview via Twitter (aka Twinterview). A unique opportunity of getting to know Musetta a bit better before attending her TEDxDelft talk on November the 7th! So, if you have a question for Musetta this is your chance! Send the question(s) that you have via DM to @Sprankels or via e-mail to sprankels@hotmail.nl. You can find Musetta on Twitter as @musjes and you can follow the Twinterview via #TEDmus.

Deze blog post vind je ook hier. 

Update: The Twinterview with Musetta Blaauw can be found here.

The story of a child wish without a uterus

Her name is Musetta Blaauw. On Twitter she is known as @musjes. Born in 1983 and currently living in The Hague. She is in love with @hotzki and they have three kids together. On September the 12th the organization of TEDxDelft happily announced Musetta as a speaker on their event this November the 7th in the mensa of the TU Delft. See the image below.

What? Uterus removed? Trying for a fourth child? What happened to this woman? Why was her uterus removed? And more peculiarly, how will she be giving birth to a child without a uterus? Will this be the topic of her TED-talk? All these (and more) questions came to my mind when I read this tweet. And I guess similar questions probably popped up in your mind as well.  

On April the 23^rd of 2010 Musetta experienced a personal tragedy. Eight days after giving birth to her third child she lost her uterus in a surgery trying to save her life. Subsequently, Musetta and her husband were in grief for the large family they would never have. However, their shattered dream unexpectedly became real again when a friend offered to be a surrogate mother for their fourth child. Musetta and her husband gratefully accepted this proposal and decided to jump in and start a new adventure to have another child to complete their family.

I started following Musetta via Twitter and discovered that she is a very active online personality. She is the owner of several blogs and web shops aimed at (future) mothers. One of the blogs that specifically caught my eye is 'Draagmoederschap' which tells "the story of a child wish without a uterus". This blog functions as a diary for Musetta, her husband, and the surrogate mother. Via this personal blog these three persons shared their exceptionally intimate story online.

The blog of these three persons started in August 2010 with a short blog post to announce the beginning of their journey. It takes you through the entire process that these three persons have gone trough. A process full of hospital visits, research into juridical aspects (Musetta and her husband even got divorced to be able to eventually get custody of the child when it is born!), dealing with judgments of others (even doctors), disappointments when hospitals decline to help (no Dutch hospitals were willing to help, and they eventually ended up in Riga for the procedure), periods of waiting on doctors to give answers, and alternating emotions of grief and frustration but also of joy and love. The blog ended exactly one year later in August 2011 with the announcement that the process of gestational surrogacy had not been successful and it would not be continued due to personal disagreement between Musetta and the surrogate mother.

It struck me that the blog posts about this sensitive process of gestational surrogacy were written so openly, despite the fact that this is a taboo subject for many people. I would like to express my respect for both Musetta and the surrogate mother for telling their exceptional story in the open. This was probably not always an easy path to follow. Both intended mother as well as the prospective surrogate mother indeed indicated in separate blog posts (here and here) that almost everybody seems to feel the need to express a judgment about their situation. Not only people from their direct environment but also complete strangers who come across their story and also a doctor from a Dutch hospital who does not want to treat them because they already have three children. Therefore they explicitly displayed the wish to be addressed respectfully by others, although they might not understand their choices, to prevent more hurt and confusion in the already delicate situation they are in.

Already curious to listen to Musetta’s talk at TEDxDelft? I can tell you for sure that I am! What will she be speaking about in the short time (only 12 minutes) that she has for her talk? Will it be as personal and intimate as her blog? Will it make you understand her choices or the sudden ending of the journey they started last year? Come and find out and register here for TEDxDelft! Read here already some thoughts of Musetta about her TED-talk. 

Deze blog post vind je ook hier.

TEDxDelft Biografie

A Sparkling Dream School

This November Marcel Kampman is a speaker at TEDxDelft. His TED-talk will be about Project Dreamschool, of which he is the founder and creative organizer. Project Dreamschool is based on the ambitious dream to create the best school of the Netherlands (or maybe even of the world!). As I found this idea so intriguing, I performed an online search to learn what this project is all about. 

How it all started

The project started when Marcel Kampman met Peter Visser, a school principal of the secondary school Stad en Esch in Meppel. Peter Visser told Marcel that he wanted to build a new school in which personally customized education for secondary school kids is possible. Marcel Kampman (who also lives in Meppel) became intrigued by Peter and his visionary ideas and he decided to help him to achieve this amazing goal; the creation of a dream school before 2014.

'Dream school ingredients'

Aspects that need to be thought through, discussed about, and decided upon to create a dream school are various and range from large-scale elements to small details. First of all, you have to consider how education will take place, which methods should be used, what will the curriculum look like and what is the role of the teachers. Specifally, how do you build a school system around the uniqueness of each child with his/her own needs and dreams. Then there is the building, what will it look like and where should it be build. Other aspects to consider are for example the role of technology, computers, sports, music, creativity, play and games, etcetera. And you can probably think of many more features to add to this roughly sketched list of aspects to reflect upon.

Time for the Kick Off!

To get the project up and running, a kick-of meeting was organized (april 2010). In this gathering 22 people from different backgrounds joined; among which were education professionals, designers, strategists, representatives from from the city of Meppel, teachers, students, and parents. And also Sir Ken Robinson joined the discussion via Skype! Here you can read a report of this successful meeting and view some pictures. Also, below you can view a video impression.

Accomplished until now.

Here is what I found in my online search on the progress of Project Dreamschool. A Project Dreamschool website was launched in English and in Dutch where everybody can post their ideas on what a dream school is on colorful post-it notes. Also school cahier journals made from recycled paper are now available. To me this seems, however, a bit of a detail to take care of when you are creating an entire dream school? But hey, when you are creating ideas and brainstorming you need paper to document, right? ;-) 

Further Marcel Kampman gave a talk about Project Dreamschool on the Lift Conference 2011. Interesting in this talk is the concept of ‘the dream gap’. When children go to school at age of 4 years their creativity level is 98% and all their choices and dreams about what they want to become and want to do in life are still open. When they become 22 years old and finish their studies only 2% of creativity is left and because so many choices had to be made in the current educational system a lot of career paths have been limited. This is called the education waterfall. Essentially the space between the full potential and the waterfall is called the dream gap, which Project Dreamschool obtains to close. Below you can watch the Lift-Talk of Marcel Kampman. 

What are your ideas?

So, what are your ideas? What is your dream school? Would you prefer a transparent school building with large glass windows? Do you want music and drama to have a more prominent place in the curriculum? Would you want to be a teacher or student of the future dream school? Do you have inspirational ideas on learning methods that should be used or how the canteen should look like and what food & drinks should be served? And what about children with special needs or contacts with educational psychologists or other specialists? Leave a message on this blog, write it on a post-it on the dreamschool website, or register for TEDxDelft talk and join the TED-talk of Marcel Kampman! 

Deze blog post vind je ook hier.

 

Who is Ted?

On the 7th of November the city of Delft will be the stage for the amazing event TEDxDelft which will be creating history! Furthermore, I am very excited to write to you that I will be blogging about this event from now untill the start of it. Some of you are already aware of this exciting event, some of you will hear about this for the first time and will be thinking, “Wow, that is awesome! That’s an event I don’t want to miss!”, and some of you will think something like: “What? Ted? Who the f* is Ted? What is she talking about?”. For the last group of readers of this blog - and of course for everybody else who's interested - first some basic info on what TEDx and TEDxDelft is all about!

TEDx is not the name of a person but it is a conference devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’. Speakers on the event came initially from the fields of expertise of Technology, Entertainment and Design (=TED). But since the start of TED in 1984 the topics of the talks became more and more diverse. Currently, TEDx gives fascinating thinkers and doers from all sorts of area's the stage to give the talk of their lives. TEDx events are locally organized events filled with creative, eye opening, surprising, or mind-blowing talks by inspiring speakers. In this way TEDx brings people together to share, listen to, and discuss about TEDx-talks presented live by invited speakers or watched via video. The x in TEDx represents that the events are independently organized.

TED talks can be about various topics, but a topic of some great TEDx talks that specifically appeals to me is ‘the future of education’. My interest arises from my study in educational sciences but also because it concerns the future of my daughter, who will attend primary school in a few years. Speakers who have presented talks on this significant topic are for example, Sugata Mitra, Ken Robinson, and Dan Meyer. Note that below this blog you can find more links to inspiring TEDx videos on education and teaching. Someone who will soon join this group of TEDx speakers is Marcel Kampman, who will present a talk at TEDxDelft about his self-initiated project named ‘project dreamschool’.  

Marcel Kampman

Kampman is a father of two and calls himself an independent directive creator on LinkedIn and a professional pancake on Twitter. His interests range from idea generation, concept development, new technology, to cooking and self-initiated projects. One of these self-initiated projects is his ‘project dreamschool’ in which the question "What if you could reinvent a school from scratch?" plays the keyrole. When you start thinking about this you naturally arrive at questions such as: What would the building look like? What learning methods will you use? Who will the teachers be? Which technology and ICT will be applied? These questions will be discussed in the light of the newest educational insights and trends. Subsequently, the formulated answers will form a solid foundation to design the ideal secondary school of the Netherlands, or maybe even of the world. The first dream school is planned to arise in Meppel in 2013. 

Before I learnt that Marcel Kampman would be a speaker at TEDxDelft, I had never heard of him nor from his project dream school. After discovering what it was all about I found the ideas behind the project very intriguing. And now I am actually really curious to learn more about the project in detail and to see how this project eventually will work out. As you can imagine, I am really excited to be blogging about project dreamschool, Marcel Kampman and TEDxDelft!

Great TEDx talks on education and teaching

- Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
- Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
- Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computer
- Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together
- Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slums
- Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education
- Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
- Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
- Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, two years on
 
* See also the website of EmergingEdTech