thinkined.com blog

Thinkin, Interrupted

8/20/2018

On Labour Day weekend, we’re heading back to MacDonald House for another fabulous popup exhibit – where we'll reconnect to familiar places and faces and welcome the new and the novel. Here's a little insight as to where our hearts and minds are at, as we launch this final exhibit in our popup series:

Summer exhibits are “our favourite and our best”
We love to quote Charlie and Lola when we think about imagination and creativity. There’s a playfulness to the way they express themselves that we believe belongs in education and our daily lives. It doesn’t matter how old you get, it’s never not ever too late to reconnect to your inner child!

People can do really anything, we think.
Part of the magic of a popup exhibit is the people who gather. We sneak wonder and intrigue into our promotional language to capture the attention of anyone who’s ready to challenge their thinking or try something different. Then we stand back and witness this incredible dynamic unfold – young children, teens, parents, elderly, students, educators – all with unique and diverse perspectives, skills, and abilities, exploring and experimenting side-by-side. It’s something we will always treasure because it leads to wonder and discovery and memorable moments that, when we slow down and look closely enough, remind us that people are kind and honest and work ever so well together.

Timing is really, very much everything
The last week of summer and Labour Day weekend is a busy time for everyone – educators are busy planning, setting up, organizing; families are shopping, arranging, confirming. It sounds counter-intuitive to host an exhibit just as the flexibility of summer gives way to the routine habits of fall. But it’s actually the perfect time to freeze and reframe. Our summer popup exhibits invite you to stop and breathe amidst the chaos of transition. Come for an hour or stay for a day (or two, or three). Either way, the time you spend interacting with creative materials and ideas will fortify your reserves, strengthen your relationships, and energize you for the work ahead.

The stories are especially special
We’ll be honest here, we’ve only just recently recognized that we haven’t properly honoured the stories that emerge from our popup exhibits. Everything we do, see, touch; everything we experience individually and together – is part of the narrative of our lives. When we used to look back at our exhibits, we would see them as distinct, one-of-a-kind entities, connected over time. We would let the stories bubble to the surface, touch us deeply, then fade away. But now that we’ve begun to reconfigure our thinking, we can see our exhibits differently – each one, part of a greater whole, evolving over time. Story is the thread that binds them together and creates a sense of continuity. And continuity is something deeply missing in our schools, our work, and our communities. When we value continuity, we value our selves. So, join us for this retrospective popup exhibit and become part of the greater story.

Never, not ever now
There is a sweet spot that exists between the familiar and the novel; a fine balance between comfort and discomfort; a space between what you thought you knew and believed, and what you now know and believe. We originally planned to call this exhibit Never, Not Ever Now – not just as a nod to Charlie and Lola, or that sweet spot between the old and the new, but as a recognition that what we do in the here and now is not an isolated thing – it’s deeply connected to the past and the future. It is never just about what we can teach or learn now. Now is a transient moment that exists between two ‘thens’. If you’ve always wanted to attend a popup exhibit but it’s never, not ever been the right time, we’ll let you in on a little secret – this could be your last chance. Because this exhibit is shaping up to be the final bow of our super-popular exhibit series.

Our ethics are slightly askew
Children are born to learn. But there’s a paradox built into their wiring. They have an innate drive to follow their curiosities, copy and imitate, fail repeatedly, test and experiment, and yet, research shows they cannot thrive without us – without the guidance of family, community, a loving touch. Parenting and education are slightly in desperate need of an ethical compass – a ‘First, Do No Harm’ mantra. It’s about our real and perceived obligations to teach our children and ourselves. We absolutely, most definitely need to re-acquaint ourselves with the way children bombard us with questions; the way they jumble words together to create new ones; the way they think in metaphor. One of the books that has inspired us during our research for this exhibit is A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger.

We’ve come to realize that we need to ask ourselves more beautiful questions, like: If we’re born to inquiry, then why must we be taught? Is it possible to figure out what people know without testing them? How do we distinguish between what’s true and what's false? And is there a different question I should be asking? This exhibit, more than any other, is about questions. It’s about being courageous and bold enough to make mistakes and challenge our beliefs. We’re drawn to the extreme absolutes of language in the Charlie and Lola books because they underscore the message that things are only impossible until they are inevitable.

We completely must interrupt ourselves
When we say “we interrupt your regular summer programming to bring you this exhibit” we mean we’re hitting the pause button on what you’ve come to expect from us. We’re not sure yet what it will look like as we reconfigure ThinkinEd. It might mean letting go of some of the services we currently offer so we can dedicate more time to honouring our research and sharing our discoveries in new and exciting ways. To re-con-figure something is to look back with a sense of undoing – together – to create a new shape that is ready to use. We are completely very ready to Reconfigure our thinking into something new. And we hope you are, too! ❤︎

>> visit the Reconfigure exhibit page

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Going to the Source

2/18/2018

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In a few weeks we’ll be joining a cohort of 150 Canadian educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy, for a study week organized by the Ontario Reggio Association. Si, andiamo in Italia! We are beyond excited to immerse ourselves in this incredible learning opportunity, and to visit Italy! Previous participants have described the study week as a personally and professionally transformative experience. Over the years we, too, have become intrigued and inspired by the Reggio approach and believe going straight to the source – to listen, observe, think deeply, and ask questions – will play a vital role in extending our own theories as educators.

We recognize that going to the source may confirm our long held beliefs about the competencies of children, but we also know that going to the source could have very different consequences. We run the risk of colliding with ideas that may undermine our beliefs about the power of loose parts. We both recognize that our upcoming visit to Reggio has the potential to propel our thinking forward; or (gasp) debunk some of our current thinking and practice; or possibly both! The closer we get to Italy the more apprehensive we become about the whole thing. What if visiting Reggio upends what we currently believe about how we live and learn? What if it changes everything… or changes nothing. What if it launches the two of us onto divergent trajectories? And what if the rave reviews have set the bar so high, we come home disappointed? These are all very real possibilities, and we’re doing our best to embrace the uncertainty.

Since we value the documentation process, we feel compelled to mark our pre-Reggio thinking so we'll have a barometer for reflection upon our return.

What we think we know right now:

We believe in the power of community-building. At first glance, it may seem as though we are an educational company focused entirely on loose parts. However, beneath the surface, building community is at the heart of everything we do. Community is woven into the texture of every popup, thinkshop, and exhibit we design, and every partnership and project we embrace. This affinity for community-building developed over time for us – through extensive research, trial & error, reflection, and intuition. Community-building is our compassionate response to the cultural, political, and emotional distress of the current education system. Years of interactions with children and adults, materials and spaces, have taught us that community-building supports the values of respect, trust and care – for ourselves, for each other, for materials, and the natural world.

We have come to understand that nature informs human nature. The more time we spend in Forest School environments with children and educators, the deeper this idea permeates our thinking. So we look for ways to encourage people to learn in, from, and with nature.

We believe there is inherent wisdom in materials and that loose parts can help us make meaning of our world, explore relationships, and express our theories more effectively. We've found that Loose Parts have the capacity to evoke memory and provoke critical and creative thinking.

We are committed to the idea of sustainable thinking. As parents and educators, we're deeply concerned with the level of consumption in our world – especially in education. To that end, we challenge people to extend the life of materials by making intentional choices and keeping loose parts, well, loose!

We are convinced that the power of giving can transform our relationships and communities. We are so passionate about this topic, we've created Give Junkie to help put materials into the hands of students and educators. By creating a closed loop where individuals and businesses donate materials, we can provide much needed resources for learning spaces and reduce the burden of waste in our communities.

So there you have it. Community-building, the wisdom of materials, sustainable thinking, human nature and the power of giving. That’s where we’re at right now. We’ve lived with these ideas for several years – tweaking our thinking slightly from time to time – but mostly being guided by this compass. Now we are curious to see if our visit to Reggio will lead us towards a major ‘course correction’ or carry us further down our current path. Either way, we sense that visiting Reggio will touch us on a philosophical, intellectual and emotional level. We hope you'll join us in our studio when we return – for a Reggio Reflection Knowledge Swap. There will be so much to process after going to the source and we'll want to share our insights and Reggio discoveries with you! ❤︎

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Moving Beyond the War of Words

11/21/2017

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Over the years, we've been researching, testing and refining our understanding of the intersections between play, learning, creativity and innovation. We have done this in large part by listening to a vast collection of voices – from education and psychology to business and culture; from individuals and community members to national and international organizations. We've engaged in conversation with ECEs, private/public school educators, student teachers, administrators, university professors, faith leaders, parents, edu-bloggers, you name it. We're listening, reflecting, and continually evolving our thinking.

That’s why we are taken aback when we come across people – educators or otherwise – who put their ideas into the world without ever inviting feedback or engaging in dialogue. Reflective practice is one of the most valuable parts of our work as educators. Every opportunity to engage in online discussion is an opportunity to work together towards lasting change. When we shut down those lines of communication, we risk locking ourselves into echo chambers of our own beliefs.

We recognize that it’s scary out there. Each time an educator posts their thinking on social media, they risk being chastised, dismissed, or verbally attacked. Time and again, we come across thoughtful questions posted in online discussion groups that devolve into an emotionally charged war of words. Triggers include anything from the wisdom of worksheets to outdoor learning; invitations vs. provocations; rewards and punishments; the value of loose parts; and a whole host of other contentious topics.

The loose parts debate in particular is a biggie for us. We’ve looked very closely at the concept of loose parts – as tools for learning and engagement; as vehicles for memory recall and internalization of skills and knowledge; and as a logical solution to the shortsighted, wasteful, and divisive culture of consumption that exists in education. We’ve spent years testing loose parts – in our own labschool environments with people of all ages, cultures, genders, and economic backgrounds – to develop a deeper understanding of the inherent properties and limitations of materials. We’ve created systems to help manage loose parts in the classroom and reduce our impact on the environment. From our objective position outside of the traditional education system, we work to explore passion projects that support free access to materials for all educators – including the building of shared material libraries and an open marketplace for exchanging materials and ideas.

Our intimate and intense study of loose parts offers us a unique position to speak to The Theory of Loose Parts. We know there are many educators who define loose parts as junk. They insist that loose parts must always be found objects, sourced for free, and made available to children at all times. There are also many educators who believe that loose parts deserve the utmost respect and reverence – the kind usually reserved for expensive treasures and living things. While we certainly lean towards the latter, we recognize the learning value of junk as well. When we come across debates like this, we always look for neutral ground – something we can all agree on before anyone adds their own layers of meaning and interpretation. A key word in the Theory of Loose Parts is “Loose” and so, if we’re looking for neutral ground, we should all be able to agree that materials must remain loose – moveable, unfixed, untethered – to be considered loose parts. This means not permanently marking them with numbers or letters, not altering them with glue or tape or anything else that would impede their ability to remain loose. It also means where they’ve been sourced from – the base of a tree, a store, your grandmother’s basement – is irrelevant. As long as the materials remain loose, they retain their inherent power for exploring curiosity and wonder, for building and debunking theories, for questioning assumptions, developing skills, making meaning, thinking critically, innovating ideas and so much more. This is the higher level thinking we always look for in a learner who is authentically engaged with loose parts.

When purists on both ends of this, or any other discussion, weigh in with their counter-arguments, their extreme positions can create false binaries that effectively shut down the conversation. The message is clear: My theory is right and yours is wrong.

When no one is willing to budge and people become increasingly aggressive online, our social media feeds become flooded with false binaries: believer/disbeliever, Right/Left, right/wrong, junk/treasure, he said/she said. The same polarization that currently grips our politicians, undermines our confidence in science (science!) and drives a wedge between family and friends, exists in education. We don’t know about you, but we’re definitely suffering from IPF (Ideological Polarization Fatigue). Yup, we made that up. But it sure feels real. Polarization places us in sharply contrasting groups when really, we’re all in this together. Polarization threatens our individual and collective ability to poke at the world and confront our biases. It leaves little room for critical thinking; it crushes voice and subtlety. It kicks long range thinking to the curb.

It’s time to lift the chill in the air. It's time to end the War of Words. Our world needs less extremism and more neutral ground – a space where we can all take a deep breath and consider a wider range of possibilities. The space that exists between two extremes is where we actually stand to make some progress. That’s why we are SUPER excited to announce that we will be inhabiting that in-between space with a new online radio show! The podcast is called Beyond Words, and it’s an extension of our Beyond Words exhibit where our research into the power of language literally moved us beyond words. Each week we'll host a live (yikes!) discussion about a word that confounds, frustrates, or inspires us. We'll deconstruct its meaning and origin, chat about its current usage and limitations, and consider how it might look and feel in our learning spaces. We’ll introduce new words we think belong in education – words that have the power to shift our thinking, lift us out of our current fog, and spark a true (r)evolution in education. We hope to challenge your thinking, share some tweetable quotes, and maybe even toss in a few surprise guests. And most importantly, we’ll provide a space to invite feedback from our listeners and keep the dialogue open. We’re incredibly grateful to Stephen Hurley and voicEd.ca for offering us this platform where we can add our voice to redefining education convo. We have no way of knowing where all of this will lead but we invite you to tune in and enjoy the ride!

Got something to say on this topic? We welcome your comments!

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Wisdom Begins with Wonder

8/2/2017

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Four years ago we rented MacDonald House – a beautiful heritage home in Thornhill, which we affectionately refer to as MacHouse. We booked it to host a free popup event to thank the community for supporting us through our first year of business. We didn’t know then just how much this little house would wind its way into our hearts and minds. Indeed it has guided and informed each exhibit we have created ever since. At the time, we were simply delighted to discover MacHouse was once owned by JEH MacDonald, a member of the Group of Seven artists. He painted the famous Tangled Garden, right there on the breathtaking grounds of his home in Thornhill. We were charmed by the magic of the story, the house, and the history. So we built Open House, a memorable exhibit that looked closely at Canada through the lens of the Group of Seven. And we saw what they saw – the unique texture and colours of Canada, the vastness of the land, the power of reflection.

Every year since the Tangled Garden first sparked our curiosity, we’ve returned to MacHouse to create our popup exhibits. Why do we keep coming back to the same place? Why haven’t we booked a new space, in a new location – changed things up a bit? That’s human nature, right? We continuously seek out different places to explore – new places to eat, new places to ski, new beaches, campsites and cities to visit. Our need to explore plays a huge role in the way we inhabit our world – for better or worse. But one of the most important concepts we’ve learned on our Thinkin journey is that there is also value in returning to place. We’ve learned this from returning, not only to MacHouse, but to the same materials, the same forest, the same people. When we visit the same places year after year, we give ourselves the gift of witnessing slow and deliberate changes in nature and landscape. When we visit the same restaurant every year for a family milestone, we give ourselves the gift of familiarity and tradition. When we read the same books to our children again and again, walk the same trails, revisit the same ideas, we give ourselves the gift of story over time.

With Canada celebrating 150 years since confederation this year, all eyes are on our country – and we can feel the story of Canada changing. We feel conflicted about the painfully slow pace of change and yet we are witnessing the resilience of Indigenous cultures and languages. We struggle to define Canadian identity while we welcome new immigrants into the fold; we absentmindedly destroy nature while so many of us are working fiercly to protect it; we try to separate our political views from our southern neighbours and yet we seek to build a global community. Us, them, me, you. Who are we, anyway? What values do we hold close to our hearts? What do we want for our future? What will we accept for now? How can we know where to begin to help or heal without becoming completely overwhelmed by the task?

Four years after our first creative encounters with the Group of Seven at MacHouse, we find ourselves wondering about Canada again. We know more now. And we cannot unknown what we know. This time around, how will our new knowledge and perspectives change what we see when we look closely at Canada? When we look more deeply inside ourselves?

These questions have played a huge role in our lives this summer. We have been ‘on the road’ with the City of Vaughan’s Dream Weaver Project, collecting dreams for Canada’s future from community members of all ages and cultural backgrounds. We’ve also responded to requests to take our Reflections of Canada program on tour – popping up in libraries and community spaces across Ontario. All of the new workshops we had planned for this summer got pushed back to fall – so we could revisit the question of Canada again and again. All roads seem to be pointing us towards a deeper exploration of what Canada means to us and what it means to be Canadian. We don’t have any definitive answers for you but we do have lots of questions. And we suspect you do, too.

So let’s return to MacHouse together. Let’s poke around the rooms, playing with intriguing materials and noticing the sunlight filtering in through the windows. Let’s skip down the winding path and notice the tiny worlds of snails and dragonflies. This one little historic home is alive with story. And it's just one of many. We honour those stories by returning again and again. Canada too is alive with story. And we honour a painful past and a hopeful future by returning to the idea of Canada again and again. Canada awaits our insight and intuition; our stories and our experiences. Let’s cultivate a sense of wonder together, and share the questions and memories and stories that are on our minds. Spending the day at one of our MacHouse exhibits is like a recalibration – aligning and reconnecting us with our core beliefs. We invite you to join us for Oh! Canada? on Labour Day weekend. We cannot know who we really are – what we truly value – until we bump up against the hidden truths and embrace the magnificent gifts of this natural landscape we call home.

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We get to play

2/13/2017

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We like building pop-up exhibits (and by like, we mean love). Don’t get us wrong, we also like the other stuff we do – professional learning, presenting at conferences, building loose parts collections… it’s all good. But the thing we like the very best is building pop-up exhibits. We like it SO much, we block off whole chunks of our calendar twice a year and rearrange/shorten, even (gasp) cancel family vacations. We spend weeks researching an idea across disciplines and industries – planning installations that will maximize creative thinking and engagement for kindergarteners to grandparents and every age in between. We consider multiple entry points, cultural differences, skill levels. We set everything in motion and then we wait – for the dreaded sense of disorientation, the bubbling panic, the looming doubts that hover just beyond our comfort zone. Why the heck would we put ourselves through all this?

Because we get to play.

We get to play with an idea that’s been tugging at the corner of our minds. We get to play with materials in new and unusual ways. We get to play with language and design and unconventional thinking. We give ourselves permission to break rules and make up new ones; to poke at the world without having to meet a list of expectations. And to embrace pure-possibility without worrying about being rated or graded. Giving ourselves permission to play also means we get to experience absolute creative control. We get to follow our instincts and pursue our curiosities. We get to chase adventure and then double back when we find ourselves too far off track. We get to spend hours and hours toying with a thought – flinging it in the air to see how it lands; walking away in a huff to see if it follows; stomping on it ’til it changes shape; gently encouraging it to see if it grows.

When we were kids, our moms used to say “go ahead – scoot, skedaddle.” Translation: GET OUT. Or more precisely, get outside! Go discover the living, breathing world that exists beneath a single rock. Go build an elaborate fort with your friends. Go fall off your bike or skip a rope or stare into space or climb a tree. Go do what you were meant to do.

Right now, it feels like the world is in flux – like it’s spinning out of control and not making sense. It makes us want to skedaddle again, like we did when we were children. It makes us want to contemplate and daydream and question everything – including our own theories about how we live and learn. So we’re circling back…to the Art of Play where we explored the intersection between art, play and nature. To Material World – where we looked closely at the inherent wisdom of materials. To Open House, where we celebrated the joy of open hearts and open minds. We’re revisiting all of our pop-up exhibits to mine them for the visceral moments that led us to our current thinking. And we’re following the trail of Frances and David Hawkin’s Theory of Messing About; David Sobel’s Play Motifs; and Peter Grey’s newly developing Ludic Theory of Human Nature. We’re looking closely at how encounters with nature inform human nature. And we're confronting the intrinsic value of play as an essential source for teaching and learning through authentic experience.

We recently flirted with the power of play at an exhibit we built exclusively for educators in Simcoe County. Now we’re expanding the concept to develop our theories even further. We hope you’ll scoot-skedaddle over to this incredible 2-day pop-up exhibit for children, families and educators on March Break. Join us to discover interactive installations that blend the charm of old-school neighbourhood play with the allure of unconventional thinking. Follow your heart to wonder, curiosity, and adventure. Re-imagine the natural human instinct to get totally, utterly, lost in play! Because when it really comes down to it, you should get to play, too.

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