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.