Welcome to the first post in our Spotlight Series. Each day we’ll feature the language from past Playbill Newsletters, in chronological order, so you can see how our thinking has evolved. We've discovered that we've been blogging all along – we've just been doing it in a different dimension (aka not on our blog) and since our mailing list has been grown over the years, many of you may have missed the earliest posts. By re-sharing them here, we open up 'Our Thinkin' for conversation. We invite you to consider the power of words, then join us to move Beyond Words at our new exhibit, popping up Sep 2-4, 2016.
[ Originally shared Jan 2015 ]
It's Our Birthday
One year into our totally unique, rule-defying, mobile teaching project, here's what we've noticed:
• People are ready for change. We can’t believe how many teachers and students we met this year who are SO READY to breath new life into education. We’ve found these change-ready peeps in the community, at schools, on twitter, they’re everywhere – sharing their ideas with whole-hearted enthusiasm, gobbling up our challenges, and inspiring us to keep pushing the boundaries!
• People are NOT ready for change. Just sayin. Get your feet and heads out of the mud, people (unless it’s the outdoor-learning-kind-of-mud) and face the future! Free yourselves from fear and anxiety about the unknown. The living-loving-learning future has powerful research behind it. Bring the good things with you – nature, common sense, calculated risk. Leave the crap behind! There’s no place for hyper-academic expectations, parental hovering, and misplaced ownership in the future. We’ve spent an entire year honing our radar for change-resistors, and we’re comin’ for you with a rallying cry: EMBRACE CHANGE, PEOPLE! You’re welcome.
• Education is not a war. Early on, we were explaining our services to a teacher who commented: “Don’t you think you should spend 10 years in a classroom first?” Ouch. We’ve met many teachers who share this point of view. We don’t. And here’s why: Education needs to catch up to the speed of now. We need all types of players, voices, and perspectives in education – both formal and informal. We need all kinds of thinkers and doers working together. Formal education is NOT the only source or barometer for knowledge, skills, and ability. Experience comes in multiple forms! We’re pretty sure ten years in the trenches won’t change our contribution to education in a positive way. But the ten years we haven’t spent in the trenches has made it possible for us to boldly test and refine our theories about healthy learning environments. This is where we choose to be – on the cutting edge of universal truths.
• We are all creators. There’s never been a better time to create your own job. Industry cross-over, world-wide access, knowledge-sharing – it’s all right at your fingertips (somewhere between hashtag and smiley face). When we popped-up 'out of nowhere' with ThinkinEd, we called ourselves freelance educators. But we’re more than that. We’re Imagination Gurus! Play-Makers! Architects of Ideas! So that’s what we became – Idea Architects. You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve been asked if we’re hiring, or where to get a degree in Idea Architecture. We don’t hand out degrees, but we do teach children to see themselves as creators, not just consumers. The future is filled with job positions that have yet to be imagined. Go out and create a job for yourself. And maybe someday we won’t be the only Idea Architects for hire!
If this past year is any indication, 2015 promises to be a year filled with creativity and surprises. People often ask us: “If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you get there?” Here’s the thing – it’s not that we don’t know WHERE we’re headed, we’re just comfortable not knowing HOW we’ll get there. Where we’re going is a shape-shifting target anyway – one that gets re-imagined on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. By remaining open to change, we’re living-breathing the very inquiry process we teach! We’re kinda hoping it’s contagious.
See you on the road!
Simone and Aviva
RSS Feed
