in the city
[having to do with #/kinds of people… eclectic ness]
Seeking to improve learning for a classroom of 3rd graders, for an entire school, or even for a business, is a boost for sure. But perhaps those very structures (mental and physical) are at the heart of the problem. Perhaps authentic learning/connecting/being thrives in more organic/chaordic spaces. Perhaps the sharing of resources (people, spaces, things) city-wide is where we might get at a cross-generational, eclectic community of people, a village.. organism as fractal
The purpose of public education is a democratic society — John Dewey
Perhaps we redefine public education so that cities are co-created ongoingly, bettering each moment. Perhaps we create more human capital by believing we really can learn/be/do anything we want, and that the more we facilitate that for everyone, in a city, rather than regulate/manage some given/standard ideal, this debate becomes an ongoing conversation — a crowdsourcing — about what matters most.
The progressive ed reform movement often commits this outcome-over-process error when committees or research or prominent voices are taken as “what we should be doing,” when really we need to encouraging participation in the processes of determining for ourselves and our communities that which we care about and how we can work together to accomplish our goals. A list of “21st century skills” might be really fun to create as part of some meeting of prestigious educators, but please don’t think that pushing that outcome or list down to schools, teachers and students is what would really benefit them. Instead, we should be pushing down or encouraging the process of creating such a conversation to local levels, where all involved might participate in the discussions that attend the process. … ie: Are we asking students to have voice in an existing system? Or is this an awkward power struggle? – Steve Hargadon
In old age the emphasis shifts from doing to being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, know nothing of being. It asks: being? What do you do with it? – Echart Tolle
Imagine city as school with the entire city as the floorplan. The high school buildings become resource centers and meet up spaces. There is a city-wide art hall and engineering hall, forensics hall. The town acts more like a university campus.. where people are walking and biking to and from buildings through the course of a day, as the day. Feeding off each other. Feeding off life.
We need a move toward a more practical, sustainable learning model that is less based on market-driven accreditation and more on the inevitable give and take that happens among people who engage in similar activities and share similar forms of literacy and worldviews. …. Community as curriculum. Community as measure. How are the people around you doing. – Dave Cormier
Who’s together in a room or space becomes a per choice proposition.
Once we understand that learning can and should occur outside the classroom, it will become commonplace to see students engaged in learning activities throughout the community. – Stephen Downes
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Master of experimenting with a city, Tony Hsieh – how to support and accelerate people’s dreams and visions.
Where do the children play? – child in the city.
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in the city.
as the day.
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[from a qr mechanism]
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different how..?
perhaps so many.. like Bucky and Illich and Jacobs and Holt and Papert and … saw the vision (of ie: networked individualism ness) but we, then, didn’t have the means, and/or the (zoom dance) focus, to carry it out. at least not with enough sync for it to work (by realizing the ongoingly not working ness is the working ness.. et al)
we never took/accepted/realized those x-d glasses/dimensions, in order to see our issue/problem/pickle as (in Jane’s words) organized complexity. and so – then – we were/are always getting distracted by the shiny.
we’re so intoxicated/trained/believing that certain spaces are where we go to live/learn/be (ie: conferences/classrooms/etc).. because that’s what’s been prepped for us by experts – and well – because that’s the way we’ve always done it. so when we go to those spaces – we put ourselves on autopilot.. ie: turn ourselves off.. ready to be filled/changed.
we keep prepping for and then attending theses prepped spaces.. encouraging deadness. the rallying/repeating/regurgitating whatever has been prepped for us to rally/repeat/regurgitate. and since it’s often shiny, ie: seemingly better than what we have/experience now- and the space is designed around getting us in the mode/zone required. how could we not.
perhaps we trust 7 billion to slow down and listen, as if there were 7 billion classes/conferences/etc going on 24/7. ie: each moment an adventure. a year to be 5 again ish. just to see.
in the city – (Jane tells so vividly in ch 22 of death and life) eclectic ness on steroids. 24/7 aliveness. messy – yet all interconnected. all inclusive. chaordic. none of us are free if one of us is chained ness.
as the day – without getting the x-d ness of in the city.. we misunderstand the essence of trust. the 100% ness of it. the – partial freedom is no freedom ness. and so we end up experimenting with people who are (after 7ish hour days at what they’re supposed to do) too tired to be curious/alive/themselves.
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there’s a nother way for all of us to live/be/dance
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be you. 