Source: TopMastersInEducation.com
Seth Godin’s December 2013 post:
The sound of a small bell during a dark night
…is louder than the din of traffic outside your window during rush hour.Surprise and differentiation have far more impact than noise does.
No sense adding any more noise to this message.
We design information systems, smart buildings, ecological friendly communities, learning spaces and so many aspect of our society but we unfortunately do not apply this holistic approach to designing learning environments. Apple has always designed excellent hardware but with their iPhone, iPad and the whole IOS ecosystem they gone a step further and have designed a mobile communication or networking environment that just works. If we apply a similar purposeful design to our learning environments we also can create a significant learning environment that just works. Whether we are purposeful in its design or we just allow the circumstances to dictate its development education at all levels are providing learning environments. Rather than allow the environment to come together on its own and respond reactively to the learning dynamics that arise I suggest that educators become more proactive and create significant learning environments.
Therefore it is exciting to see an emphasis on purposeful design in the list of resources on Design Thinking for educators. Design thinking consists of four key elements:
Defining the Problem, Creating and Considering Multiple Options, Refining Selected Directions, and Executing the Best Plan of Action. (InformEd, 2013)
Several of the resources listed are links to a either the IDEO group or related sites that have been influenced by the working and writings of Tom Kelly and Tim Brown, who are two of the foundational thinkers behind design thinking.
If you have or had children who played with other children at their homes or in a other locations other than your own, the question “Would your mother let you do this at home?” is often used by the host or concerned parent as a gentle way to deter activities in children other than their own that they are uncomfortable with. For many of these parents who said this to the Harapnuik brothers their answer most often was…Yes!
The picture above is of the living room of our current home in North Vancouver and as you can see the traditional use of the living room has been supplanted by the Harapnuik brother’s bike repair shop. If you look beyond the obvious, these boys have too many expensive bikes (…and their road bikes aren’t in the picture), and try to understand who lives this way one might assume that this is just a bachelor pad and the boys are living by themselves or with other young males who have very different or unconventional priorities. No, my wife and I also live here.
You may then assume that this family and perhaps the parents don’t appreciate the finer things in life and are very tolerant of disorder. You would be wrong again because the picture below of our living room in our house in Texas clearly shows that we do have a taste for the finer things in life. Take a few minutes to view all the pictures of hour house in Texas and you will clearly see we do appreciate a fine home and that my wife is a wonderful decorator – Saddle Creek Estates house in Texas.
The picture of our boys using our living room as bike shop demonstrates just how committed their mother is in supporting their dreams and how much she believes in them. I often wax eloquently about creating significant learning environments but in this single act of allowing her boys to use a very special space in our/her home as their repair shop (we currently don’t have a garage) she is telling our sons that their dreams of becoming professional racers/riders are significant and that she will do what she can to help build the environment that will help them to achieve those dreams. For anyone who knows my wife Marilyn you know just how much she loves to have people over, so to give up this valuable meeting space is not something that she would do without significant motivation.
It is my hope that my boys appreciate the sacrifice and the commitment that their mother has made toward supporting them in their goals. It is also my hope that the modelling of support and commitment that a family needs to make is a value that my boys catch and bring to their own families in the future. My wife’s flexibility in our living space, her willingness to shuttle the boys and their friends up the mountain and then wait for them to ride down and then do this over and over again, and her modelling the commitment and sacrifice it takes to achieve very big dreams are key factors in being an intentional parent.
I have been writing about being an intentional father for the past several months and now I realize that without my wonderful wife’s commitment and support I would not be able to do what I do and I finally recognize I should be talking about becoming an intentional parent NOT just an intentional father. I have been talking the talk about being an intentional parent and my wife has been walking the walk or being an intentional parent. This is demonstrated so clearly by the answer to the question – Would your mom let you do this at home. My boys can answer – Yes she does and so much more.
