Blog

Learning means a lot to us and we are working on a “Failure Report” so look for that to come next year. The events, the people, the conversations, the projects, the ideas, the learnings have come but they are not gone. Lessons are sometimes hidden in challenges and in laughter, but they only stick when you really give them the time to register. This year, we learned a lot.

• Lesson # 1 Challenge Yourself!
• Lesson #2 Keep Learning
• Lesson #3 Ask for Help

This year, we learned to take bigger risks, to partner to fill the gaps and to push our passions.

And now, we can give you a big kiss goodbye and welcome in 2012!

We hope 2012 brings us new friends, ideas and inspiration, just like you did. We look forward to the adventures that 2012 will bring us and we invite bad kids, city builders, jammers, photographers and more to join us again for another roller coaster 🙂 With warm regards, we wish you happy trails.

love ya, Exhibit Change Team

It has been a few weeks since “Everybody is a Teacher” and I am starting to feel a little antsy in balancing action and reaction. We pride ourselves on being action oriented and for working to make a difference. It feels like a responsibility to know what to do next. I have to admit, I don’t know. The conversation at “Everybody is a Teacher” was amazing, powerful and a strong call for systemic change. So, now what? What is the first step to take towards systemic change, I am thinking lots of little ones.

There is already a lot happening and a lot that still needs to be done. As we digest the magnitude of the conversations and energy that was built at “Everybody is a Teacher” and we plan for what steps we will take next, we need to acknowledge that part of this was taking the first giant step. Taking the step to put a call out, to invite people to join us and for the conversation to have space to live and grow. I have been thinking about this more, as I have been going to a few events and people are asking, “What now?” & “What’s next?” and expecting someone else to do something about it. And the expectation gave me a little jolt, I too wonder what will happen after I go to an event, will there be a policy or a report or will the conversation fade? After “Everybody is a Teacher” we are learning that we are still learning and that is all part of the change.

We also want to support others to grow their projects, create a community of Bad Kids, change our relationship to labels like Bad Kids and keeping making space for conversations.

We are balancing action and reaction, as much as want to take action, we also want to hold the urge to react before thinking it through.

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

It all started about 2 months ago. When I discovered I was a Bad Kid. The Bad Kids Collective is a growing group of individuals who are questioning the way we learn, the way we are taught and the spaces we do it in. We LOVE learning.

On November 20th, we gathered for the first time as the Bad Kids Collective for “Everybody is a Teacher” – it was simply magical! I love the way our minds convened, our questions bubbled up, our trust that everyone else in the room didn’t really know what was going on, but that our passion for learning was enough to guide us.

The Art of Hosting is meant to create energy and movement and it was the perfect facilitation method for this conversation. I truly believe Art of Hosting can solve all the problems in the world.

The day started with two provocative stories about learning, feeling “marked” by our grades, and where our learning could be headed. These stories led us into a series of amazing conversations that unleashed hundreds of ideas and way more questions, I only wish there was a way to be in every conversation. We had an extended lunch, partially because we were dealing with warming up lunch in just one oven and maybe a little oven fire, but it gave room for really energetic connections to be made. The afternoon was open for discussion, the questions that came up led to even more fire and excitement. The questions were “How do we reframe learning as healing?” “Is there still a place for teacher-directed learning?” “How do we bridge school and community?” and more conversations boiled up in the edges. In the next little while, we will be following up with all the open space hosts to find out a little more about what was talked about.

The best part of all of this, is that when we initially started planning this event,  we weren’t sure anyone would know what we were talking about, want to join us or who knows what else. We realize that sometimes we feel out on a limb and then serendipitously community emerges.

I am overflowing with the endless amount of imagination, creativity and amazing spirit of the day. I simply can’t wait to see where this going. Join us for the journey. See the conversation. Or share your Bad Kids story with us!

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

At EdCamp Toronto, I had the chance to start a very interesting conversation about making a lobby into a learning hub. So my first question was…what is a learning hub? In this case, it was a place for conversation. This was very intriguing and the conversation led to a visit last week to the school. While at the school, I noticed the design of control, from the words used in signage “Visitors report to the office”, the way the furniture is laid out, only the teachers name on the classroom door, the fence around the playground, the endless beige walls. Schools screams of do what I tell you to do. Don’t run. Don’t yell. Don’t speak out. Don’t pass notes. When do these don’ts lead to – Don’t listen. Don’t learn. Don’t think. How is the spatial design of a school changing the social space of learning? Schools are designed with the intent to keep kids safe and to create optimal learning environments. How different might these spaces look if we involve our kids in the design? The design of the signage? The design of the furniture? The design of the learning? What then?

The visit I had stirred a lot of questions and the school I visited seems primed to start these conversations and project with their kids. They already have paper taped to the walls to talk to their students about library books and what should we do better. They host movie nights. They encourage nature hikes in the parks. They have art created by their students in the lobby and the library. They have breakfast clubs. Their students say hi to people in the community. They want more. They know they can create a collaborative and imaginative student body, engaged parents and happy teachers if they share the responsibility of making the school safe and an optimal learning environment. Breaking down school walls takes a lot, but when we can do that we can open up the realm of learning to the community and to the world to build global citizens who are engaged and action oriented.

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

I have had the pleasure of going to many sought after conferences in the last few weeks. It seems as soon as October hit, everyone decided it was a really good time to start re-energizing our brains after the summer stand still. I am hyped up on new information and can’t wait for a way to use it all.

Each fall, I venture into a new realm of exploration. Last year, it was politics of the municipal elections and how to make a community engagement impact, this year I am doing the same but with education. I have been going to a variety of education conferences with the usual sprinkling of design, city ecology and social innovation. I tend to favour the unconference model, but am also going to a few conference type events.

It all started when I joined the Edcamp Toronto planning committee and has rippled into the Art, Science and Brain: ArtSmarts Knowledge Exchange and the People for Education Conference and unConference on “What is Success?”. I also dabbled in the “Community Innovation Summit” at the Centre for Social Innovation and Innoversity: Roadmap 2030 and this week I went to Skills for Change “Diversity @ Work”

All these learning events have one thing in common, flow of experience. The content changes, but the experience you are giving your audience is what you want them to walk away with. The conversations they had, the way they moved in and out of the space, the way there was time for questions and the connections they left with. All of these points are created by the design of the day. This is the space that you can’t see or touch, but it is the space that you end up mesmerized with or disappointed with.

I am starting to analyze the foundations of this space and see if I can build a layout. There is an architecture to this structure and I am fascinated.

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

October 1 was a long, cold night full of cheerful people who interacted with our exhibit all night long.

We had a flurry of activity and a slew of participants who came to activate our night. Our exhibit was one of 18 in a long line of rental trucks along Queen Street West.

We brought Through My Lens to the streets. We wanted to share the themes from Through My Lens with the visitors of Nuit Blanche. We had hundreds of people stop by our truck and have their picture taken with a chalkboard. These conversations are just the beginning.

These themes have lent themselves to so many conversations, from the ones that began with Through My Lens as a photography adventure to Through My Lens as a Nuit Blanche exhibit. Through My Lens is about starting new conversations. The Through My Lens photographers took so many amazing pictures and the visitors of Nuit Blanche curated them on our truck and added new stories and began new conversations of their own.

We are completely inspired to keep these conversations going, so don’t be surprised when you see Through My Lens resurfacing!

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

As EdCamp Toronto planning is moving along, and at each meeting, I feel like when I crinkle my nose or ask just one more question, that I am starting to be thought of as the bad kid. Which has got me thinking, maybe I am a bad kid. I didn’t do well in school, I struggled to understand why I was doing yet another formula that seemed so unrelated to my future work and always had the lingering statement of “Jennifer is nice to have in class, but she talks too much” on every one of my report cards, dating back to first grade.

EdCamp Toronto planning has taught me that as the bad kid, I want to learn too.

Over the last week, I have seen and read several anecdotes that have intrigued me to start thinking about my relationship to being a learner. Are we aiming to get our education system to be a place where every student is testing at 100% ? Are we accepting classroom sizes will always be too big? Are we teaching for the students who are getting it or the students who are struggling?

I am curious to see how EdCamp will go and the conversations that will happen and the connections that will be made. I want to be part of the conversation that gets us to the next level of thinking.

Who is giving out the gold stars of the future? What do they even look like?

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn