Meeting Tomas Björkman, co-author of The Nordic Secret

A couple of weeks ago we met with Tomas Björkman for the first time. Having known him only as the founder of Ekskäret Foundation and the author of Världen vi skapar (The World We Create) and The Nordic Secret (and being Facebook friends) it was great meeting in person. We talked about our common understanding of the needs of society in these turbulent times, and of course we told him more about our vision and plans with Teal School.

Our thoughts resonate well with how Tomas and his co-writer Lene Rachel Andersen explain Bildung in The Nordic Secret:

Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him- or herself ever bigger personal responsibility towards family, friends, fellow citizens, society, humanity, our globe, and the global heritage of our species, while enjoying ever bigger personal, moral and existential freedoms. It is the enculturation and life-long learning that forces us to grow and change, it is existential and emotional depth, it is life-long interaction and struggles with new knowledge, culture, art, science, new perspectives, new people, and new truths, and it is being an active citizen in adulthood. Bildung is a constant process that never ends.

Even though the folk-Bildung that helped create our democratic, innovative nations in the transition to industrialism was aimed at inner growth among young adults, we in Teal School are convinced that this journey of self-development can start early on in life. After all, our emotional, cognitive and moral development start as soon as we start interacting with the world around us.

Another thing we take with us from the meeting is that being a part of a network of likeminded people is important. Working with transformative change is sometimes hard, and it’s nice to have support in different ways. If nothing else, just reading someone else’s article and seeing them draw the same conclusions we did; it empowers.

We hope you find empowerment in what we write and share on social media. We also recommend this website http://www.whatisemerging.com that is sprung out of one of the many innovative projects Tomas has a part in. And the two books mentioned. If you ever get to visit us in our Stockholm Teal School (that we will start in 2021) you will most definitely find these books in our library!

We also recommend this TedxBerlin talk where Tomas talks about The Nordic secret:

Let’s talk soon. Please join our Slack account!