Today’s post is all about a few items I read this week which left a profound impression, that I also found relevant to the interpretive profession. Read on to discover the potential of LED’s, Imagination Agents, and a deep listening Attention Academy.
This year, 49% of the world goes to the polls in 64 countries. Voters are being asked to choose between deeply unimaginative manifestos, all firmly wedded to a business-as-usual economic model that is clearly and dangerously failing around the world.
One phrase I read yesterday was a perfect case in point example: the concept of waste is a failure of the imagination. Many solutions to our present- day problems could be considered failures of the imagination.
People of all ages NEED to imagine and implement positive and compassionate alternative futures that restore our world through reduced consumption, rewilding and implementing diverse sound climate cooling measures.
What does your imagination conjure up ? This pic captures several lichens on rock Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
Our heritage sites must play a more pivotal role in encouraging societal transition through exposing harmonious earth relationship, low carbon, just and fair societal success stories. Our toolbox must include catalyst skills for imaginative visioning coupled with strategic action. No blaming just ways forward.
I share one formal education example and one non-formal community of citizens example exemplifying this purpose - both providing lessons for the heritage interpretation sector that can provide a place for prospective voters to visualize “what if’s.”
The first item was a reference to the Design39campus, a public school in San Diego, California where educators are known as “Learning Experience Designers (LED’s).” A beautiful way to express the notion of how effective interpretation should be thought of. This is the 10th anniversary of this “revolutionary” type of educational learning centre that is producing impressive results.
Image courtesy: Design39 web site
It was founded on the inspiring mission of Empowering a Purposefully Engaged Campus to Create a Culture of Impact
Applying this to our heritage situations, I immediately changed the word ”campus” to “sitevisit” to get: Empowering a Purposefully Engaged SiteVisit to Create a Culture of Impact. Each site would determine the nature and end result of that impact -eg. a respectful and loving relationship with the earth and its inhabitants for example. One of the key school principles is Creative Confidence: They believe everyone has creative capacity and their job is to amplify what students bring (change word “students” to “visitors”).
The school is trying to assist students to enhance their inborn imagination and bolster their creative confidence in order to design life-enriching solutions to existing problems. They embrace the following quote:
““Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited to what we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.””
Perhaps we need to be thinking more about helping our visitors build their creative confidence and design experiences that encourage ways to Imagine positive futures, away from the fears and anxiety that is presently gripping people of all ages. Imagine being a place of refuge and relevant life inspiration.
You may say that sounds fairly lofty but should we not be striving for the moon and envisioning a way forward through major rethinking, considering our present grim political, environmental and social situation.
From the non-formal educational side, I happened upon the work of the British Rob Hopkins who is billed as an Imagination Activist. He is known as the author of ‘From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want’. As he argues, we do have the capability to effect dramatic change, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? If there ever was a time when we needed that ability, it is now.
Image courtesy Rob Hopkins website
Rob has a wonderful web site chock full of ideas worthy of instigation. Another book just recently published and titled Imagination Manifesto is available on www.robhopkins.net/the-book/ – a lengthy collection of ideas harvested from 100 episodes since 2020, from the fortnightly ‘From What If to What Next’ podcast. Here is a sampling of some of the 2030-time-travellor guest visions:
· Challenge universities and natural heritage sites (my insertion) to play a civic role and be knowledge transfer centres and bio-regional learning centres: They can actually drive the public awareness around the bio-regions they’re nested in, so they can make much more informed decisions around how we collectively manage the commons and eco-system that we are expressions of.
· Imagination agents - Teams of creative catalysts: they’ll be artists, facilitators and craftivists, trained in the art of invitation to support, enable and activate. These catalysts will see the creative in all of us and guide us with care to become stewards and protectors of the places we live, weaving us back into deep connection with land and with each other.
· The Attention Academy: an immersion in nature without any surrounding presence of cell phones. Or extended periods in a museum, with someone who can bring the would-be viewer forward into how to engage with a painting or artifact.
· Deep listening in classes: banning smartphones in schools, as they are one of the biggest threats to our ability to concentrate and to our attention span. As our collective attention span gets shorter and shorter, our ability to sit and listen to the natural world gets shorter and shorter.
Banff National Park Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
· Giving primacy to the living systems of the Earth: Biome level health requires us to treat the earth as a living organism, for it to have vital signs and dashboards to measure the productivity of the Earth. All economic development and governance policies will be to increase forest cover, creating green belts and rain belts around the world. This economic engine would bring agricultural productivity, vibrant health and address water scarcity.
Are we ready to go beyond doom and gloom scenarios? Are we ready to stop avoiding the issues of the day? Are we ready to help people constructively deal with their environmental fears and anxiety?
Are we ready to play a relevant civic role and embrace being LED’s that stimulate societal “ What If’s” ? Are we ready to utilize deep listening and invitational imagineering to drive citizen awareness around informed environmental decisions?