Education | The Direction of Intention

Learn To Learn

Posted on July 13, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Dr. Alan shared his notes from a lecture on education given by Daphne Koller, professor of computer science at Stanford University. This phrase jumped out at me:

Testing is a learning tool, not just an assessment tool.

Such a small phrase to be sure but it is loaded with sanity in a world of education that has lost its mind, its bearings, and its purpose in a cesspool of testing. This single note gives me hope. It is a small cry from academia to stop the madness.

It sounds so simple: testing is a learning tool. Yes, testing is a tool in service to learning. However, learning should never be in service to testing and yet that is what we’ve created; listen to the national mantra: how do we raise our scores? We’re not asking how do we open minds or how do we support critical thinking or how do we create a citizenry capable of participating in its governance; we want test scores that somehow translate into business acumen. Could the bar be set any lower?

People do nonsensical things when they are panicked and I can only make sense of our Obsessive Compulsive Testing Disorder through a lens of panicked, lost, people. The aim (learning) is in service to the tool (assessment); the tail is wagging the dog and the dog is in hysterics.

Learning has nothing whatsoever to do with testing. Learning has everything to do with experience, with exploration, with “seeing what’s over there.” Learning is about opening a heart and mind to possibility, the pursuit of curiosity. Learning is to take off the shackles and the blinders; it is to, at its best about self-discovery.

It sounds so simple.

Occasionally we need to stop and assess where we are. It’s a good idea when on a journey to pause periodically and get your bearings. Locating yourself is useful (getting lost is also useful though that is a topic for another post). Testing a hypothesis is what science is all about, a contemporary form of call and response. However, the point of the journey is not the assessment; the point of the journey is discovery; the quality and level of engagement with life. Reinforce discovery and a test is useful. Reinforce testing and discovery withers. Compulsive assessment is a sign of fear, starvation, and madness.

Dr. Alan’s notes gave me hope. Perhaps we are nearing the point when we are in too much pain to continue pretending that we can test our way into learning. Maybe an education system designed for the 21st century is closer than we think.

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Set Foot On The Stage

Posted on July 8, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

When John was in college he was rehearsing a play. It was late, perhaps midnight, and the director wanted to do more work. The student-actors complained. The director asked them to follow him. He led them across campus to the medical school and pointed to the med students visible through the windows, hard at work burning the midnight oil. He said, “Your work is also capable of saving lives. If you are not working this hard you have no business being on the stage.”

Once, when I was assisting a director, he told the student-actors, “Each night on the stage your work will have the capacity to impact the lives of others. That is a very serious obligation. If you take it lightly you will do harm and it is best if you never set foot on the stage.”

This is how I understand art in all its forms. It is meant to change lives. It is meant to hold the central narrative of a community (the identity); the arts are the container of both tradition and change. It is necessary and powerful because it is capable of holding paradoxes. It is potent because is serves the conservative impulse while facilitating the path into the unknown. A healthy society is built upon a living art. A healthy society negotiates its paradoxes through its arts.

Reduce the arts to entertainment, intellectual concepts or a luxury for the elite, remove it from the schools and from daily life, and there is no center. Social gravity weakens with the absence of a coherent narrative – people are like planets and without the pull of narrative gravity they spin off into space and wonder why they feel so alone. Without a common center we will continue to kill each other for bling because we have no concept of what matters and what does not.

Rather than walk away from our arts, telling our selves they are too expensive or merely electives, it might be time to attend to our business, look within (that is the point after all), and set foot on the stage with a gravity worthy of our obligation to others.

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Truly Powerful People (469)

Posted on June 21, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

469.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

As I dust off and relearn the story of Parcival I have decided that it will be the spine of the work I do next week with teachers; we will follow the metaphors; we will open the story so the stories of our lives might open. As I work I am discovering that everything you need to know to be a great teacher is in this story! Parcival is a knight of the Round Table and, depending upon the version you read, he is the knight that finds the grail. Metaphor alert: the grail is not a thing to be possessed. It is what Maslow called self-actualization. It is a metaphor for finding your truth and fulfilling your purpose. What is the purpose of learning if not to seek and find your truth (do not be fooled, passing a test is far from the point of learning and will ultimately leave you empty and the test full)?

I love many aspects of this story and the section I reworked today made me smile. I giggled in the coffee house where I was rehearsing. The other patrons, afraid of the man in the corner talking and cackling to himself, gave me plenty of room to work (have I mentioned that I can’t talk without flailing my hands all over the place. If you ever want me to be quiet, simply bind my hands. I’ll make noises but words will be impossible). The story describes Parcival’s first entry into court. He grew up isolated, deep in the forest (not unlike Arthur, though Parcival did not have Merlin to school him) so he knew nothing of people or manners or custom. He thought dressing like a knight meant he was a knight. He approximated some armor, weaving a breastplate from reeds, a helmet from fronds, and he wielded a stick as a sword. He “borrowed” a mule and rode into Camelot. Arthur and his knights, thinking Parcival was a clown, laughed at him.

Growing up without instruction meant that he had the ideal upbringing for a trickster. He followed his nature without inhibition. Parcival had no inner-editor so the civilized world viewed him as a fool. He acted purely so he threatened custom. He spoke what others could not; he carried no conventions so he had no limits. He had no rules of conduct. Parcival would be the boy in the crowd to say, “This emperor has no clothes!” It would not occur to him to lie. When you are not doubting or protecting your purity you have no reason to deflect or manipulate or withhold. Lies are a byproduct of rules. He was powerful yet his power was raw, unrecognizable, so the world he wanted to enter could only laugh. And their laughter was his fuel. Their laughter propelled him into the world to learn. Arthur was capable of seeing his purity. And Arthur gave him hope. Arthur sent him into the world to prove himself, to learn the rules of society, and invited him to return to court once he’d learned the code and conduct of a knight.

The story is a story of desire; it is a story of following an inner imperative. It is a quest for fulfillment. It has laughter and despair, triumph and shame, obstacles that seem insurmountable; it is a story of perseverance and letting go. It is a story of 2 teachers: one provides the rules for conduct; the other helps Parcival shed the rules of conduct. Both are necessary if you want a shot at entering the grail castle.

If it were a poem it would read like this: Revel in your nature. Betray your nature. Rediscover you nature: grail.

Filed under: Education, Metaphor, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: desire, purpose | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (452)

Posted on June 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In mid-form today, Saul-the-Chi-Lantern swirled from the practice and into a tale. We were midway through class and midway through the form and apparently being on the midway inspired a story in him that reminded me of old masters and why our ideas of learning are so far off the rails.

His tale was of a certain school of thought in Tai Chi in which a newcomer will practice the form for 2 years before being allowed to do exercises with another person (he called them circle exercises). After practicing circle exercises for 13 years a student might advance to the status of beginner and be allowed to actually touch another person in the practice; to work with the energy of another. 15 years of continual practice to consider yourself a beginner. That’s akin to a college senior saying, “Now, I am ready to begin.” Imagine a diploma, not as a completion, a marker for arrival, but as an acknowledgment of readiness to begin.

When I was young the only thing I wanted to do was paint. I used to dream about being shipped off the to the master, to learn by apprenticeship. I’d sleep under the bench, I’d spend the first few years learning to clean the brushes and mix the paint and watch. I might, at age 9 be allowed to hold a brush, to do exercises on used canvas. I might at 12 be allowed to gesso the canvas, to prepare the ground and glue and perhaps paint the under-layer. I’d be drawing all along and learning color and technique and perhaps at 15 I’d be allowed to paint the sky or the clouds in the master’s paintings. And, if I started at 7 years old I might, by the time I was 25, be accepted into the guild. I might be ready to begin. And if I continued to grow, to paint everyday, when I was 50 I could take students of my own. This was my little kid ideal. Learning by doing has always made more sense to me than incarceration in a desk and abstractions. I’ve always understood mastery was so much more interesting and rewarding than arrival.

At the end of his tale Saul-the-Chi-Lantern stepped back into the form as if he’d never left it. He is a master. He was a beginner 40 years ago after 15 years of practice. He is poetry and power and humor and lighthearted. At 70 he could throw me across a room using my own aggression. He assumes nothing. He reminds me each week what a human being can be when they give up the idea that the wealth is in the acquisition; Saul knows the wealth is in having a story to tell.

Filed under: Education, Emergence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: beginner, mastery, story | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (442)

Posted on May 25, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

442.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Over dinner one night Skip asked his friend, the concert pianist, what is the difference between a good and great pianist. Her answer was powerful. She told him the greatness was in the power of visualization. She travels to the composer’s country, she walks the paths they walked, she visits the gardens that inspired their compositions. In performance, she is not reproducing notes; she is walking in the garden. She is taking her audience on a walk through the garden.

A few months ago I had a powerful realization. I was working with teachers attempting to change their system and truly teach (as opposed to prepare for tests). They are working to transcend classrooms of control and compliance and instead create classrooms of self-regulation and self-direction. In short, they are supporting their students to be powerful. They are courageous and magnificent – yet, in the absence of an image for self-directed classrooms, they default to the old existing control image. We act out of our image. I finally saw their challenge. They need a new image. They have the yearning and they understand the process. They need to know what the garden looks like. They need to move toward a new image instead of away from an old habit.

Many years ago I worked for a theatre company. During an outreach program to the local schools I had an experience that jolted me to the core and opened my eyes to the power of the imagination. In a single day we visited two schools, one for the wealthy suburban kids and one for the poor migrant children. In each school we did a story exercise. The young children in the wealthy school imagined themselves to be princesses and princes, fighting dragons, and flying over mountains. The children in the poorer school imagined themselves as adults worried about the rent; instead of flying as birds they fled from landlords and immigration. That afternoon I sat on the curb and cried.

Note to the world: our greatness lives in our power to visualize. We go to the places we imagine. If you want to change the world, help a child fly over mountains. You’ll find that you have to remember how to fly, too. Even Einstein knew the math came second.

Filed under: Art, Education, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: greatness, imagination, schools, visualization | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (437)

Posted on May 20, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of work with teachers and watching these incredible people give their hearts and souls to in service to children has brought to mind the amazing people who’ve had a profound impact on my life – and will never know it.

Jackie Fry was my first art teacher. I took oil painting classes from her at the local rec. center every weekend. I was the youngest person in a class of ancient women (they seemed ancient to my 12 year old eyes though now I am certain I’d see them as kids) and I was duly intimidated. Unlike my classmates I was not a tree or flower painter; I was drawn to paint people. I thought something was wrong with me. Jackie’s first lesson to me was this: she said, “Tree painters are a dime a dozen. Let’s find out what makes you tick and then learn to paint that.” Like all great teachers she set me on a pursuit and then followed, helping me see and paint when I was ready for the lesson. She is at the heart of my belief about great teaching. She was the first person to help me recognize that my thinking clouded my seeing. To see, I needed to see beyond my words and abstractions. She helped me develop and protect my gifts. And she never knew how profound was her impact on my life.

Paul Barnes used to say to actors, “Never underestimate your power to impact other people’s lives.” He was right about that. Not only can we never underestimate our power to impact other people’s lives – we will rarely know when we have impacted other people’s lives. The wisdom Jackie initiated in me has rippled through every person I have taught, every artist I have supported, every CEO I have coached or person I have called friend. She continues to touch lives through me. Our ripples carry forward for decades and we will never know how far or potent is our reach. Her teachers touched my life through her; their strong offer lives within me and I never knew them or heard their names.

That is the point of transformation. Transformation happens in the inner life of an individual – but it is useless until the boon is brought back to the community. Change your story; change the world. Greater self-knowledge impacts the lives of everyone in the community – for generations. That is the power of a teacher. And everyone is a teacher. We may never know our impact but can live, as Paul taught, with an appreciation for the potency of our choices and the reach of our actions.

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Truly Powerful People (427)

Posted on May 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

427.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“Art happens – no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.” James McNeill Whistler
Years ago I attended a summer session of The California Arts Project (TCAP). The foundation thought beneath TCAP was that teacher’s could not teach the arts unless they recognized themselves as artists. The amazing educators driving TCAP understood that all people are artists and very few people recognize it. They existed to help teachers recognize (reclaim) their artist identity, activate it, and build community with all of the other newly re-found artists. The work was extraordinary, the revelations transcendent.

Ed was an angry young man. He looked like he’d rather punch you than talk with you. I loved him! He was a wonderful teacher because he’d been a misunderstood student. He had little tolerance for adults who abused their power over children. He was a champion for children; Ed was destined to be shamed, blunted, betrayed, and forced out of education. His administrator sent him to TCAP with the last-ditch hope that the arts would take the edge off of Ed (oh, silly administrator!).

When he came to TCAP he chose dance as his primary art form because he knew nothing about dance. Ed’s choices were usually rooted in resistance and rebellion and that extended to his personal choices. I imagine his inner monologue went something like this: “So you think you can be an artist! Well why don’t you just try dance, Mr. No-Rhythm-Multiple-Clubfoot!” Over the next two weeks at TCAP Ed went through the stages of death; denial and anger led to acceptance and then burst through to another stage: desire. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that desire burst through Ed. He decided to do a solo performance as his final demonstration. He disappeared for hours at a time to rehearse. He began to smile, his brow un-knit, his usual heavy aura sparkled; Ed had a secret and it tickled him.

Ed danced a lifetime of pain away before our eyes. To Seal’s Kiss From A Rose, he moved through darkness to liberation to celebration to elation. He bloomed. 200 teachers, shocked into silence, bore witness to the enormity of the human spirit and the power of the arts. Ed unwittingly called forth the muses and art happened. Pandora’s box was open and the art was out! Ed’s anger was transformed. He returned to his school with more than an edge: he now knew how to wield his power. There is nothing more potent than a teacher who has released their artist from the box.

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Truly Powerful People (424)

Posted on May 7, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

424.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Colin was different. Dwight cast him in the play because he wanted Colin to be part of a community of support. Being different, Colin had rarely belonged. He was the outcast kid constantly trying to get into the group. Consistent shunning did nothing to dampen his desire. He wanted to belong. He kept trying. So, he auditioned for a play. Dwight cast Colin because Dwight understands the true nature of art.

One day, a few weeks into rehearsal, Dwight came into the theatre and heard the other cast members belittling Colin. Dwight was stunned. The power of his astonishment shocked the cast into silence. In a quiet voice, filled with love-rage, Dwight delivered a message worthy for the ears of all humanity. “This space is sacred. It is an art space where people come together. It is a space of generosity and courage. It is a place where people reach toward each other to have a common experience. It is a place capable of transforming hearts and lives. Colin’s need is to reach toward you. Can you imagine the courage it must take for him, day after day to show up and to reach toward you knowing that your response will be to push him away? Imagine it because this is what you are creating. And what you are creating is killing the art in you and in him. What do you possibly gain by pushing him away other than a false sense of superiority? You need to mock Colin so that you feel powerful. How does that power feel? What might you gain by opening your circle and letting him in? How powerful do you become when your power is not predicated upon the diminishment of others? Colin needs you but let me tell you something that you may not recognize: you need him far more than he will ever need you. He just might teach you how to be truly powerful and human.”

And then Dwight asked them to leave his theatre. He asked them not to come back until they were capable of respecting themselves, each other, and their play. He came into my office, sat down and wept. And then, he asked me a world-class question: “Why are people so devoted to diminishing themselves?”

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Truly Powerful People (410)

Posted on April 23, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

410.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Andrew and Andre led us in a workshop about innovation and the brain. Andrew (the right brain artist) led us through a variety of improvisation exercises helping us identify different ways of knowing and responding. Andre (the left brain professor) would step in at intervals and explain what was happening in our brains. The upshot: take the pressure off and follow your gut (it’s your brain talking).

I liked the idea that the different hemispheres of my brain might be two different personalities and appreciated even more that they might be named Andrew and Andre. In my brain, Andrew and Andre are circus performers. They work well together because they are vastly different; they illuminate each other because they see the world from different perspectives. The real Andrew is quite tall while Andre is much shorter so, of course, my circus performer right brain is the tall clown while the circus performer left brain fits easily into the tiniest clown car. Clown Andrew is happy; clown Andre is much more serious (they are eastern European clowns, not the white face Ringling Brother types). Clown Andrew is innocent and playful and adventurous and has no notion of failure. Clown Andre is prone to stepping into obvious holes so consumed is he with thought. He looks as if his girlfriend just left him or as if he is always on the edge of a migraine headache. Clown Andrew’s clothes are too small. Clown Andre’s are way too big. There. No need to dissect my brain, I’ve already done it for you!

Andre (the real one) told us that the prefrontal cortex of the brain was like a stage; sometimes it gets blocked and needs to be cleared or reset. He taught us an exercise for clearing the stage: set a timer for 5 minutes and during that time do something else, something physical: do the dishes, run up and down the stairs, clean the windows, take a nice walk and think about anything other than what you were trying to do before the reset. When the timer goes off, catch the first thought that comes to mind. He said, “Often it will be a very good one.”

“This is not a new technique,” he said. “Thomas Edison used to sit in a chair and hold a large ball bearing in each hand. With his arms dangling by his sides, he’d have placed a metal plate or bucket on the floor beneath each hand. He’d close his eyes and relax, allowing his mind to drift. Soon he’d be on the edge of sleep and one of the ball bearings would slip from his hand and clang in to the dish, waking him. The first idea that popped into his mind would be the path of his pursuit.”

The brain science is catching up with classrooms and cubicles. High performance is produced in states of relaxation, strong offers are intuitive as much or more than they are intellectual: remove failure from the equation and excellence is possible. Intuition is finding a way back onto the mountaintop with Intellect and isn’t it poetic that brain science is the path that she is taking?

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Truly Powerful People (405)

Posted on April 18, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

405.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lora takes photographs of my paintings when I have a new batch ready. She shoots the full image and then does a series of sections. Often I liked her cropped images much better than my original composition! It always makes me laugh how her photographer’s eye can help me see my paintings as if I’d never seen them before. I am tempted to cut my paintings into her compositions because they are more dynamic – they are better paintings.

I am a slow study and did not recognize the possibilities until a earlier today: I sent Megan a photo I took on my phone of a painting in process – and I recognized that I was seeing things in the photograph that I did not see when standing before the painting. I was seeing compositional strengths and weaknesses. Looking at the photo I knew exactly what to do to with the painting! The photograph isolates the image, frames it and eliminates all the visual noise from the peripheral. It helps me see beyond what I think is there to what is actually there. This view helps move me beyond my idea of the painting and into a dance with the painting; it frees me to play.

As I went back to work on the painting I thought about how a magic camera could help educators or organizations (or people everywhere) when they are lost in the politics or consumed in a cloud of visual noise so that nothing seems clear. I’d like to help them put a frame around it. What we need to do to facilitate great learning is simple and clear when cleaned of the power plays, business interests and intentions that have nothing to do with learning and everything to do with controlling learners. A magic camera might help us see beyond the clutter. Business leaders could use it, too. There is so much noise when an organization’s original purpose fuzzes out of focus: myopic short-term market performance is the driver of all action. The picture torques, the composition falls apart, the values disintegrate.

As I write this I recognize that the clutter comes from the mistaken notion that reason and rational thinking rule the day; they don’t. The real work in our lives happens when we hit the resistance or feel out of our comfort zone – the first person to abandon ship in a hot moment is our reason. Heart and fear are left to sort out the confusion.

Pull out your camera and aim it at the painting of your life. Don’t think too much about it and take a quick picture. Cut out the peripheral noise. Do you see your heart’s composition or fear’s work? Either way your next steps should appear: simple and clear.

Filed under: Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

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