Tag: emergence

2019: The Year of Living Emergently?

Posted on | by Sam

We’re doing it again.

2019 is barely a week old, yet everyone seems to be searching for the singular person, policy or program that can restore order and usher in the better world we seek. From the excitement over the looming presidential race (and the promise of a return to normalcy) to the anticipation of the pending Mueller report (and the vision of a president in handcuffs), we are hardwired to hope for the sweeping solution, the quick fix, the reset button.

In reality, life works differently. What if we started to work in closer accordance with life?

What if we made 2019 the year of living “emergently?”

Emergence is not a word we hear or use often, yet it is the dynamic origin of development, learning and evolution, and we see evidence of its existence in everything from our cells to our cities. Indeed, the conditions for emergence flow from the reciprocal relationship that exists between any living form and its environment. A single ant, following the chemical trail of its neighbors to carve out a vital, completely decentralized role in a teeming colony. An adaptive software system, seeking patterns in individual behavior that shape which banner ad you see. A human stem cell, self-organizing into increasingly more complicated structures based on the behavior of its neighbors. Or even a solitary Tunisian fruit vendor, whose decision to set himself ablaze eventually sets the entire Arab world on fire.

As Steven Johnson writes in his book on the subject, the capacity for emergent systems to learn and grow “derives from their adherence to low-level rules. . . Emergent behaviors are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules, but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts.”

In that sense, the central features of emergent systems outline a set of rules from the natural world that are both timeless and timely:

Give and receive feedback.

Pay attention to your closest neighbors.

Seek order, not control.

Start anywhere, and follow it everywhere.

It’s the songline of life itself — the deeply resonant story that flows through all living systems, including our own. And in a world that is becoming increasingly interwoven, and at a moment in history when the promise and peril of artificial intelligence are becoming more than just a sci-fi script, our ability to shift to a more emergent way of thinking may just be the difference between survival and extinction. As Johnson puts it, “our ability to capture the power of emergence will be closer to the revolution unleashed when we figured out how to distribute electricity a century ago. Almost every region of our cultural life was transformed by the power grid; the power of self-organization — coupled with the connective technology of the Internet — will usher in a revolution every bit as significant.”

Like the natural systems that surround us, the human systems we inhabit — from our schools to our cities to our political parties — are in a state of continuous dynamic balance. These systems are not done to us — we are the ones who create and perpetuate them, despite our protestations of innocence. (As the theoretical physicist David Bohm once put it, “Thinking makes the world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it.’”)

And so we cannot underestimate our individual and collective power to consciously create the conditions that make our system’s transformation in the direction we desire more likely.

It is literally that simple — and that complicated.

What, then, would it mean to make 2019 the year of living emergently?

For starters, it would mean resisting the urge to pin all of our hopes on any “singular solution.” Stop pretending that removing Donald Trump from office will restore a set of moral principles to American culture. Stop viewing ourselves as blameless pawns in someone else’s end game. Stop waiting for someone else’s policies to empower us to do our best work. And start working where you can, how you can, and with whom you can.

Although a better world depends on all of us, the work towards its creation begins with each of us. Transformation is first and foremost an inside job. And how we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale.

We see evidence of these principles in practice throughout the natural world — although perhaps in no more stirring form than a murmuration of starlings. What words can do justice to the magic of as many as a million birds, flying and weaving as one?

Improvisatory choreography? Elegant chaos? Symphonic cacophony?

There is no familiar way to make sense of this natural phenomenon — both what they do and how it makes us feel when we see one.  Yet this flocking behavior of the birds the ancient Romans believed foretold the will of the Gods — indeed, the word auspicious comes from the Latin auspicium, or “divination by observing the flight of birds” — is a natural manifestation of a set of principles for organizing complex behavior,  and an observable phenomenon that runs counter to the way we human beings have made sense of the world for as long as anyone can remember. And thanks to the work of researchers, we now know that individual starlings all obey the same few flight rules:

Watch your seven nearest neighbors.

Fly toward each other, but don’t crowd.

And if your neighbor turns, turn with them.

Why do they do this? According to one of the studies, “when uncertainty in sensing is present, interacting with six or seven neighbors optimizes the balance between group cohesiveness and individual effort.” By following this rule of seven, the birds become part of a dynamic system in which each individual part combines to make a whole with emergent properties. This collective behavior allows the birds to gather information on their surroundings and self-organize toward an ideal density, one in which optimal patterns of light and dark are produced that can deliver information to the entire flock (and protect them from predators). The closer each bird pays attention, the safer — and more cohesive — the entire flock becomes.

Of course, this sort of swarming behavior is not unique to starlings. Many different animals, from birds and insects to fish and mammals, have been observed in their own form of a swarm. So what can this behavior teach us about ourselves, our organizations, and our ability to change the story of the way we work and learn?

According to Andreas Weber, author of The Biology of Wonder, “the spirit of poetic ecology is the spirit of swarms. To understand the individual, we need to understand its environment, and each through the other. We have to think of beings always as interbeings.

“We are a swarm ourselves,” Weber writes, “and we form swarms. A swarm does not have intelligence; it is intelligence. In this respect, a swarm (or a murmuration) is an intensified counterpart of ourselves. It is what we are and what we try to imagine with our conscious thinking. Swarms are solidified feeling. The swarm is — and in its being living dynamics and their expression are welded together in one single gesture.”

A murmuration, then, is more than just a metaphor for thinking differently about organizational behavior; it’s a reminder, in physical form, that our own bodies, cultures and classrooms are governed by the same rules.

As Weber puts it, “we see gestalts of the living that behave according to simple organic laws mirroring the great constellation that every living being has to cope with: to persist, to be close to the other, but not so close as to collide with him. These are the principles of poetic forms that are so thorough we can even teach them to a computer. They are the primary shapes of a poetics of living things.”

So let’s stop waiting for Godot. Let’s make 2019 the year in which we plant a thousand Trojan horses — future seeds of creative destruction that can, when the time is right, assume a different form, attack our most intractable rituals and assumptions about the systems we inhabit, and usher in a different way of being that is more in line with both the modern world and the modern brain.

Applying these principles to the way we organize ourselves will change the way we feel and act. It may even change the way we dream. “My dream is a movement with such deep trust that we move as a murmuration,” says author and activist Adrienne Maree Brown. “The way groups of starlings billow, dive, spin, and dance collectively through the air. Each creature tuned in to its neighbors. There is a right relationship, a right distance between them — too close and they crash, too far away and they can’t feel the micro-adaptations of the other bodies. Each creature is shifting direction, speed and proximity based on the information of the other creatures’ bodies. Imagine our movements cultivating this type of trust and depth with each other, having strategic flocking in our playbooks.”

We can imagine. And we can flock more strategically — but only when we recognize that the work begins with each of us, at the scale of the individual, now.

At Blue School, the Learning is Alive (Literally)

Posted on | by Sam | 1 Comment on At Blue School, the Learning is Alive (Literally)

Gina Farrar is not your typical New York City school leader.

For starters, she’s from the deep South — although any remnants of a Southern twang have long since disappeared. She’s also quiet and friendly  — the sort of person who likes going to restaurants in the middle of the afternoon, or smiling at kids on the train.

Then there’s her formal education:  a double major in Dance and Mathematics, followed by a PhD in Psychology. Although this is where, if you follow the pattern, Gina Farrar’s career path starts to make sense. “What attracted me to math and dance is that each is a puzzle,” she told me one recent fall morning. “The ways that math is a puzzle are obvious, but ballet is a puzzle, too — how your body fits together, how the steps fit together. And there’s a lot of technique involved, but it’s only when you master the technique that you can soar.”

The same can be said for Blue School, a decade-old independent school in lower Manhattan that Gina leads, and which was created by the founders of Blue Man Group, the global theatrical phenomenon that was designed to inspire creativity in both audience and performer.

To many, that riddle — how to inspire creativity — is the Holy Grail of school reform in 2018. Back in 2006, however, it was little more than a nugget of an idea that turned into a small parent playgroup in lower Manhattan. Soon thereafter, it grew into a full-blown school — albeit one whose theories about teaching and learning were both intriguing and unproven. And now, Blue School has evolved into something I’m not sure I’ve seen anywhere else in my travels — a school community that is, both literally and figuratively, a living organism, and a theory of learning that has, over a decade of strict scrutiny, constant tinkering, and loving care, developed a full-blown pedagogy as worthy of replication as its more famous single-name forebears:

Montessori. Reggio. Waldforf.

Blue?

To understand how it happened, you need to begin with the idea that anchors both the Group and the School: a colorful wheel of archetypal lenses for how human beings see and make sense of the world.

As Blue Man Group and Blue School co-founder Matt Goldman puts it, these lenses evolved as the founding Blue Men designed their characters. Each pair of lenses, which are positioned opposite one another on the wheel, represent polar ways in which we are likely to see ourselves (and be seen by others). Our culture is rife with examples of the archetypal Hero, for example, yet almost barren when it comes to equivalent celebrations of the Innocent. We are more likely to value the mindset of the Scientist over that of the Artist. And despite our country’s revolutionary origins, you’re still more likely to gain points in your local community as a Group Member than a Trickster.

This is why the Blue Men, over the course of a two-hour show, spend time inhabiting all six lenses, and modeling for people what it looks like when you check All of the Above in the multiple choice question of What Does It Mean to be a Human Being. As Goldman puts it, “We wanted to speak up to the intelligence of our audience members while reaching in to their childlike innocence. We wanted to create a place where people continually learn and grow and treat each other with just a little more consideration than is usually evident out in the real world. We wanted to recombine influences to create something new. And we wanted to have a good time doing it.”

That sensibility is also at the center of Blue School, which is equal parts ritualistic, research-y, and rebellious. At weekly community meetings, for example, kids and adults take time to celebrate these different ways of being, as a way to reinforce the extent to which all six are equally valued. “I saw the Trickster in Dana yesterday,” said one young student on the day I visited, “when we walked to the park and she asked us if we had heard of any mysterious mishaps in the area.” Moments later a teacher added that he “saw the Innocent and the Artist in Mati when she was working really intently and precisely to draw negative space.”

Beyond culture-building rituals, Blue School also works proactively to translate the latest research on cognitive science and child development into all classroom practices and professional development courses. Its teachers are deeply experienced practitioners. And its initial emphasis on archetypal lenses, playful mischief, and joyful learning has since grown into what Blue School calls the Balance Model — a richly visual comprehensive learning framework that is equal parts Academic Mastery, Self & Social Intelligence, and Creative Thinking; that proclaims the school’s determination to cultivate Adaptable Thinkers, Collaborative Problem-Solvers, and Irrepressible Innovators; and that outlines Blue School’s intention to cultivate a specific set of habits of mind in its students, from Openness and Empathy to Literacy and Self-Expression.

“There are so many ingredients that have gone into making this school work,” said Farrar. “And now we find ourselves in a position where we’re able to provide all these different conditions in which different kids can flourish. That’s the thing about schools — they don’t hold a static amount of energy; the energy is exponential. And when you’re feeling creative and relaxed socially, and when there’s real clarity of expectations, that’s when it becomes magical.”

One day after school, just a few weeks into the 2018-2019 school year, I asked Blue School’s three divisional directors — Laura Sedlock (Pre-Primary), Pat Lynch (Primary School), and Laurie Kardos (Middle School) — exactly how these different pieces had come together to wield such a place. After all, it’s one thing to know an expensive private school in New York City has found a way to be magical. The real question is, to what extent is that magic transferable — to all schools, and all types of communities?  

“All the things that look un-magical are what creates the space for the magical things to happen — here or anywhere else,” said Sedlock, a New York native with nearly two decades of experience in early childhood education. “Almost everything flows from our ability to answer two questions: What does it mean to really observe children? And how do we document each child’s learning more meaningfully?”

As an example, Sedlock pointed to an essential element of Blue School’s Primary program: “Big Study,” in which the children go deep on a particular subject over an extended period. Many schools have something similar, and usually, the subject of study is set in stone: the 5th grade will study ancient Egypt, the 2nd grade will study Ants, and so on. “But if we’re serious about listening deeply to children, we can’t project out that far. We have to remain nimble and go where they take us. It’s the children’s excitement that will lead to the big study, not a predetermined topic by the adults. But that requires a different skill-set than we’re used to as teachers.”

Pat Lynch agreed. “Our teachers have worked to become highly skilled at knowing that the best instructional fodder is right in front of them, and it’s unfolding in real time. Our role as leaders is to protect the space that allows our teachers to do that work. It’s very emergent.”

Indeed, emergent is a word you hear often at Blue School, and it’s illustrative of what makes the Blue School Pedagogy distinct. Spend a day there, and at all levels you’ll see students and teachers working on established courses of study — and wandering off in spontaneous directions. It’s an intellectual high-wire act — more jazz than classical — and it made me wonder what Blue School’s teachers have done to build the confidence that is required to teach this way.

“I think a real danger is to think that the solution is simply not to plan or have goals or to just give yourself over to the whims of whatever the kids want to do at any given moment,” said 4th grade teacher Ashley Semrick. “It’s the opposite, actually: it won’t work unless you have really clear goals for both individual kids and the larger group. The ability to be emergent as an individual flows from our ability as a group to have clear schoolwide intentions. Our job is to read what’s happening on any given day, and then to flexibly adjust as needed.”

How long did it take you to feel comfortable teaching this way, I asked her. “I remember back in grad school,” she responded, “someone told me that when things get rough as a teacher, you’ll just revert back to the educational standard you experienced as a student — even if that standard didn’t serve you well. Well, I can safely say that a decade into teaching, I am only now escaping that truth. It’s taken me that long to really trust that my kids always have something meaningful to say. That has made all the difference.”

“It’s taken several years for us to reach that point collectively as well,” added Laurie Kardos, who leads the school’s brand new Middle school division. “This is the first year I’ve felt like we aren’t in start-up mode. I don’t think there’s any way around that as an organization — you need to struggle with it — but for us, the work was in picking the things we wanted to align around, and then using each other to work on those things. What we’ve created is a space with the right balance of flexibility, choice, theatricality, precision, trust, compassion and autonomy. And with our experience has come a deeper ability to plan for the unexpected, not just for kids to learn something new but to become more effective at building off what they already know — and then to assess what they know not just at the end of the year but at every moment. That’s what gives this place life.”

It’s true — Blue School is alive, both literally and figuratively; even the scientists would agree. “We have discovered that the material world is a network of inseparable patterns of relationships,” writes physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra, “and that the planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. Life, then, is an emergent property. It cannot be reduced to the properties of its components. Social networks exhibit the same general principles as biological networks. What is valid for cellular life can be considered valid for any form of life. And the essence of life is integration.

“Organisms do not experience environments. They create them.”

As a result of these insights, Capra and many others — from a wide range of scientific fields — have concluded that “cognition operates on many levels, and as the sophistication of the organism grows, so does its sensorium for the environment, and so does the extent of co-emergence between organism and environment.”

There’s that word again. But what does being emergent have to do with making magic — and what needs to happen so that the magic might travel beyond Blue School’s walls?

If you ask the educators of Blue School, they’d say any recipe is a result of the sophistication of the learning culture they have steadily grown over time — the gradual mastery of technique, perhaps, that has allowed them to soar. They’d say it’s the intentional creation of a physical environment that is meant to reflect the values of the community that inhabits it.  And they’d say it’s their paradoxical willingness to be both highly structured and completely free — to ground the learning in a discrete set of lenses, or to craft a a Balance Model — and at the same time to protect the space and autonomy of the teachers to go wherever the children lead them at any given moment. Consequently, to visit Blue School is to experience it not just as a school, but as an actual living organism — an ecosystem unto itself, one that is both self-organizing and self-aware.

Which leads to the most radical, and replicable, observation of all. “In a nutshell,” Capra says, “nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature.

“The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community” — no matter where those communities may be.

This, then, is the work.