Look For The Crossroads

Posted on July 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

855. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I’m having an ongoing email conversation with Rafael. We are discussing educational change but more specifically asking how to change a culture of exclusion. I won’t go on a rant so let it suffice to say that the idea that we have equal access is just that: a nice idea but is nowhere apparent in the national fabric or the lived narrative of our nation. Our tax codes are created to keep the poorest poor and the wealthiest wealthy. Revolutionizing education is to revolutionize the economy and that is why it has become such a wicked problem. The forces in play do not favor the many. The voices in power represent the few.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life pushing against the public school system. And despite my capacity to fling around phrases like, “You can’t solve a problem at the level of the problem,” I’m only now seeing beyond the level of the problem. Inequity is institutionalized and deeply embedded in the national narrative so it is a fool’s errand to push on the institutions. As Buckminster Fuller advises, move toward what you want to create. This requires a new narrative. It requires to look at something other than what currently exists.

We go where we look. Where are we looking? We can hit division every time if we insist on seeing division. What’s good for business is not always what’s good for community and I often think that business wins the contest every time because we have a fleeting sense of community. We define our national health by the stock exchange. We are up or we are down. When I listen to the news or read the papers I am filled with the narrative of division. It is Us and Them on every page. This is not a new narrative. It is as old as our nation. Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness refers to land ownership and at the time those words were penned those privileges were extended to a few white males with resources and no others. A system does what a system was designed to do.

A new narrative would be one of unity. A new narrative is one of inclusion. A new narrative would consider the health of the system – in fact it would demand a healthy system and that is impossible to realize if any segment of the system is impoverished. A healthy plant cannot grow in exhausted soil. This is not an abstraction. Grow a garden in polluted soil and tell me what you discover.

It feels as if we are standing at the crossroads of “Every man for himself,” and “I am my brother’s keeper.” Both of these phrases are philosophies of an economy. The great thing about a crossroads is that the roads cross. They come together and are neither this nor that. They are a meeting ground and places of commerce accessible to all. Meeting grounds are also the place where new narratives are created. They are places of possibility. We know that our political climate is averse to seeing crossroads. We do not have to go where they are looking. We are capable of telling a different story if we are courageous enough to look where the roads cross and decide to stand in the place of an economy that includes instead of an economy that excludes.

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It Matters

Posted on June 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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From the department of subtlety in language comes a submission from Skip. During lunch today (His email said, “Meet me for a black and tan. We’ll call it late lunch or early dinner.”) During “lunch” he told me about a speaker who made the distinction between a student and a learner – to make the point that our systems of education (higher and lower) are not about learning. To be a student and to be a learner are not the same thing at all.

The distinction is in the assumptions beneath the words. The word “student” implies the need for teachers, curricula, etc. The deeper implication is in the necessary action: it is ‘other-directed.” The word learner, on the other hand, requires no teacher, no agenda, nor a curriculum. The necessary action is self-directed. The action can be facilitated, it can be mentored, it can be shared, but the imperative is within.

Why, you ask, does this matter? Isn’t this just splitting hairs?

Last year Skip and I met at a conference for educators on reinventing learning but in Skip’s words, it was not about learning at all. It was about reinventing teaching. The organizers were educators so their assumption set necessitated students and teachers in an expert driven relationship. The teachers know. The students receive the knowing. No learning required. There were incredible conversations that day and few had to do with learning.

Learning is a pursuit. It is a discovery path. There is nothing passively receptive about learning (note: the moment you separate content from method you end all learning and enter the realm of student/teacher).

It matters. The way we ask the question determines the possibilities we see or don’t see. None of our current questions in the field of education have much to do with learning. I walk in many worlds and in the business realm I regularly hear these phrases: “Why don’t my employees take any initiative?” “They expect to be rewarded for everything?” “It’s impossible to critique anything because they take it so personally.” “Everything needs to be an ‘atta-boy!” “They might do just what you ask but never go beyond the prescription.” Frustration abounds.

Well. We get what we create. Students look for permission, color inside the lines, need approval and fixate on their grade. Learners embrace challenges, step across lines, and know intrinsically whether or not their work is good. It matters.

Filed under: Education, Language, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Make Better Mistakes

Posted on June 2, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

806. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I heard this phrase today and loved it: Make better mistakes tomorrow. The idea, of course, is that growth and learning come from making mistakes. There really is no such thing as “right,” just as there is no single answer to any question. There is “better.” There is “improvement.” There is growth and learning and mastery. Words like “right” or “expert” or “perfect” imply an end. They ignore context. They presuppose a single solution. The only moment you get it “right” is the moment you die. And, I hope the moment after you die there’s a voice just behind you that whispers, “Wasn’t that a hell of a good ride?” And, an appropriate response is, “So, what do you want to do now?” You might also scream, “Where am I?” but I am a firm believer that the question you ask determines the possibilities that you see so better to ask an open ended question. Everything is a process.

The ‘Long Body” is a term found in some Native American traditions. It refers to the many forms your body will take between birth and death. At what precise moment did your body transition from infant to adolescent? You can identify a date and a time but they are arbitrary. Your body is always in motion, always in process, always changing and transforming. I once had a conversation with someone who poo-pooed the word “transformation.” They said they’d never seen anything transform. I asked them if they’d ever looked in a mirror but that tactic got me nowhere. Transformation happens every moment of every day. It is the most common of experiences and the most miraculous when we see it. Look at the weather. Find a field and watch it for a year. You can’t believe the explosion of life that happens in a simple garden. Pay attention. You are surrounded by transformation all the while you are transforming. Life is in motion. Nothing is static.

Making mistakes as a life credo will allow you to try new things. It will take the fear out of stepping into unknowns. It will facilitate motion. What’s the worse thing that can happen? You’ll make a mistake and learn something. And, if you’re really good at it, you’ll make better mistakes tomorrow than you made today. It’s worth a try.

Filed under: Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | 6 Comments »

Take Them With You

Posted on May 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

794. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I told Rafael that I was considering no longer talking or writing about education. It is topic that fast becoming off limits. He was returning from a trip to study school systems in Minnesota and had a lay over in Seattle so he called to check in. Rafael can make me go on an education rant faster than anyone I know. He and I are aligned in our hopes for learners everywhere. We are both idealists in that we believe change is possible even in the midst of the insanity that has gripped our public school system. We’ve both spent significant portions of our lives engaging in the system.

My decision comes from finally admitting to myself that this system has not lost its mind. It is a system doing what it was designed to do. It perpetuates inequity by design. It is driven my money and not by data or feedback or common sense. It is hurting children. And everyone in the chain knows it. Speaking out, challenging it means losing your job so good people up and down the line tolerate it. They try to make the best of a disaster.

Rafael’s daughter will start first grade in the fall. Short of starting a charter school or homeschooling his daughter, neither of which are viable options, he is left with a raft of bad choices. He knows that to put his daughter into this vile system will snuff the light from her. He was careful to talk about the wonderful people teaching in the school. Their life-light is being snuffed, too. My conversation with Rafael is verbatim the same conversation I’ve had with two other dear friends in the past month. They do not want to send their young kids to school because they fear what it will do to them. Think about that for a moment.

Carol is substitute teaching at the tony private Lakeside school. She’s filling in, teaching full time, through the end of the school year. She’s also done plenty of work in the public schools. Her comment: it is like night and day. “There’s no shortage of money,” she said. When I asked her what the money buys she replied, “The teachers can teach. They’re not slaves to some ridiculous test.”

I told Rafael that in 1960 John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon within a decade. It seemed an impossible task. We did it because we had the will to do it. I believe we need to stop trying to fix a system that isn’t broken – a system that was designed to perpetuate inequity – and re-imagine what we mean when we say, “education.” He said it was a great idea but somewhat more complex than putting a man on the moon. Perhaps. It is not the complexity, the size of the task that makes me tired of the conversation. It is the absence of will in the people who operate the levers. We’ve constructed a system that does the opposite of what it pretends. It is enormously profitable for curriculum publishers and test makers (dinosaurs in the age of the internet…thus the insistence on testing). In the face of such dishonesty, in the absence of meaningful creative action, all that remains is some form of revolution. Or surrender. Or walking away but walking away with our children and not leaving them every day to be blunted.

Filed under: Education, Truly Powerful People | 5 Comments »

Ask Why

Posted on May 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

792. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I’ve heard this phrase several times in the past few months: What you put your mind on grows. If I think there is a monster under my bed I will listen for the monster’s movements. The monster will get bigger every night. This morning Elizabeth and I had a great conversation about what happens when we micro-focus on the one thing that’s not working. You know the story: the micro-focus overwhelms everything else. The gold is invisible when the speck dominates the focus. A single mosquito buzzing in your ear can make all of nature invisible.

Recently I’ve been sitting in on Skip’s Design for Demand course. It’s an MBA course in the Human Centered Design track. The students are examining online learning platforms to improve the design of each platform. They are having a difficult time breaking through the superficial to see the essential. The speck on their gold is the assumption that the purpose of education is to get a job. “What are you going to do with this?” is confused with “Why do this?”

Simon Sinek reminds us that at the center of every successful venture (adventure) is the question, “Why?” Why are we doing this? Why must precede What and How. It is simple: What and How carry no meaning. To focus on the result with no consideration of the reason is an empty pursuit. “To get a job” is a result. “To make money” is a result. “To raise test scores” is a result. Assuming that the purpose of education is to get a better job or to micro-focus on raising test scores is to design an empty pursuit. It is a fool’s errand.

If you don’t get a job is your education meaningless? If you get a job but have nothing to bring to it are you worth hiring?

For a brief moment the MBA students shifted their focus and rightly identified that a major obstacle in online learning platforms is that they are designed for consumption and not for engagement. Learning is not consumption. Information exchange is not learning. Learning IS engagement! Some fresh air blew through the room. They sat up! They glimpsed a bit of information that might lead them to meaningful design! And then someone asked, “How will employers know…?” They slumped and began looking for data to consume. They discussed how they might get people to care. Their conversation was once again trapped in the What and the How.

They were so close and then the monster under the bed retook their focus.

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If Not Now, When?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

778. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Megan-The-Brilliant sent me a text this morning. She is attending a state teachers conference. Her text said: I’m in a conference where the keynote lecture is on the importance of creativity. Novel, huh? How many times will we say this before we do something about it?

It’s a great question: How many times will we say this before we do something about it? It’s a question that generations of educators have been asking. Literally. Generations. How many times will we say this before we do something about it? Later in a phone conversations she said, “If I hear another person state the obvious I’m going to puke.” She also said, “I’ve had it.”

I’ve heard that a lot lately. The amazing educators, the fire starters, are taking their fire elsewhere. When survival is the best a teacher can do, when thriving is out of reach and dowsing fire is the aim of the system, the choice is to be dowsed or to go make creative fire where fire is welcomed. Think of this: teachers can leave in disgust but students have no choice but to be dowsed. And make no mistake, their fire is being dowsed. And, as levels of absurdity stack upon levels of absurdity, listen to the overriding complaint of businesses about new hires: where’s the self-direction? Where’s the critical thinking and capacity to innovate? Why aren’t we preparing our students for the world of work? Answer: Because we are dowsing their fire with buckets of wet tests to feed metrics that tell us nothing usable. We are patterning them to complacency.

Fire is dangerous to test makers. Educational fire is anathema when answer regurgitation is the goal.

The disjoint between what we know and what we do is vast. It is a farce. If you doubt what I’m asserting, think how ludicrous (sad) it is for a keynote speaker in the 21st century to address educators on the importance of creativity. The speech is only necessary in an arena that has stripped creativity from the system.

After the call with Megan I remembered my recent conversation with Robert. His son is just starting school and he was appalled by what his son’s teachers are being forced to do. He said, “There’s no room for creativity. I’m not talking about art or music – I’m talking about any form of creativity. It’s a wasteland.”

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Tap Into It

Posted on April 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

775. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

What is the original “why?” What is your reason for doing what you do? During a break in the Design for Demand class I eavesdropped on a conversation between Skip and one of his students. The student asked, “Isn’t making money the reason “why.” It can be a reason. It’s not the reason.

Before the break the students were doing business pitches followed by a discussion about their reasons for creating the business. Skip showed them Simon Sinek’s terrific TED talk explaining what distinguishes a great business from a mediocre business. In the talk Simon explains his golden target with the reason “why” occupying the center. A great business operates from why. How and what occupy the middle and outer rings of the target. Mediocre businesses confuse their what and how with why. This might seem obvious but it’s not.

In another class, I recognized that the MBA students think the single reason they are getting a degree is to get a better job. They’ve confused their why with the what. Getting a better job can be a reason. It’s not the reason. K-12 education believes that the purpose of education is to raise test scores. They’ve confused why with how – and it is debatable whether raising test scores is a viable how. In our lives we have an abundance of “how and “what” reinforcement. It is no wonder we sometimes misplace our why.

In the modern age, people without a clear understanding of their “why” will generally buy something to fill the void. It is a temporary hit but delays the recognition that there is nothing substantial driving their life. Or, they’ll numb themselves, distract themselves or sabotage themselves. Either way, the “why” gets lost in the “what.”

Everyone has a why. Sometimes you have to wipe off a layer of dust or muster enough courage to look beyond the purchases. It is there. It’s waiting to be sourced. If your current answer to the question, “What’s the point?” is to raise your test score or to get a better job, stop and ask yourself, “What else is true?” Look beneath the superficial and you will find a spring that will rejuvenate you and keep you nourished for the arc of your life. Tap into it.

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Occupy Your Center

Posted on April 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

773. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Robert is a gifted actor, director and teacher. We had a long conversation yesterday about actors and acting. He said that the art of acting is unusual because young actors in training don’t always recognize the necessity of technique. So, for instance, an opera singer would never expect to advance in his or her career unless they had rooted their voice in solid technique. A pianist would not expect to become a concert level musician without a solid technique. As Robert said, “Many young actors believe that if they feel it, if they connect the dots from feeling to feeling then they are acting. “Anyone can emote and call him or her self an actor,” he said, “but acting requires just as solid a technique as any other art form. It’s just not as expected or understood.” Robert recently told a young actor, “It does the audience no good if you feel it but they aren’t invited to participate.” Technique facilitates participation because it frees the artist to be present. The point of any art form is to share, to include, to transport. Artistry is never about the artist. It is always about the relationship.

Today in tai chi Saul-The-Chi-Lantern paired the beginners (me) with the more advanced students. We were doing a simple push hands exercise that I recognized as the technique beneath the practice. I had a revelation that shocked me to the core and inspired me to teach it to every artist that I know. In push hands, the idea is to empty of all resistance, to drop deeply into your center and use your partners force to knock them off center. As the advanced students told me, “The point of the exercise is to fail. Failing is the only way to find your center and empty yourself of opposition.” My revelation was this: opposition (resistance) is the act of giving another person responsibility for your balance. Literally, you invest your balance in their center. It is visceral. My partners easily tossed me off balance because I easily gave away my center every time I resisted them. When I (occasionally) found my center and emptied myself of resistance, I entered a balanced fluid center that shocked me in its potency.

I left tai chi today and went to see a student production of a Shakespeare play. The rivers of my conversation with Robert and my tai chi revelation met as I watched the young actors push and force and resist and reach for feelings. They did not know to include me. Their play was about them, not the story or the opportunity for relationship with me, the audience. Yet, the paradox, the moment of truth came after the play when I listened to their investment in what the audience thought of their work. They gave me their center because they shut me out of their play. Had I cared I could have easily tossed them off balance. As I left the theatre I thought, “Someone needs to teach them how to fail.” In that direction technique is found. In that direction is learning.

I wished the young actors had access to Robert or the advanced students in my tai chi class. If I keep at it in fifteen years or so I might have the capacity to keep my center. The young actors need to pretend that they can do it all now. They are oriented to the test (performing the words with feeling) and not the mastery.

Even though I know the 37 moves that constitute the tai chi form, I am only now capable of beginning. At this age, I am finally capable of understanding the relevance and necessity for solid technique.

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Bring It

Posted on April 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

768. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This afternoon I taught a Business of Theatre class at Cornish College for the Arts. The students were seniors in the final weeks of their degree programs. Their assignment was to make project pitches as if we, the class, were granters or investors. My job was to support them to get better at doing project pitches. Through the several pitches, two themes emerged that became the focus of our conversation.

The first theme: rather than pitch their ideas as great, almost all the students justified or somehow diminished their idea. They defended it prior to an attack.They were unconsciously seeking reinforcement or approval of their idea. Or, to be clear, they sought approval as if I was the keeper of worth for their idea. Had I said, “What a stupid idea,” they might have agreed with me. The need for my approval trumped their personal point of view. My approval was more important than their idea.

Theme number two is related to theme number one: they entered the relationship assuming that the granter (me) had all of the power. As pitch makers they cast themselves in an unbalanced, powerless position. They came as supplicants. They assumed that the grant maker held the golden key to open the door to their project/dream. In this play (a pitch is a play) they cast themselves as impotent.

Both themes were unconscious. Both were based on assumptions of lack.

Every artist, if they are to thrive, must reorient at some point in the arc of their career. They must leave behind orientating according to what they might get from the world and reorient according to what they bring to the world.

Grant makers, foundations, investors and auditors have no power over an artist – unless, of course, the artist is oriented in the relationship according to what they might get from the relationship. At best, a granter can support a route. They might open a pathway to fulfilling an idea. There are hundreds of routes. There is one dreamer. The responsibility for manifesting the dream is the dreamers not the granters.

No one need apologize for his or her dream. No one need justify why it is important. It is a dream. It is an idea. It is a desire. No one else need approve; the approval belongs to the dreamer.

The students and I discussed the power of bringing the dream to the world. We played with the perspective shift that happens when artists own the responsibility for their dreams and refuse to define their role as impotent. Bring the dream. Stop seeking your worth in the responses of others. Bring it. The granter will fund it or not and that should have no impact on whether the dream is pursued or not. Bring your best game. Bring it everyday. If you have a dream, create it. There are many routes. Explore them all and in each case pitch your best game.

Filed under: Art, Business, Education, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Choose Your Experience

Posted on April 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

767. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It’s after 7:00pm and I just realized that it was Sunday. One of the privileges of wandering is that days of the week blend and become one. There are relatively few patterns so markers like workday and non-workday do not exist. This has been somewhat true most of my life. The line between work and play is indistinct. My play and my work have mostly been the same thing.

This afternoon Skip and I did a test run of experiences for our new start-up business. The audience is entrepreneurs. Some members of our team are young entrepreneurs so we gathered and talked through the content with them and then threw them into some experiences. Having been a data-basher most of my life it’s an interesting flip to do things to gather data and adjust my work based on audience responses. I learned a lot today!

What came clear to me was something that I’ve known for a while but did not fully grasp the magnitude until today. Human beings come into the world oriented to the unknown and strive to pretend that we are oriented to the known. We make meaning of chaos. And, what is chaos really? It’s a made up concept. It means, “I don’t know!” It has no use outside of the human need to make story and project order onto the world. It’s like the word, “wild.” Wild is only useful when there is an expectation of tame. Chaos is only meaningful relative to an expectation of order. Both are categories. One is generally comfortable because it provides the illusion of control and the other is uncomfortable because the illusion is of no control. Tame and wild follow the same general principle. I was in the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles and as the earth threw my house off of it’s foundation and hurtled me through the air, I learned that control was not mine to assign. I learned that wild is tame and tame is wild and chaos drives order and order collapses into chaos. It’s a dance.

It’s not the nouns that matter. It’s the verbs. It is the movement. Nothing is static. Nothing is fixed. The answers are not important. The questions matter, it is the conversation and the relationship that hold the real stuff of life. Questions and relationships are fluid. They move. Orient to the unknown and you orient to the questions. The questions will open you to discovery. Orient to the known and you orient to the answers. The answers will close you to rules and righteousness. This would seem obvious but it is not. The most potent revelation of all: how you orient is a choice. Choose to open or choose to close. Orient to the unknown or orient to the known. Orient to the infinite game or to the finite. Choose your experience.

Filed under: Business, Creativity, Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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