proof
How do we prove success?
How do we validate.. us?
Perhaps value comes from relationships… community as curriculum.
Perhaps success/peace/validity comes from two quesions:
1) does it matter ?
2) is it awesome?
Both beg to whom. That’s exactly the point. Perhaps why grades/credits/degrees are most often non-legit.
We spend so much of our days, our time/money/people on proving things. What if nothing is actually provable. Perhaps the belief that we have to prove ourselves, is getting in the way of us being ourselves. What if the simple fact that we think we have to prove some learning happened, is verification enough, that it didn’t. Perhaps if it did, we would just know. Perhaps if it did, we wouldn’t feel the need to prove it. Perhaps we’ll find, the doing/learning/being to be enough. To be the prize.
We’ve found over the last few years, a vital piece to a healthy community/person, is in creating spaces of permission where people have..
nothing to prove.
The acknowledgment that 
matters.
Imagine if the success of your community is validates your success. How well they are doing reflects how well you are doing. Your expert tutors, your mentors, your audience, …. they are your authentic proof.
We know this sounds ridiculous to some.
Imagine the level of effort if you know the answer to both of those questions will be yes.
We are working on a means for people to leave a trail (ie: a non-linear portolio) as they are going about doing things that matter. Perhaps this is how we get to genius/breathtaking as the norm, as equitable access. Perhaps then people will be waking up every day to do more of the thing they can’t not do, than to earn some stamp of approval.
Bunker Roy‘s TED describes this vision of credentialing via community.
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Perhaps some signs of success, some proof we might care about, of a healthy, happy community:
1/ Stop anyone on the street,
and ask them what they want to be when they grow up [or something similar] and they look you straight in the eye and respond..
2/ More people responding to
[the common critique of people living a perpetual experiment], why aren’t you sticking with it, is,
3/ Common use of verbiage such as..
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Collecting multiple/changing/eclectic /your
here.
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p. 127: denial of communion in the revolutionary process, avoidance of dialogue with the people under the pretext of organizing them, of strengthening revolutionary power, or of ensuring a united front, is really a fear of freedom. it is fear of or lack of faith in the people. but if the people cannot be trusted, there is no reason for liberation;
p. 131: Scientific revolutionary humanism cannot, in the name of revolution, treat the oppressed as objects to be analyzed and (based on that analysis) presented with prescriptions for behavior. –Paulo Freire
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It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. — Harry Truman
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via Dougald Hine (@dougald)
Rereading @markravenhill‘s Edinburgh speech from 2013 – if you work anywhere near the arts and haven’t read it, do – theguardian.com/culture/2013/a…
If I didn’t have to fill in forms, tick boxes, prove how good, nice, worthy me and my project are to a well meaning gatekeeper maybe I’d make something better – more truthful, more radical?
document everything (and nothing) ness
bullshit ness
red flags et al
be you. 