CONCEPT

             We are all born with our own prism of capabilities and talents, unique to us. Snowflakes are a good example of how qualities outnumber similarities. If we all lived to full potential, then our world would be very different than it is today? That is not clear, but as educators, our work is to see.

            METI (mind expression through imagination) is a thousand steps taken to full potential. If each student can create what they want in order to learn what they need to know, we have a starting point.

            Finding each individual as fully realized when we interact with them is an interesting premise and one that teachers speak about when they discuss student success, seeing them as a whole, healing the problem the moment you meet the situation. Simultaneous occurrences are necessary for METI to work and can make the work at times confusing. How can you teach, prepare to teach, stand in a classroom not really knowing what you will do next allowing chance to guide what is next?

            The answer is simple, learn to listen, be open to what needs to happen.

            METI curriculum allows your classroom to be the paradigm, your tools are your colors, and as you deliver, you allow the students to guide you.

            It is possible to plan and crucial to have options. Lessons are not pre-determined, they are waiting, well developed, and practiced so that you can use them. The idea of failure is not necessary. The creative process finds situations, not to defines them, error is a guide as much as success.

            The fundamental aspect is stepping outside of performance and entering the space of anything. If you cannot, then the student will not reach the first part of their full potential and we will miss their full unique expression.

            There are several factors involved. You have skills, curriculum, plans, and research telling you what can occur.

            How do you develop the letting go of all that? We all do it.

            When you speak to a friend, you do so with intuition and in the moment and with only that you hold a real connection with another person. It is what keeps us happy, alive, and feeling normal, human. With this in mind, why would it be difficult to do the same with a class? Because we do not connect the two as the same systems in place but as two different situations.

            The untethered chaos of friendship, family, living, we do this every day. METI curriculum requests the same consideration. Have a lesson and connection that is not planned, be real with what you teach with the person in front of you and don’t miss the change to truly build something amazing, new, and expanded beyond that with what you started.

CONTEXT

             Education’s new buzz words such as authentic and real-world are populating educational theory discussions. Schools are advertising their student-driven curriculum, but what does all this really mean?

            If you are dispensing information that the student can use, then you as a teacher, by last century’s industrial educational model, are doing your job. The ability to do this at our current rate of change as a society is daunting. How can you teach physics when the supercollider is re-mapping what we know about the subject every year? To truly present any subject in-depth, the teacher has to become a multi-expert, know more than is possible for any one person to know.

            With that in mind, what is the best way to teach today?

            This is why authentic and real-world conceptual approaches are so popular. It is the next way to approach a moving target. You define it by its generalities and then allow the student to build her or his unique relationship, one that only that person could make.

            The interruption of the internet into the classroom further adds to the reasons why general conceptual teaching makes more sense than fact-based, memory retention approaches. It is important to know how to find things but having to remember the details is no longer as central. The larger picture is crucial, the small aspects can be found at a moment’s notice.

            So how has this impacted learning? We don’t really know exactly, but we can make some assumptions. The information has changed its fundamental form; it is easy to find and not as precious and controlled as before. New formats of memory are deployed as a learner.

            How do you teach students to access and utilize what they need? Large, conceptual understanding is one way to get them there, and how they create this is determined by the subject matter, technology access, and individual parameters.

            As teachers, not all have exposure to the changes our youth experiences, socially as well as what they face in the future job market. We are expected to keep up, but that is unrealistic. If education cannot find a way for educators to be tech nimble, then students suffer. Can this be overcome by teaching authentic, real-world curriculum?

            I vote yes. It is natural to pull back and look at things from far away when they seem chaotic. We can assume that understanding how to deliver instruction that has immediate as well as possible long-term benefits is essential to success. Catalytic, reactive teaching is a possible term as our comfort zones are shifting to an entirely new level.

            This is not the first-time education had to respond to changing circumstances or the last, but our set of circumstances emphasizes the role of the teacher in new ways, predictable and productive. We are scouts more than ever of finding the most optimal design, the current trends, and keep up with a new generation whose goal is to surpass us, as it should be.

            Authentic teaching begins with self-awareness, demands keen insight, and most importantly, will not work if you are not able to gauge your class, as it truly is, every day. So, beyond teaching what they need, teaching to what they want, and teaching to the standards, an excellent teacher today must be aware of how their curriculum is fluid and not as essential as the tools they are offering in the process and domains covered.

Fundamental Lesson Formats

Introduction to New Concept(s)

1.     Define the concept you are teaching using a media (on paper, video, by lecture, quiz, etc.) 

2.     Ask the students to create their own version of the concept from what they know. 

3.     Share these ideas in groups, individual share outs, or in product creation. 

4.     Go back and teach the concept in detail by overlapping ideas they shared with the details and information of the concept or curriculum they need to learn. 

5.     Incorporate a student-created test for understanding to check their retention. 

6.     Celebrate your progress with a test that is presented as a harvest of progress and not a “gotcha” process. 

7.     All of these steps can be done in order as they are listed or in order as they are needed.

The Space Principal

1.     How your classroom is set up is an expression of two important momentums: culture and individual comfort. 

2.     The setup of your room must be intentional, flexible, and not a burden. 

3.     If there are limitations, the entire community or group can offer a solution and do so can take several class times, it will be well worth it. 

4.     The student buy-in if their space is theirs will teach them:

1.     Who they are by seeing what they choose?

2.     The power of self-determination

3.     Experience in speaking their mind and their needs

5.     Students ideally feel safe and secure in their ability to control and feel empowered in your classroom. 

6.     The time spent in adjusting to this the entire year will support strong self-defined motivations in your students and get better results as you work together towards the learning goals you have set together.

Learning Goals

Each learning environment has a myriad of external influences. In setting learning goals, those must be incorporated to meet standards and expectations not only of the people involved but also the institutions that they are part of.

The more informed and involved students are in knowing what is expected the easier it will be to succeed.

The key is making a plan together often, at least four times a year.

1.     Review your required learning tasks as a class.

2.     Add each student’s individual learning interest if they are different.

3.     Spend 1-3 class times in developing a learning plan as a group.

4.     Allow for differentiation as much as possible between each class.

5.     Keep a visual as a record of your decisions in an easy to review format as a group and on individual basis.

If you continue this practice, your students will be able to self-monitor their progress and be empowered to reach the community-wide determining learning goals at their own pace and abilities without the stress of only you are doing so for them.

STUDENT curriculum samples:

 imaginary country website example of student work

Warm Up Example

1. find an object twice the size of a container

2. you have 30 minutes to put that object in the container

3. be creative, think "outside the box" and have fun

4. answer: did not ask you to use the actual objects, can take a picture and scale, can write a description using your imagination, anything is fair game

creativity can start with frustration and end in fun, or anything in between, but it always is a generous journey involving self-discovery  

1.     What dimension are you in?

Before beginning to create imaginary countries, spend part of a class or an entire period discussing what reality is vs dimensions. Imagination is unlimited.

Reality is tangible.

Dimensions have limits determined by our minds only.

Both exist because we have words and experiences to define what they are.

This often has physical responses from students, and they get frustrated and confused.

Be patient and allow for redundancy and repetition.

Next:

1.     Ask each student what sort of dimension their world/country exists in.

Have them write the answer on a small piece of paper and place it in a box, with no names or identifiers to be part of their answer. Stress the importance of an authentic answer that they are confident of. Take the time for them to waiver as much as they need to.

If you have students who cannot decide, then let them pick from existing countries and alter them as much as they want to.

Ask them to choose randomly from the container a piece of paper. If they draw their own, that is fine, or they can have another turn.

2.     Ask each student to write a description of how their imaginary country started, the origin story.

3.     You can take a moment to read 3 samples of such stories such as the aborigines, Greek, Hopi, the big bang, etc. Choose what you are very familiar with and tell it like a bedtime story; with emphasis and engagement.

4.     Once they finish their origin story, the remainder of the class they need to find a person who has a similar origin story or one they really enjoyed.

5.     The next class shares the two stories together.

6.     Share out what they noticed and learned about how perceptions shape reality. 

II.               Imaginary Countries – creating your world lesson A 

1.     Introduce the idea of creating your own country/world/existence to the students by stating:

 There are 193 countries in the United Nations. All of them have an identity, a government, a culture, a way of doing things, a flag, national holidays, national anthems, a history, music unique to them, a language, a way of cooking and eating, their own way of doing family, and raising children.

What does it take to be a country?

 2.     Let the students share out what they think is a country and make a list of things they think are needed to be a country.

Type all that they say as they say it (can have a student do this for you) and project the list (or create a list and post it).

 3.     Choose three things the class agrees are necessary to be a country and have the students create those for the remainder of the class.

 III.              Imaginary Countries – creating your world lesson B

     1.     From the last class, you have each student share what they made and post as much of              the work as you can.

     2.   Now ask the students what they would make if anything was possible?

Ask them: what if your country was on another planet, in another galaxy, dimension, reality, if it was magical, unlimited, had no inhabitants, had the only color, was something you haven’t thought of yet.

3.     Now have them take their existing countries and make them expand at least one of the options you listed during the previous discussion.

      For example, if a student made dolphins, a land where dolphins are the inhabitants and their country is in the sea right below the north pole, they created a flag and a map and a history.  Now they need to either change location off the earth or add a dimension, or add magical qualities, etc. 

4.     Now discuss how changing your country by one or more things you did not think about at first worked for them?

IV.             Imaginary Countries – creating your world “The Art of War”

1.     Now you have countries made, it is time to create conflict and resolve it. Begin by introducing “The Art of War” cards (see table and background information below) and discuss why this has been the foundation for leaders over the centuries? What common sense and wisdom does it have? 

2.     Have each student group (3 or more) choose two strategies they cannot live without. 

3.     Now tell the class that all food or existence strength has depleted, and they have to either attack another country or die. They can resolve this any way they want to.

4.     Allow the remainder of the class to resolve the situation with 10 minutes to check-in at the end and tally how many countries survived.

The Art of War is a 5th-century BCE military treatise written by the Chinese strategist Sun-Tzu (aka Sunzi or Sun Wu). Covering all aspects of warfare, it seeks to advise commanders on how to prepare, mobilize, attack, defend, and treat the vanquished. Sun Tzu also stressed the importance of intelligence operatives and espionage to the war effort.

It is composed of 13 chapters. For almost 1,500 years it was the lead text in an anthology that would be formalized as the Seven Military Classics by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1080. The Art of War remains the most influential strategy text in East Asian warfare and has influenced both Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy, lifestyles, and beyond.

The strategy is responding to a situation not just planning

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result.

 Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

To secure ourselves lies in our own hands, but the opportunity to defeat the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

Whoever is the first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy will be fresh for the fight, whoever is second has to hasten and will arrive exhausted.

You are sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack the places that are undefended.

Observe, act, prepare. 

Do not advance uphill.

Do not oppose an enemy with your back to a hill.

Know your enemy's weak and strong points and know your own.

Information can give you an advantage, use your spies.

 Seize the opportunity when your enemy is disordered, angry, unprepared and you are unexpected.

 What is of supreme importance in war is to attach the enemy’s strategy.

 In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact.

 While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

V.               Imaginary Countries – creating your world WAR

(2 plus class periods)

1.     Present the list of possible conflicts below to the class and ask them to create a minimum of one more by themselves and turn it in. 

2.     Next, allow the class to create alliances and or treaties between each country for at least 30-45 minutes (this can be more than a one class lesson). 

3.     Combine their ideas with the existing list into individual cards that you place in a box or container that you then pull out one at a time and give it to each country to resolve. 

4.     The remainder of the class they have to solve their issue. If they do, they get the next one till end of class. 

5.     In the next class, they are asked to write a summary of what happened (this is to teach them the difficulties of historical accuracy). 

6.     They share out individually. 

7.     This second class ends with a discussion on how successfully they resolved their problems and what worked and what they would approach it next time.

VI.              Geography: Clear layers

Introduce the idea of geography after a short discussion on images representing settlements, civilizations, groups of people, etc. We have flags, mascots, logos, images that portray the group or existence far back in history.

Explore the concept of physical representations of countries. 

There are borders, maps, geographical facts, settings, buildings, and inhabitants that are part of its architecture and aesthetic.

Optional: take a moment to teach basic geographical concepts such as scale and distortion.

On clear plastic sheets, each student draws a representation of their country's geography.

If it has no shape, they can write a description or create a representation that communicates the physical reality of what it is.

Hang the work up in the classroom, all of it if at all possible, and allow time for all students who want to present their work to do so.

Then allow them to ally or move into their alliances.

Each group is instructed to place their sheets on top of each other and hang these up.

See what the overlap shows about their union.

This allows for visual imagination to create a real product that then becomes again an abstract image.

VII.             Money and Commerce: Investment

1.     Each student in groups or by themselves creates a company that is a business in their world(s).

Take as much time as you want to do this. It can be 10 minutes to 2 classes. My experience the time does not affect the outcome, the process does.

2.     Each student or group present their idea. They sell it to the class.

3.     You create a chart with the names of the businesses and what they do and post it in class.

4.     At this point, you can have them create a logo and a business plan or skip to #5.

5.     Each business has a selling presentation.
The student or group each have 1-100 million dollars to invest. The rules are they have to invest in another business, they have to spend all their funds, or they lose everything as they do if they spend too much. The business is still theirs but the investors they just gained may have control due to their interest.

6.     Pick a good person to help you auction this and let them volunteer and try. This is part of the experience.

7.     Make certain you have an accountant in place keeping track of what is going on. This role gives an extra 1-10 million dollars to their group and they can take turns (for both jobs).

8.     If you want more jobs, you can create them but make certain you have a balance of vocations, of course.

9.     Once this is done, you go to the next lesson.

VIII.           Money and Commerce: Growing the Market

Once you are done with the investments, create a final chart, and post it in the room.

While you are doing this, the students are allowed to form alliances and partnerships with other groups.

1.     Show the final numbers of the investments and determine who has the best standing in financial terms.

2.     Then vote as a group who you think will be most successful in the long-term. The winner of that vote has to give 1-10 million to each of the other groups (they don’t know till the vote is over). Stick to this even if they don’t think it’s fair.

3.     Next, announce the alliances and partnerships made.

Give them one class to grow their businesses. If they are without ideas, create a reason for them to have a surplus across all the businesses and allow them to use that for growth.

1.     In the next class, have them share out any new information such as alliances and new business ideas (to the existing ones or totally new).

2.     Choose one student to help you decide who will grow who will fail by choosing names out of a box (all the business names, including the new ones, have been placed in a container). One turn is for winning one for loss and you do this until each business has one turn.

3.     End with enough time for them to meet and review where they are.

IX.              Money and Commerce: Summary

Start the class by reviewing what has happened and updating if there are any new developments.

1.     Each student writes or records their experience so far by writing rules they have noticed are at work in the process of exchanging money, goods, and services between the imaginary countries. Give them as much time as they want to do this if you can, the entire class or week, etc.

2.     Share out your thoughts as you go. Have each group check-in in middle of class and end of class.

3.     Write these rules as a final document and share this out.

4.     Now challenge them how they would change the rules to make it possible for everyone to do well?

5.     Allow for the time needed and share out and create the ideas and post them.

X.               Money and Commerce: More Market Lessons, Optional

The continuation of the Market Lessons depends on what you want to teach. Money exchange has changed due to technology, but to date, not the method of valuing what makes it what doesn’t.

Making that change is inevitable (like block-chain, etc.), but we as a society are still not populous enough to be forced to make real change.

This class can be continued in asking the question of if and when we evolve in our making changes what will they look like?

How will the countries they developed thrive together?

Is it possible for all of them to do so or do you have to have some fail?

It is up to you and the students as a team where you go from here. Listen for the most powerful option, you will know it when you hear it once you get to this point.

METI CLASS FOR TEACHERS examples:

Familiarize yourself with the METI student process (follows the structure of most METI lessons)

1.     Bring one of your most successful lessons

2.     Teachers by consensus choose one lesson to teach

3.     Once the lesson is chosen (can have more than one happens, can split into groups), create the space you want in the room.

4.     You have the option to move the furniture the way that you want to tackle this problem, can move it around more than once.

 Begin by describing how you would teach your lesson, share in groups.

Choose the lesson you are most interested in (not necessarily the best one)

Vote as a group three lessons to be taught.

 Next, each lesson is taught only by one third. The order is random and chosen with any randomizing tool you choose (numbers, straws, etc.).

Spend the time necessary discussing a group that you experienced during this exercise.

 Next, choose one thing to teach a majority of the people in the class known nothing about.

List a minimum of two principles you assume should be defined in order to learn this.

In groups, create a lesson plan for this lesson.

Share the lessons.

 Continue the class with a celebration by making a drawing in each group of what you are taking with you when you leave as a new insight, understanding, perspective.

Hand these around the room and allow time for a gallery walk.

End the class with a 10 minute what I know now.

INTUITIVE REACTIVE PRESENTATION

             The “gut” intuition is a way of saying I saw it all at once and know where to go, what to do. People using terms such as this tend to be out of theory and options, wordy definitions, and examples of why one thing was amazing in one situation and completely failed in the next. That is the basis of the idea, to adapt.

            Teaching as the wind blows only works if you have a skill set available, of experience, ideas and have conditioned your audience. Excellent practice takes time and a determination to be true to who you are, which is daunting when thirty plus young faces are looking at you for guidance, entertainment, or just distraction, does not matter.

            METI curriculum has a fundamental ingredient of palette and painting metaphor for teaching. The things one can do are created by study, practice, and experience. What you will do today is up to what fits the moment.

            This sounds impractical but as all service personnel in the trenches of everyday work will tell you, intuition can get you much farther than being right. Does it make sense, of course not, because the mind and your memory limit the ability to react and act in a situation from a place of strength? A full analysis of all that is going on takes much more than what we call thinking or knowing.

            A simple analogy would be a database that is required to do more than one function, but its information is limited. That is what following your lesson plan to the letter does.

            Students in a class have endless variables and teachers have infinite options of how and when. Acting out of the knowledge of what you think you know stops creative flow which is so sought after in today’s job market as well as life situations. If you cannot guess, adjust, and figure out all the new, changing aspects of daily life, you will be missing out of many chances to succeed. As guides to our students, we must model working from a place of the present and all it entails. Time is irrelevant when real learning takes place because it reaches the core of a person and carries its value forward, endlessly. That is the ultimate goal of this type of teaching practice.

            Intuitive in the moment decisions that are well based on preparation and reason, a combination that is powerful enough to try, even in the face of the unknown. It is not definable outside of the parameters of how. When you are doing it, your moment tells you all you need to know.

Epilogue (something bigger)

 We all live life with a few desires; to be loved, to have a home, to belong.

When these are met, there is one more hidden urge which becomes more defined as time passes and things are met, or not met, but you have made some progress, in time if not much more, according to you.

The bigger thing, the one that needs you to expand your perception, your understanding, why you exist.

            Teaching a child is the act of transferring experience, knowledge, skills for their future, things they may need to know, preparing them for a final result that may be abstract at this point or easily used such as reading, dancing, playing music, etc.

          The space we inhabit is set by things we cannot control. We do know there is more space and possibility, but rarely is it filled in the midst of a day, it is there, waiting.

            That moment when it makes sense has many names, synchronicity, flow, now.

            Imaginary Countries exercises those muscles that know how to reach out past your usual definition of you, to learn backward, to embrace the amount of possibility that is you by asking some simple questions which are negligent in content but not effect.

            Fulfilled expectations, people talk about reaching their potential in a moment or a set of choices and it makes the news when it benefits us.

            Every day it is important to find that place, the one we don’t know about, that is right next to you. To do this is to live fully.

            This curriculum and set of circumstances in the book are how I’ve noticed students make the connection to themselves in a manner that matters longer than particular instances. They leave with something intangible that affects the rest of their memories because they’ve activated, again, awareness, the ability to live in a bigger space of comprehension.

 copyright  2020

some thoughts

Current Crisis in Education and Some Ideas   

              Institutionalized schools are taking the brunt of criticism lately and not one of the new solutions offered have shown real long term solutions. Education is standing in the middle of a tornado watching barely recognizable parts fly around. The dizzying speed of change encouraged with technology, society, and economic globalization, is beginning to make things interesting.

            What model will work in the future? 

How can one person help another to grow into their best self? Parents and teachers are not the only factors in this, but they are the only ones held responsible. The rarity of success is incorrectly measured. We, as a society, are missing out on what our elders and communities of the past practiced. A person does best when they are certain that who they are is stable, permanent in the most natural of ways.

Self-driven instruction combined with real work experience and student driven classroom model is a good start. How does that translate to developing countries or language learning situations? Effective programs already use some of these strategies. Language immersion and social inclusion have no competition when it comes to results in education. Children at risk thrive when supported and are given freedom and the opportunity to build by following their bliss. Language learners do best when they utilize the language and swim in the environment they are developing tools for. It is common sense to plant where the seed will flourish and not where it's easiest to manage.

            The Waldorf, Montessori, Free, Democratic school models all repeat the same fundamental concept; the child is an undetermined factor that can develop into the clearest, brilliant person possible. How you get there varies by philosophy and approach but is always determined by the child first.

           As complex a problem as it may be, clarity of vision and trying new ideas is key. Suggesting that it is impossible to react is missing the chance in creating your own shiny, amazing version of yourself as an educator. So, perhaps the answer given here is just that, teacher, begin with yourself. Be the one that models the most powerful version of self and go from there. And society, taxes and such, please give us a beautiful, fair, kind, and loving space, thank you.       

Background

The moment of learning is a phenomenon defined in teaching  as when practice, cognition and the newly understood concept are placed into permanent, useable memory. The idea of creating imaginary countries was an offshoot from teaching Model United Nations. 193 countries come together in the UN to resolve problems, talk with each other, and make a future together. How to grasp and teach such a wide breadth of information demanded from me to combine the process of an artist with the discipline of teaching. I had from the beginning of my teaching practice utilized intuitive and in the moment pedagogy, teaching MUN helped me formalize the concept into the Imaginary Country lessons and beyond.

            There are countless government types, histories, cultures represented in the United Nations and their joined story I determined can be expressed in a reverse engineering format.

If you want to learn something, you must first experience it. To this, add your ability to create your own version and you will remember as well as understand it.

            I am a true believer in doing something to know it. Theory and talking are excellent for foundational instruction, but until you actually do it, you won’t know your personal relationship and experience with it.

            Our first imaginary countries were on planet earth. The second to third time we expanded into the solar system and soon were outside the known realm of reality.

            It is much more productive to allow the student's mind to follow its own trajectory that to tell them what to think of, then they allow themselves to expand to the dimensions of who they are, and the relationship to the ideas exponentially expands the work. New things are discovered so much faster using that rule, letting them run the show.

            The time it takes for students to feel liberated is dependent on age and former learning. Students with Montessori, Waldorf, Free and Democratic backgrounds, and some homeschooled students can be familiar with self-monitored learning and thinking. Most conventional educational systems do not have as much practice doing the same and take a while longer to find their stride; they also need more long-term guidance. This is not meant as a criticism of standard educational systems, it is an observation worth noting when teaching METI.

            So how did METI begin, they came from my honest frustration. I could not cover as much ground in traditional and previous methods used, I had to think of a way to jump around, fill in the gaps, and what is better to do that than each individual creative mind.

            Having over 30 years of experience as an artist  [and creative person​​], I went to my comfort zone, the precipice of jumping off and finding a flight with inspiration. Abandoning fear is crucial for an artist, we must leap, do it often, and do it well. Thought worth trying something similar in the classroom.

            Every day I teach from my gut, my intuitive space. That is where it matters most. If I follow the lesson planned when true inspiration overrules that agenda, I always fail full potential and often end in disaster. There is room to recover, but it does not match following your own guidance and allowing belief to be replaced by the process of the moment.

            The potential of each individual person is infinite. Our own imagination is the vehicle we use similar to how we breathe; it is innate and fundamental. This is why METI is important to understand and incorporate in daily teaching practice. The access to more human potential rests in our most basic, intrinsic traits. Imagination gives us flight, begins the movement necessary to engage the world with all of who we are, or at least, as much as we can fit into one grain of experience.