CHANGEd: What if we designed and experimented more in schools? 60-60-60 #20

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On March 21, I attended the magical Trinity Musical Gala (also see here). Among the feast was an iPad concerto and a dance troupe debut. AMAZING!

Last Friday, I participated in MVPS’s Design Thinking Summit. After interviewing students for precious insights, we designed outdoor classrooms and modeled with recycled “trash.” It was so fun and multi-disciplinary. INSPIRING!

Awhile ago, a colleague sent me this MITvideo on “Boxie” (5 min worth watching), an anthropological robot made from a cardboard box. MESMERIZING!

To create new soundtracks, 3D renderings, and cultural cyborgs is a recipe for developing creators and producers, rather than mere consumers. Let’s generate map makers instead of mere map readers. Let’s design and experiment our way into a new three-ring circus as schools.

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if schools were more like summer camps? 60-60-60 #19

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This “CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60” post is inspired and sparked directly from Ross Peters’ March 24, 2012 post: How Summer Camp Should Inform School.

In my past, I attended Camp Rockmont in Black Mountain, NC, and I served as a counselor and administrator at Camp Sea Gull in Arapahoe, NC. As Ross writes in his post, I remember fondly the enormous space and time to explore and discover. There were generally three “periods” – morning, afternoon, and evening. Campers pursued new opportunities and old loves of deep interest, and we enjoyed “I-can-really-accomplish-something” chunks of time.

Choice and time are powerful cabin mates.

Most importantly, the best of summer camp includes the space—literally and figuratively—for young people to become both more independent and more empathetic. ~ Ross Peters, March 24, 2012 blog post.

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if schools empowered students and teachers to be journalists and marketers? 60-60-60 #18

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Some schools empower 100% of their people to be the primary storytellers for what’s happening each day at school. Other schools restrict their people from doing so – only official Communications Departments can media-storytell. Is it “brand management” gone awry? Don’t schools want much, if not all, of their brand to be: “Magic happens here…we’re a community of empathetic experimenters, and we see value in learning by doing and sharing our stories?”

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if instead of filling their heads, we grabbed their hearts? 60-60-60 #17

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Enhanced information technology and advanced understanding of human learning make it strange that schools retain many methodologies geared for “filling heads.” Additionally, society faces challenges demanding “grabbed hearts.”

At yesterday’s MVPS Design Thinking Summit (#dtsummit12), we immersed ourselves in “Design = Utility + Significance.” At design’s core beats EMPATHY. Through design, doing-learners engage human experience to improve that experience. Insight into others’ needs grabs hearts. Grabbed hearts inspire active hands and feet…and wise minds. Isn’t that what we want need?

First 1/2 Highlights: [View the story “#DTSummit 2012 10:15 Storify” on Storify]

Second 1/2 Highlights: [View the story “#dtsummit12 Design Challenge (pm) Highlights” on Storify]

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

CHANGEd: What if we really examined our identity as schools? 60-60-60 #16

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Please make 23 minutes and 41 seconds to watch Bryan Stevenson’s TED talk: “We need to talk about an injustice.”

The opposite of poverty is not wealth. … In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.

Stevenson’s talk has me thinking almost constantly about why we are not more purposefully, more systemically, more deliberately re-examining our identity as schools. What is school for? Why are we not re-organizing more curriculum and experiences around such grand challenges of justice, fairness, inclusion,…. Through these lenses, we could practice literacies of many types, numeracy in context, social science, communication for authentic purpose. Young people have a wonderful sense of fairness. We should harness and educate this sense and make a stronger impact on our world…now.

As schools, we need to keep our eyes on the prize. The real prize.

CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60 Project Explained

[Sorry about the word count today. I failed BIG with 2x the word goal.]