Dear Reader, "With attention and intention, we can shape our system in ways that resource the pathways that nourish our well-being (Deb Dana, Anchored, p. 105)." In July and August in The Studio for Playful Inquiry, we read Anchored and Inciting Joy together as we focused on the practice of finding glimmers - which is Deb Dana’s word for paying attention to the world and our experiences with the intention to perceive what brings us joy, delight, happiness, or comfort. In many ways, our...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
The Studio for Playful Inquiry Leading for Playful Inquiry This week, we're on retreat with our first leadership cohort in Cannon Beach, Oregon, thinking and reflecting and planning with the friends we have made through our online program over the year - meeting in person for the first time - sharing food (lots of food) and impressions that can only be shared when you are breathing the same air, feeling the same ocean mist together in the three-dimensional world. So we're stopping by your...
4 months ago • 1 min read
I'm hearing it constantly: In these wild times, it's really important for everyone to write. Maybe that's a message you're hearing, too. But you might be wondering where to start - or what that call has to do with your work with young people. We've designed an antidote to that: a short series to get you started. Over just four meetings - each designed to attend live or at your convenience - we'll help you put pen to paper in a way that you'll find meaningful. And it's cheap - we've got pick...
6 months ago • 1 min read
New Offerings! Your stories offer an essential corrective to misleading images of who children and educators are and what is happening in our schools and centers. In this intensive short course, we'll work together to develop and share stories that you value. Learn more Over the last year, 19 educators and administrators from around the world have strengthened their capacity to lead with and for playful inquiry. Their enthusiasm for the experience leads us to offer the experience to a small...
6 months ago • 1 min read
"'Dialogue' comes from the Greek word dialogos. Logos means 'the word' or in our case we would think of the 'meaning of the word'. And dia means 'through' - it doesn't mean two. A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, It is clear that if we are to live in harmony with ourselves and with nature, we need to be able to communicate freely in a creative movement in which no one permanently holds to or otherwise defends his own ideas. Why then is it so difficult actually to bring about such communication? David Bohm, On Dialogue This month we've been thinking about dialogue as we've been finishing our reading of See No Stranger - we've asked: What is love without dialogue? Below is an excerpt from a...
7 months ago • 4 min read
In today's newsletter, we center voices from colleagues we deeply respect who are offering guidance we find essential. First, a public letter written by Ann Pelo and Margie Carter. Sometimes my imagination is a bird. It flies around in the blue sky, looking for some ideas. Ideas are like tiny seeds; my birds are looking for them. If the birds get them and drop them somewhere, the seeds will grow into some beautiful plants or flowers. Then they are no longer tiny ideas; they are big, beautiful...
8 months ago • 5 min read
Several years ago, Susan and I were leading a workshop in Vancouver, BC. We asked the teachers to engage in a thought experiment: What is the nature of teaching for democracy - and how might that be different than teaching for autocracy? One of the common threads in the response was in the nature of relationships between adults and children: Teaching for democracy would be filled with warmth and caring; teaching for autocracy, cold and harsh. After hearing this response multiple times, two...
8 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, We invite you to click over to Substack to view my new (10 minute) video essay. Here is an excerpt: The arts invite us to think in metaphor, to play with ideas, to seek connection, and so it is that a love ethic is expressed through metaphor. Barry Lopez writes that “Abandoning metaphor entirely only paves the way to the rigidity of fundamentalism..” Which is a meaningful adjunct to hooks’ assertion: “An overall cultural embrace of a love ethic would mean that we would all oppose...
8 months ago • 2 min read