Not Left To Chance

Anyone interested in the idea of democracy should check out the Vancouver Public Space Network’s website. When it comes to creating dialogue as a practice for community self-awareness this group is doing great things.

The first VPSN event that I attended was a tiny little dance party in a remote area of a public park. It was repeatedly hassled by Vancouver Parks Police, and that was good enough for me. Any group (not hurting anyone) that gets hassled by any establishment type is probably on to something good.

This past Tuesday the VPSN launched its Where’s the Square Design Competition, with a very well attended forum at the Vancouver Public Library. The panelists Lance Berelowitz, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Bing Thom are all highly regarded experts and practitioners in public space design. They presented the audience with many examples of Public Squares from around the world, and gave what turned out to be a free education in the design and use of public space.

Lance Berelowitz, the author of Dream City gave the most provocative talk. He questioned the need for a central plaza in Vancouver, pointing out that the city is surrounded by public space all looking away from the city toward the ocean and mountains. This space on the edge of the city serves many functions and gives a character to Vancouver that isn’t found in Old World Cities. He did, however, suggest the current Art Gallery’s back entrance as a possible space for a re- and well designed public space.

Let them know what you think.

I caught a show the other night. It was an event of the Jokers’ International Day of Action on Global Warming. David Diamond, Joker, and Artistic and Managing Director, of Headlines Theatre led the event billed as “An intimate evening of theatre (without a play) about global warming. “

David Diamond was fantastic. He set up the theatre to come. The story was to come out of the audience, and the actors to come would personify the voices in one audience members head. These are the voices that counsel us to act in ways we know to be harmful to the environment. This was a theatrical workshop in controlling our inner voices that block positive change.

The process was to develop what you can do. It was to focus on the “self, ” our selves each individually because, yes! government and corporations need to regulate and implement sustainable practices but this won’t mean much if we, each of us, don’t control the voices in our head that lead us to actions that are harmful to the environment.

Three audience member shared their stories of a moment when they had to make a choice concerning the environment and voices in their heads called for the environmentally unsound choice. The audience had three choices: 1. Should I devote my life to political “advocacy”? 2. Should I go to work for a multi-national corporation? 3. Should I get on a plane to dance in a warmer climate? The crowd chose #2.

It was an amazing learning experience. The learning that went on was relative to the expression. What came out was in no way intended. There was the collective knowledge, I’d say in some moments a knowledge, expression that betrayed intention. It is an exercise that every educator should be a part of at least once. I’m looking into the possibility of a future workshop.

What follows are comments and bracketed phrases.

Comment A: The choice of story seemed a false choice. Sucked into system lottery – I’m a loser because… Pleasure and its destructive influence – real daily personal choices are very hard to make, they are even harder to acknowledge and as such all but impossible to contemplate. Question: How do you like your coffee? Answer: Grown in enclosed fertile land in a third world country, flown and trucked to my local coffee shop, with a little bit of sugar and cream.

Comment B: Historical perspective – young girl playing paternal voice – had lived on the street, Had to stop and reflect on the question “Have you ever had to deal with having less than you wanted/ needed? The affluent society is only about 50 years old, but inconsistent. More the affluent sector of society has been growing for 50 years. People still live in poverty while we avoid workshopping pleasurable eco-no-nos.

Comment C: This event gives good contrast to the techno-learning lines of thought and cyber-action that proliferate in the edublogosphere. Some distinctions need to be made.

(This environmental discourse – this new person – within this space – exploring the knowledge and the possibility – the external controls within - the outside brought into the space – the multiplicity within the container of the subject.)

I’m in the middle of writing a paper. This post isn’t a form of procrastination, I’m thinking outside the paper and wanted to get these excess thoughts out. I made a comment the other day (which has since been deleted.) on edtechpost about "open hearts" and "open education/source/society and so on" and wanted to write a little more here about that. (This is almost going to be point form.) I read a line today from Gramsci’s Notebooks. (I’ll pull the quote later (much later)(Here it is: "Today’s widespread educational crisis can be precisely linked to the fact that this process of differentiation and specialization has taken place chaotically, without clear and precise principles, without a well thought out and consciously fixed plan."))  Politically, although the option doesn’t exist on Facebook, I’d dance with the Utopian Anarchists, which means I’m very sensitive to control freaks (including my own) and very interested in the "open" movements.

What was interesting about the edtechpost post, was the budding awareness of a development both personal and professional necessary for open practice. Will the philosophies and practice of the open (creative commons) movements change who we are? Or is this just a phenomenon of consciousness? Are the "early adopters" already open? Remember the talk of virtual communities in the mid 90s? Becoming conscious of an open community is not the same as a growing open community. This needs to be fleshed out with research, but if we proceed "as if" people don’t change, that the open community is not growing, but finding itself, and developing, then development, creative development, connected, creative self development is all that’s left for the movement to do.

(The emphasis in open movements need to be on giving; an open heart is a giving heart.)