Last week Dave Pollard, author of How to Save the World interviewed me for his first podcast. We had a lovely conversation about essential human capacities, Open Space, unschooling and leadership. Head over to Dave’s quite excellent and prolific blog and have a listen. You can also download the podcast here. And thanks to Dave for inviting me in.
Here is a selection of interesting papers for your summer reading: Is it time to unplug our schools? – Almost everything published in Orion is interesting. This article looks at what schools are doing to teach a deep relationship to nature. Altar calls for true believers – on the challenge of practicing what we preach with respect to sustainability. This is a good piece on why systemic change in general doesn’t necessarily correlate with necessity. Horse Power – Old technology for a new world. No coffee – A great piece on Jurgen Habermas, coffeehouses and the power of conversation. Modern …
On the OSLIST, Doug wrote: Chris and all– Fields work… Hosting… living in open space… You seem to have these evocative phrases swimming about you, Chris. Would you be so kind as to wax a little more poetic about them, put some more meat on the bones? They are, I think, getting to the heart of the question that started this thread…. The thread was about whether or not the facilitator can take an active role in an Open Space meeting, and what or why not. It has been a good thread. I responded to Doug this way: Well Doug, …
Some notes and stuff from my trips around the web: Passion bounded by responsibility is one of the tenets of Open Space. To see how powerful this is in action, you should go and visit WikiClock. Very simply, it’s a clock that shows the current time if you update it to do so. It’s a ridiculous notion, until you realize that it actually works. And if you still don’t know what a wiki is, Viv McWaters has come across a video that might help you understand it a lot better. Jack Ricchiuto has discovered something about appreciative leadership in Aboriginal …
I’m back from Bella Coola, and reflecting on the remarkable three days of learning and Open Space we did there. Saturday, we held a small community Open Space gathering around the issue of what the community needs to do to prepare for assuming full responsibility over child and family services. This is a provocative question in the Nuxalk Nation. The Nation is a strong and independent community and putting children and families in the centre of any conversation brings heart, passion and commitment. We had a small group of people present for our Open Space. 20 people began the day …