We believe that there is really no time like the present to start tackling some of the biggest wicked problems in public education. We need creative, inquiry-based, provocative and uniquely open ways of connecting to one another and finding a new way forward.

We aim to work where the design tensions are happening – to help individuals and organizations conquer their fears and build and design ideas with courage, which can improve youth resiliency.

We judge our success in diverse ways – by the investment that organizations and schools have put into trying something emergent, in the numerous partners that have trusted our visions and wacky ideas, and in the countless education design practitioners that have come to us and continue to help us shape and define this organization.

Our goal over the next five years is to become better at doing all these things:

  • to purposely work to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders to tackle public sector design challenges
  • to grow connections and a network of community-based education design practitioners
  • to help organizations and schools uniquely and purposefully connect with their stakeholders
  • and to continue offering a different way to approach design challenges and unpack problems

What we’re not going to do

These are the things we are going to do, but it seems important to also name the things we aren’t going to be doing.

We are very proud to be a part of a growing list of organizations working to tackle some of the biggest public sector design challenges. There are a lot of organizations that specialize or would call themselves experts, if you are looking to connect with them, we are happy to point you in their direction.

We are not going to:

  • prescribe to a narrow definition of public education
  • concentrate our bandwidth on becoming a training organization
  • dilute our values by providing generic consulting services
  • limit ourselves to typical collaborations
  • disregard perspectives of stakeholders
  • stop being a learning organization
  • cover up or hide design tensions in lieu of pleasing a client

The future

Our aim over the next few years is to become more of a resource to you.

We want to be the partner of choice for organizations and schools who might have felt stuck but are stepping into a position to be brave enough to take a design challenge head on.

We want to be better collaborators with stakeholders and communities of all kinds as they co-design the future of education.

And we want to support individuals become innovators and design thinkers by providing them the right tools and mindsets to help them break down barriers and walls that might stand in their way.