Disruption Maybe Bitter...

Adjective: Bitter

Verb: Bittering...

Noun: Bitt...

"Bitter is a subdued edge, an acquired taste ....." Kinfolk Magazine @kinfolkmag

I am inspired by a new recipe book titled 
BITTER A Taste of The Worlds Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes 
by Jennifer McLagan @JenniferMcLagan

As an educator who knows the future of education is about disruption and disobedient thinking the title if nothing else grabbed me. I heard my self ask, How dangerous?

Like so many educators I am looking and listening to sense how to create and navigate towards nudging the conditions that grow an ability to...
(as articulated by AUT Edge Work — Educational Futures Network)

Think differently

Act deliberately

Engage with others differently

Is it possible thats that bitter is the ingredient where conditions from which change in eduction and school might occur? 

Bitter is considered to be on the edge of our taste capacity.  Many of us are comfortable with Bitter's polarity, 'Sweet'. McLagan suggest's that the ability to engage with the taste of Bitter comes with practise.

Further to this...

McLagan considers it is hearing that influences our perceptions.

1. Background noise - this alters behaviours
2. The sounds before we eat - the plates and utensils
3. The bubbling and hissing of food cooking
4, When food is consumed it makes a noise inside our head.

These things set up our eating and drinking expectations.

Did you know the word 'Crisp" sells more meals than any other adjective?

The relationship I'm particularly interested in is...
The polarity of Bitter and Sweet. I have experienced that polarities are not consistently useful to me.
I'm interested in the space between bitter and sweet.

As articulated by  AUT Edge Work — Educational Futures Network

"It's in the spaces between the people, between people and ideas, and ideas and other ideas that creativity and new knowledge lie."


Questions I am wondering about...

1. Is my classroom crisp?

2. What expectations play out based on the sounds produced in the teaching / learning environment?

3. To what extent are conversations around school based around maintaining a sweet palette?

4. So where are the bitter and sweet conversations happening in schooling and education?

5. Has there ever been a deliberate conversation about teaching and learning where 'Bitter' has taken the lead?

6. What aspects of my teaching inquiry can engage with 'bitter' elements? What would these look like?

I read educator blogs...
Emma Winder  Emma's Blog
Claire Amos Claire's Blog
Karen Melhuishspencer Karen's Blog
Chris Clay Chris's Blog


I'm excited, I hear a bubbling & popping where my expectations for change and disruption start to rise. Smells of change are in the air. If enough of us go on a slow bitter/sweet cook. Change may happen. Maybe the expectations are being set.

The Language of Uncertainty

Educational Futures - Working the Edges

Web: Edge Work - Educational Futures Network AUT New Zealand

OPEN INVITATION to join Google+ Community Edge Work - Educational Futures

#edgework15   #AUTedgework  

On Wednesday 8th April, I attended an Edge Work Seminar  This was a one day seminar for educators and anyone else interested in thinking differently about schooling in the 21st century.

"Tell a story about what ever you are doing (or thinking about,) in your context, to contribute to the development of education’s future?"  -  Jane Gilbert 

See notes below:

Time limit: 5 -10 minutes

No slides - nothing flash - just talk...

The Language of Uncertainty

1. WHY?

Closed down conversations

New meaning of knowledge. 

Its not what you know its what you can do with what you know.

2. Uncertainty:

I’ve been thinking about working with uncertainty because:

·      Interrupts the teacher as the knower of information.

·      Interrupts the students believing the teacher is the knower

·      Creates conditions where we can stay in the Question

·      If the future is uncertain then getting a bit of practice at working with what ever uncertainty looks and feels like might to be a smart move!

3. Questions:

·      I wonder…

·      Is it possible…

·      I am curious…

·      Where a question becomes a conversation piece

·      The question is an anticipated direction

4. Context:

a) Twitter

b) Student Inquiry

c) Maths Like a Pirate 

d Guinness Book of Uncertainties

5. I am learning:

a)The system values knowers more than I thought

b) That balancing certainty & uncertainty in the classroom is alot like slow cooking

c)That a curious kind of question, much like ideas, has an ability to smoulder.

He manako te koura i kori ai.

No use wishing for a crayfish.

He manako te whakahanga te matauranga i kore ai.

No use wishing for knowledge building.

Creative Possibilities of the Present

2015 Weekly Blog Challenge WK 1  

(Note: There was never a WK2/WK3/WK4/WK5 ... Blog challenge - challenged!)

When I look at these I am reminded of Keri Facer and the 'Science of Anticipation'.

"The challenge isn't how to predict the future. 
The challenge is to figure out how to live well and how to uncover the creative possibilities of the present, ... because we don't know the future."

Keri Facer

Disrupt or be Disrupted

This Changes Everything

Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein

“So we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us.” 

Naomi Klein 

Blog: This Changes Everything

Book Trailer:

I have started reading Naomi Klein's book.

I am reminded of Simon Sinek's thinking that if we understand the why, the what and how will look after itself.

"We crave explanations for most everything, 

but innovation and progress happen when we allow ourselves to embrace uncertainty."

Simon Sinek

Everything Reverberates...

I am participating in a  group with four educators within an AUT paper title Educational Futures. 

Tomorrow, we are assessing the quality of each others individual reflections.

"We'll see how everything reverberates"

 

Carlos Amorales, We'll See How Everything Reverberates, 

2012 Guggenheim Museum in "Under the Same Sun"

The group I am working with is like this exhibition. Every word, gesture reverberates within the group. We share a common wish, the wish to be able to communicate with our colleagues, in such a way, that we can support learning spaces where possibilities are fizzing and conversations are things we expect to be on high rotation.

Where ourselves as professional educators can confidently step into uncertainty, as it is through uncertainty that new possibilities are possible.

Interesting things about my group:

1. NO CHOICE:

I did not choose to work with the members of this group. I am so used to making my own choices, I was unsure about being just put in a group. I felt uneasy as I knew I needed to get on with these people. How was I going to do this? I knew we shared the same wish... so I also knew it must be possible connect in new ways with the members of my group. 

2. ACT, THINK, DO CONFIDENTLY:

Through working in my group I have been able to act, thing and do in different ways that would not have ben possible had i been working on my own. Often on my own I get a little stuck. Talking to myself has never been attractive. Although I do not share a daily physical space with members of my group, their shadow is always very close by. Knowing we are  are doing this together and I'm pretty excited. When we do different it is not the work of one person. The reflection is of us all.

3. ROLE SWAPPING:

We appeared to each have quite different roles. And we some times swapped those roles around a bit. One of the roles that swapped was when we didn't understand a member of our groups thinking. We each stepped in and nudge our groups conversations a little further forward. I think there have been a couple of opportunities where our group could have decreased in numbers. What interrupted this happening was a commitment that we were doing this together. We would think and move together. My contribution to this was standing firm in the knowledge that to work in a future focussed space means it must be possible to work with difference. Inspiring!

4. UNCERTAINTY
At one point a member of our group, tossed a mountain of questions at the project we were working on. The kind of questions where we might throw in a project and start again. My first thought was, I wonder where this is going to take our groups thinking.  Experiencing uncertainty started the process of distilling key ideas. Brilliant!

5. HUMOUR:

My specific role has seen me injecting humour into the group. Laughing so we can all breath through some really tricky thinking. Laughter almost creates a space where we can all relax before we hunker down to refocus and think.

I finished my day at the beach.

Whilst at the beach...

I constantly thought about the educators I am working with. 

The educators who inspire me to act, think and do things differently with them.

The educators who have influenced my own participation and contribution in our group.

The educators I am standing close with to ensure we work together to nudge a difference.

all of this in a space called dusk.. the in-between space.

Future Focused Education...

What is Future Focused Education?

Future Focussed Education

Educational futures

Future Oriented Education

21st Century Education

It doesn't matter what they mean, its more important, I know what I mean when I use them!

Karen Melhuish Spencer @virtuallykaren in her blog

Disrupt and Transform says,

"I must confess that, the references to ’21st century education’, and the memes that surround it, are ones I am increasingly trying to avoid in favour of more precise descriptions of what we are actually trying to achieve with education that suits our learners, their needs if they are to thrive in society, knowledge and understandings about how we learn and what is possible using (and not using) digital technologies…and I know I’m not alone"

At present I am attending a Masters paper at AUT University titled Educational Futures.

The paper is led by Prof Jane Gilbert  @janegilbertnz

July 25th 2014 thoughts

First thoughts: To me, Future Focussed Education (FFE)  is...
Its something about having an agility and optimism to respond ethically and critically to  known and unknown variables. To have the capacity to Interrupt / disrupt and shift what we value and measure.

I think there is a skill required to be able to establish and maintain complex conversations across both, the value of traditional knowledge and our new understanding of knowledge. As this new understanding of knowledge has energy, vitality and movement, FFE must transform the way we think, engage and act. 

I enjoy stepping into spaces where FFE can be explored  because of the energy that is generated within networks and the things created within the spaces between people. Multiple ideas and projects can be astounding! 

August 9th 2014 thoughts

So, after two days... sitting in a classroom in Auckland, NZ, I'm having a rethink. Do I still hold to my initial thoughts on FFE? Is there anything that emerged and shifted my thinking from working with others?

Three things I had not thought about...

'Oriented'
I did not expect, a word to emerge and that word was 'oriented'. I was particularly inspired by the other primary school teachers on this course. I was Inspired how each of us orientated our selves quite differently in our primary school professional spaces and here we were holding lightly all we fervently  believe and know to be true about education and schooling, so we can work in a space where disruptive conversations can emerge. And its tricky. Super tricky!
My question now is, how am I going to orient myself towards future focussed education? That actually I am in the picture and my ideas remain ideas until I explicitly orient myself in a position of doing. Or more specifically, understand the position that I am currently oriented within.  An example is I parpticipate in a primary school system. What do I do, what do I say that orientates my day to day actions to support a future focus educational space?

Who am I becoming?
A simple and for me, a transformative question was posed by fellow student Ngaire. Words that have sat on my shoulder and are moving quickly to me heart!  Who am I becoming? Ngaire questioned why are we actually doing all this engagement with future focussed ideas and as part of that process, who are we becoming?
I am wondering that by bringing together our understandings of an educational future and our professional knowledge that through a process of thinking and rethinking, a point  really may occur where we can no longer think, act and engage in ways we used to. That the change has occurred within our personal adult development. So I ask: Am I in the process of becoming someone different? 

Rethinking communication. That in order to orientate towards future focussed education the way we communicate must change. To disrupt language that closes down conversations. The urgent need to see constant possibilities. An example may be, as a classroom teacher in 2014, I am requirement to manage two things, National Standards and work with not only what the students know but what they can do with what they know in the context of 'wicked' problems. It is possible and I need to rethink how I communicate to work in this space.

At a time in our history when there is a demand for resources to be open. 
See @OKFN Open Knowledge @CC_Aotearoa  Creative Commons   So too the way we communicate must engender access to possibilities, building capacities and the maintaining of relationships. 

Katlin Thaney   @kaythaney director of @MozillaScience amplifies this in her presentation at The Royal Society in Wellington. July 2014.
"focus on building capacity, not just more nodes." 

So, future focussed education, involves engaging with complex and complicated conversations. Therefore, I am beginning to believe it is paramount we rethink communication in its multiple forms.

A fast and furious think about  a few of the current considerations for education and schooling:

Design Thinking @extremebydesign  
Wicked Problems  @NZCER  Key Competencies for the Future
Maker Culture see blog post  Stephen Lethbridge

I am beginning to think, if we are to contribute even the smallest nudge as we work with these three ideas, we are going to need an improved rethink on how we communicate the possibilities in our schools and local communities.

What do you think?

So What? 
So, now I've shuffled all those words around...
Whats going to change?
With three students from my course, I'm going to explore what does it actually mean to rethink communication. To explore the possibility of an innovation designed to shift a system within how we communicate.  To do this we will be using the Cynefin Framwork.

Website for Cognitive Edge Network

Twitter: @CognitiveEdge