free cultural works

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 14:36:03 -0700

i’ve classified the goodwood deconstruction blocks series as “open-source toys” in the past. i’ve assigned them a creative commons license “attribution; share-alike” (CC-BY-SA). in plain language this means that anyone can use or modify the designs for themselves.. all they need to do is attribute the design to aroundsquare, and provide the same license for all derivative works.. they can make and sell the blocks, and they can come up with modifications or new version of the blocks..

my intention in doing this was to put the designs out there with hopes that they may do good for somebody. ideas are free after all.. it isn’t costing me anything. there is always a risk that i’ll get ripped off by some profit-driven toy company, but i’m not really concerned about that. it would be much more of a shame for an idea which may do some good to languish.. and if some big company wants to rip me off, well, then, it still gets the toys out there, and i think the toys are beneficial in themselves.. so bring it on.

but my real hope, is that the designs can be used by wood workers here or there to make a little money for their families and bring a little work to their communities. i always feel a little disappointed when i go into fair trade stores because so much of the stuff being sold there is so generic, especially the toys. it leaves people who buy the stuff feeling like they are doing charity work, rather than getting a great product. the goodwood designs are intentionally easy to manufacture. they can be made without sophisticated equipment or setup. the designs are free for the taking, and for full specifications, just write to matt.

the link below provides a nice overview of some of what's happening in the field of free cultural works. still haven’t heard anyone much talking about open-source toys.. but first steps anyways..

http://freedomdefined.org/Licensess

mini documentary

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 14:24:39 -0700

here is a small documentary which was put together by a small group of amazing students in the journalism program at mount royal university. i’ll probably feature it more prominently on my site at some point, but for now I just wanted to post the link.
http://youtu.be/F2qKzEZ0xa8

mulch m

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:40:06 -0700

just a little highlight of a new addition to the goodwood line. mulch m is finally available.. and the new stock is looking great.

purposeful play

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:32:28 -0700

folks stopping by aroundsquare’s little home on the web may also be interested in checking out a new blog called purposeful play. i’m involved in a capstone course in the communications program at mount royal university here in calgary. the students in the course are developing a number of projects related to the work of aroundsquare.. the blog is an offshoot of that course, and the students have been posting some pretty interesting links and perspectives on toys, play, and related social issues.

deconstructing things

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:00:25 -0700

snapped a few pictures of the new stock..
the whole goodwood series is available online through moolka

back on etsy

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:35:41 -0700

i’ve always been into crafts.. making things myself.. figuring out how stuff worked and trying to improve on taken for granted designs of things. that is where twig came from.. cobbling together little handmade sets of blocks and selling them on etsy. from those early sales, there was the guest review on the opinionated parent. which was then read by the guy at fat brain toys. which then led to a launch at the met. and a string of awards. and from there i branched out into the goodwood deconstruction blocks.

but i’ve kept doing crafts here and there. and have missed the spirit of etsy. since etsy is for handmade-by-me stuff, i had to leave it behind when the blocks got to the point where i needed help making them. meanwhile my newfound hobby has reached its first constraint.. wall-space. what better way to bring things back around than to relieve that on etsy?

six tons of goodness

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:46:24 -0700

the new stock is finally here.. six tons of goodwood deconstruction blocks, including the elusive “mulch m”.

currently available at the following places where folks know what’s what.. and honestly, check them out.. they’re cool freaking places..

online:
- moolka

canada:
- monkey shines children’s books, calgary, ab
- livingstone & cavell extraordinary toys, calgary, ab
- cafe tiramisu-lift me up, edmonton, ab
- educational kids play, burlington, on
- babes in arms, calgary, ab

united states:
- sparkbox toys, newark, nj
- nest denver, denver, co
- big blue marble bookstore, philadelphia, pa
- treehouse kid & craft, athens, ga
- sugarcup trading, oak park, il
- twirl toy store & play space, taos, nm
- natural baby company, bozeman, mt
- imagine toys, battle creek, mi
- the story nook, astoria, ny

interested independent shops and distributor inquiries welcome... matt@aroundsquare.com

structure as freedom

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:06:30 -0600

structure as freedom. at first, it reads like one of the three slogan's of the party in orwell's 1984--war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. doublethink is a great concept.

sometimes constraints--the right kind of constraints--lead us to options and possibilities where we didn't see them before. in the case of a musical instrument like a guitar, you're limited to just six strings. and the strings are all tied down, and all lined up. stepping back, it seems incredibly restrictive.. limiting.. but the effect is just the opposite. contrast the constrained guitar with an alternative.. having many more strings, randomly organized, and say, only tied at one end rather than two. i'm thinking of a mop. mops can be fun, but the creative value-added through the constraints of the guitar are easy to see.

language is similar. words really tie us down. each word has negotiated boundaries to it. we have grammar rules to follow, and we have limited vocabularies to use, and within those vocabularies, each word narrows our thinking. it narrows our thinking so much that we sometimes can’t express a thought--even a really simple thought--without a whole pile of words. but what language does provide, is a kind of cognitive scaffolding that lets us abstract, and manipulate ideas, creating more sophisticated thoughts than what would have been possible without language.

thinking about the paintings i've been dabbling with, there's a similar thing going on. i can't remember ever painting before, though i'm sure i must have in elementary school. but something about a big white canvas was a little too daunting. i always had materials around for other crafts, but i never painted. as adults we really have a lot of pointless inhibitions (and maybe a couple of useful ones). kids will jump right in and start finger painting without any encouragement. i kind of envied that, and needed some colour on my walls. but not really keen on getting my hands that mucky, i used an old card. i started with a couple little lines. not having any idea what to do, they were vertical. and they kept being vertical. i didn’t have in mind anything particular, it was just a doodle, so they just kept being vertical because it felt comfortable. it felt okay changing colours, so i did some of that. and i realized that the thing that was inhibiting me before was that there were too many variables. what i had done, and why it felt less daunting, was i had reduced the number of variables i had to contend with. without realizing it, i created a structure, a kind of language.

there is a clear connection to the deconstruction blocks. those blocks have a limited set of affordances. but they are the right kind of affordances. and they are enough to create limitless possibility. the really good toys are the ones that constrain and focus attention and behaviour in just the right ways, in order to liberate the child from the feeling of being passive or reactive in the world, and give them a sense of control. it's in this way, that play is the foundation of citizenship.

implementation kebab

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:45:37 -0600

Capacity development is mostly a racket. The problem is that despite how costly these programs can be, the actual developmental benefits are usually pretty limited. This is particularly the case with training programs and professional development sessions. A great facilitator can make things engaging, participatory and even practical, but at the end of the session, folks return to their jobs and the relevance is immediately eclipsed by other things. Unless we are talking about the really low hanging fruit, not a whole lot actually changes.

Part of the problem is that what these programs set out to deliver is not really what is needed in order to make real changes. Participants tend to be happy when they come out of a session feeling motivated. But motivation is almost never what is holding us back from making changes in our lives. Participants may come out embracing new values, or with reformed attitudes, or new knowledge and awareness.. but these things, similarly, are a long ways from action.

There are some really good programs out there which are participatory and practical enough to support participants in the development of new skills relevant to their jobs. But these tend to be the low hanging fruit I mentioned above. The deficiency here is that all of this is focused on doing the same old things better. And when a new genuinely new approach is introduced, and participants really do come away with new ideas, their efforts to implement those ideas are almost certain to be frustrated. Because it's not just about individuals.. not even groups of individuals.

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to work on a little project in Bangladesh which managed to achieve pretty great results. It was a teacher professional development (TPD) project, but the model we used was very nice, and in just a couple of years, we saw meaningful changes all the way down to students' performance on standardized tests--which is a horrible way to measure results, but nonetheless makes bureaucrats pay attention.

Here is a little snippet describing the model:
The CSR:STEMS TPD model was structured around the provision of a segmented training program, with teachers returning to their practice between contact sessions. During these “non-training” periods, teachers were visited regularly by the project’s school support team, who provided follow-up guidance and support to facilitate implementation of what was learned in the training sessions. This alternation of training, practice, and support provided teachers with a safe context in which to practice implementing what was learned, to receive individualized corrective support and suggestions, and to ask questions and receive guidance related to their own specific context. The diagram below outlines the various features of the TPD model over the flow of time, with the purpose of demonstrating the extent of support work, above and beyond the basic provision of training.

The model reflects contemporary best practices in professional development. The provision of "subject-specific training, coherently related to the national curriculum agenda, provided in a participatory manner in several sessions, spread over time, in small groups, with paired foreign and domestic consultants, supported by educational leaders, with direct in-school support immediately following the intervention," reads like a textbook example of effective professional development.

The primary goal of this TPD model was to ensure that in a short period of time, the project would see actual results in terms of changes in classroom practice. And for this, provisions were made to reduce barriers to implementation, to engage teachers, and make it as easy as possible for them to be successful from an early stage. The diagram below shows some of the steps taken to bridge the gap that so often occurs between professional development and actual changes in professional practice—the so-called “implementation gap”. We ended up dubbing this model the “implementation kebab”.

For each concept taught, we began with an initial experience, which provided a practical experience related to the concept, which could then be unpacked and debriefed as we facilitated learning on that concept. We then applied the concept in an application activity, and discussed ways to adjust the activities for classroom use. Next, we involved teachers in micro-teaching practice, where they led peers through classroom activities. As the training ended we provided materials to teachers which they would need to apply these concepts in their own classrooms, and we liaised with head teachers to ensure buy-in and support at the level of school leadership. Then, as teachers were back at their schools implementing what they had learned in their classrooms, our team visited the schools to monitor and support them to ensure quality implementation. We also initiated professional learning communities, providing the rural teachers with a means to continue their professional growth, that would be sustainable after the closure of the project.

In a relatively short period of time, this TPD model proved very effective. Highlighted results of the project after two years of implementing the model in 90 schools were as follow:
- Improvement of 34% on students' end of year exam scores over two years (26% in first year);
- Increase of 30% in student attendance in targeted classrooms;
- Increased usage of student-centered instructional strategies of 149% in targeted classrooms
- Improved teacher content knowledge (math and English) of 217% from pre-test to post-test;

resolving uncertainties

Sun, 9 Oct 2011 02:29:24 -0600

i’m considering this to be my second painting ever. at least as a grown-up. the three i posted about before don’t count alright.. they were really just slapping stuff on boards. but it was in those that i saw the potential for more play with colour.

this one is about two feet by four feet, like the first one..
after the first one turned out nice, i was actually a little bit scared to do another one, but also excited. the scary part was starting with all that white space. the colour, at first, is such an affront. and when i start out, its really fragmented. it looks like crap for a long time. it looks random and incoherent. and it feels bad when it’s like that. inside, i want to resolve it. i want to make it coherent. i want to make it feel nice. and it’s a satisfying feeling to see it coming together.

it’s like so many things in life where you start with uncertainty, not really knowing what to expect, and you just need to trust yourself, and go forward through the ambiguity. there are little moments when we feel more conservative or more daring.. but just being slow and patient, things eventually work themselves out.

education at a glance 2011

Sat, 1 Oct 2011 15:37:36 -0600

the OECD released its new education indicators report a couple of days ago. the full text can be downloaded here:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf

the whole indicators methodology.. what gets measured and reported, and how, is at least as interesting as the statistics themselves. just like in student assessment: what we measure or test seems to take on the highest importance; and what really is the most important is not always what we end up testing or reporting on..
einstein put it a little bit better.. not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted..
what can i say.. he’s einstein.

from the OECD website:
The 2011 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance. It provides a broad array of comparable indicators on education systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.
The indicators show who participates in education, how much is spent on it, and how education systems operate. They also illustrate a wide range of educational outcomes, comparing, for example, student performance in key subjects and the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment.

flat play

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:41:30 -0600

aroundsquare dabbles to distraction..
the three little canvas boards that i first tried out stuff on were a bit of a surprise. i wasn’t really expecting much. i was basically just finger painting but with a card rather than fingers. and i liked the effect. i decided to try something a little bigger.
this one is pretty large format.. about 4 feet by 2 feet
it’s fun to see something this size coming together.. i was pretty happy with the result. and i kind of got hooked.
i’ve always like making things by hand, and there is a certain efficiency to this kind of creation.. in contrast to my leather work, which takes weeks per project, or even crochet and wood work, this is a pretty painless way to get a creative fix. it’s also easy to work into the daily life. it gets painted in stages and needs to dry in between, so it preempts my usual problem of getting too focused and working on something through the whole day and forgetting to eat, or doing just a little more before bed and then ending up working through the night on it.

monkey knuckles

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 05:42:01 -0600

AO2 isn’t just about wooden blocks.. actually the toy that started it all was somethings pretty different from blocks. toy having two sliding bobs on a string with end stoppers.. that’s what the USPTO calls it.. patent number 7,137,863 B2. I call it monkey knuckles.. or dubulludilo.. or just dubulo for short. anyways, as goodwood gains momentum, i think it’s time to turn a little bit of attention on to some other sorts of designs, other kinds of play.. so expect to see a little more of monkey knuckles in the coming months..

painting the walls

Thu, 8 Sep 2011 12:41:28 -0600

i recently found myself with a large blank wall, six tubes of paint, and three 16x20 canvass boards.. i locked them in a room together and this is what happened.
.. not quite at the level of what you’d find over here, or over here, but the wall is a little bit less lonely than before.

incoming..

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:02:31 -0600

new stock of goodwood deconstruction blocks.. including the elusive mulch h and mulch m.. expected arrival sometime in september..

colours

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:56:56 -0600

goethe’s colour circle. the first couple of batches of the deconstruction blocks which i handmade were painted with the stockmar watercolours, which are based on this circle and goethe’s theory which accompanies it.. the idea is interesting, goethe’s concern was not the analytic measurement of colour, but about perception of colour in different circumstances, basically a phenomenology of colour. i love this perspective. i haven’t been able to find pantone codes matching these, and part of the attraction with this circle is the inconsistency of each section, but the idea is something i haven’t let go of. the current colour palette of of the toys gets a lot of good feedback, but this little circle keeps tugging at me.

will play with your mind

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 11:57:19 -0600

a recent review of goodwood.. on babyology
http://babyology.com.au/toys/aroundsquare-wooden-blocks-will-play-with-your-mind.html

the educative context

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:01:18 -0600

i’ve written before about the idea of tacit teaching, and the important role which context (as opposed to explicit content) plays in the development of children. the idea is that we should be as intentional about context as we are about content, because what we immerse our children in matters, perhaps more than what we tell them during their immersion.

but in order to do something constructive with this idea, it is necessary to operationalize it. the idea of context can be broken down in a number of ways. in the context of schooling, it is we can conveniently talk about them in terms of three aspects: the physical, material environment and objects in it; the social context and interpersonal features; and the institutional landscape including formal and informal policies, which shape the course of experiences in that context. while these areas are not mutually exclusive, they provide a convenient lens through which we can begin to discern the various factors which constitute the educative context at each level of the system, from classroom, to school and up to the community or board level. within each cell of the resulting matrix, we can begin plotting what we observe, and asking ourselves what subtle messages this sends to our children, in what ways this shapes them, and what may be a more preferable alternative in terms of our educational goals.

keeping it simple

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:41:53 -0600

a review of gwdb from simple-momreviews..

http://www.simple-momreviews.com/2011/06/moolkacom-aroundsquare-goodwood.html

crude country

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:15:11 -0600

i don’t often post links.. but this one is too close to home and too relevant to not share. talisman terry goes on an “energy adventure” and tells all the little boys and girls about how nice our north looks after drilling. there’s actually a better article here which includes a link to download the actual pdf if you care to judge for yourself.

what’s amazing to me is how infrequently this sort of thing gets noticed. most industries, and any companies big enough, have their own friendly fracosaurus, or a shelf full of even glossier educational resources for older kids, with carefully curated content. they all tell us some kind of story in some kind of calculated terms. and they get lapped up at the teachers’ conventions.

if you google candy math, you get almost 25 million hits.

insidious.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/07/15/calgary-talisman-book.html

adjectival education madlib

Wed, 25 May 2011 15:19:31 -0600

There is a fundamental issue underlying much of the work done in the field of adjectival education which has yet to be sufficiently articulated. The issue stems from the fact that adjectival education is rooted in the way education generally, and particularly teaching, are conceptualized. Our thinking about is constrained, and it has to do with how we understand the teaching act. Teaching tends to be understood and practiced as an act of transmission, or at best coaching.

Our educational institutions are organized around bodies of content which can be parcelled up and taught through some manner of instruction. And this forms the foundations of our school systems, nicely compartmentalized into subject matter disciplines, into which teachers specialize, class schedules are organized, and reporting is conducted. School curricula are organized around these disciplines, and place heavy emphasis on knowledge and skills. There is nothing inherently wrong about this. It is just that the assumptions which underpin it are rarely questioned.

With respect to adjectival education, the issue with this orientation is that it is much more concerned about the development of students’ dispositions, character, and attitudes, than it is about knowledge and skills. While knowledge and skills factor into adjectival education, the ultimate aim has more to do with cultivating students than teaching them. The process is more akin to socialization than education in the colloquial sense.

With this as a starting point—a kind of cultural baggage—when educators try to advance adjectival goals, there is often a dissonance between medium and message. The context in which students are immersed is often at odds with adjectival goals. This is not new news. Critical educators have been discussing hidden curricula for decades, and pointing out the various ways in which schools work to perpetuate the status quo rather than foster social development. Discussion of the hidden curriculum tends to be insightful, but not particularly constructive. The focus is almost always on describing the situation rather than looking at how it could be changed.

This dissonance between conventional teaching and adjectival goals has not been lost on adjectival educators. Intuitively understanding that students don’t become adjectivalists by listening to lectures on adjectives, there is a long history of using participatory approaches. There is also a tendency to try to make adjectival education more experiential. Within the field of environmental education, a useful distinction has been drawn between education about, for, and in, the environment. And this is not unique to environmental education. We see this understanding at work in emerging democracies, where ministries of education are recognizing that traditionally autocratic, lecture oriented classrooms fail to cultivate the kind of citizen which democratic governance demands.

There appears to be a general recognition that we don’t cultivate adjectivalists, or even people who care about the adjective, simply through talking and reading about it. The way a classroom is run, and the types of instructional strategies used by teachers, have become important topics of discussion.

More recently, there has been a growing interest the relationship between students and their physical learning environment. This is not limited to plastering school walls with catchy slogans promoting the adjective. It goes much deeper than that to explore the impact that architecture has on students’ development and socialization. The school building has been characterized as a kind of silent teacher, instilling students with strong but subtle lessons about the nature of their relationship with the physical world.

All of these trends are positive, and all are pushing at the constraints of traditional concepts of education and teaching. All of them are suggesting that education is about something much more than teacher talk and textbooks. All of them are acknowledging, in some manner, that it is not only the explicit content taught which matters, but that aspects of the context in which students are immersed, are themselves educative. There is an acknowledgement that in adjectival education, there should be congruence between content and context.

However, in most cases, the question of how to work with the educative context is not sufficiently addressed. The adjustments made to the educative context are piecemeal rather than systematic, and isolated rather than comprehensive. I’ve posted previously, introducing a framework for understanding and working with the educative context.

In order for adjectival education to really pack a punch, we need to face the educative context as a whole. It’s not about picking one or two contextual factors and aligning them with adjectival content. It is about creating a coherent experience for students in which explicit messages are consistent with tacit ones. We need to reconceptualize the role of teaching to include the whole tacit domain. Adjectival educators need to consider the whole experience in which their students are immersed day after day, and design that experience with intentionality. Students learn what they live, and the context in which they live will rub off on them.

art credit:
jess, “in the fishes’ city under the sea”, acrylic on canvas
(age four)

currency

Wed, 18 May 2011 23:04:32 -0600

aroundsquare now accepts payment in bitcoin: BTC 2 per set (any mulch)
and the full range is available at 100% calgary dollars: C$ 30 per set (any mulch)

otherwise shop is still off-line for retail orders...
if you want to buy a set or two.. please do it through moolka.com they have been very good to aroundsquare.

for wholesale orders, please contact matt@aroundsquare.com

precious imperfections

Mon, 16 May 2011 10:53:24 -0600

there are a lot of things i love about wood. among them, the imperfections. i love the grains, the lines, and the knots. i just got off the phone with a manufacturer who has been working very diligently to cover these up. they were struggling, trying to make a perfect sample for me. perfect.. such a horrible homoginizing monocultural sterile word. we were coming at the samples from two very different directions. essentially, they were trying to work against the character of the wood.. trying to repress this natural beauty through opaques and polishes and varnishes and excessive processing which would have the wood turned into something almost resembling plastic.
i’m of the other mind.. I would rather see the beauty brought out into full expression. a wooden toy should not aspire to being a plastic one. wood is something different, it comes from life, and it tells a story. it is the imperfections which give it such lasting appeal.

curriculum

Sun, 15 May 2011 21:07:24 -0600

i found this model fascinating.. more to come on curriculum and conceptualizations of curriculum sometime down the road... but for now, i wanted to share this. it is from the bauhaus. the bauhaus curriculum itself becomes more fascinating the more i learn about the whole project.

through the eyes, and hands of a child

Fri, 6 May 2011 10:25:00 -0600

the names are at least as awesome as the works themselves.. here’s the gallery

tacit teaching and the educative context

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:09:03 -0600

One of the problems with education is that we keep trying to do it better. In doing so, we reinforce assumptions about the nature of education which should have been corrected a long time ago.

Most of us, even within the profession, take the institution of education for granted. It is reflective of the way in which we talk about and understand education. But this understanding is very narrow. We conceptualize teaching around the subject disciplines. We have the science teacher, the French class, the math test, and so on. Our construct of teaching refers, colloquially, to the content that is being taught.

But the thing is, what students learn at school is not limited to what teachers think they are teaching. Sure, students pick up some of this explicit content, but there is a whole tacit side to the schooling experience. Students learn what they live.

Students come to school day after day, and are immersed in a physical and social world which is full of powerfully charged stimuli, incentives, and consequences. They are conditioned. They adapt. This immersion shapes students, gradually, but powerfully over time. The school is one of the primary ways we cultivate our citizenry—a major part of education’s value as a social good.

The issue is that there is very little talk at all about *how schools cultivate citizens, or the high level goals of the education system. We’re hung up talking about effectiveness of programs for remedial math, and so on. When high level goals related to social development do trickle down to the classroom, their soul is often lost along the way. The sad irony of a lecture on democracy, and the spiritless Earth Day activity of making endangered species posters, is lost on all but a few. In both cases, there is a serious conflict between what is being taught, and the way students experience it. Any good intentions are subverted by tacit features of the experience, which are hard to pin down. The medium may not quite be the message, but almost certainly, the context trumps the content.

And yet, this whole tacit side of schooling is rarely talked about. Aspects of school life like discipline systems, routines and procedures, scheduling, and grading, are viewed mainly in their service to the “real” teaching goals within the subject areas. But yet, these contextual factors comprise an (often highly coherent) immersion experience for students, which can have a much more profound and lasting impact on them than the formal curriculum.

Socialization is eclipsed by subject matter, to the point that non-academic learning outcomes are referred to as a “hidden curriculum”. Furthermore, the term itself is problematic because it pushes thinking in the direction of forensic analysis—looking at hidden learning outcomes, rather than creating space for any kind of systematic analysis or constructive dialogue which would bring us towards intentionality in socialization.

Not surprisingly, literature around the hidden curriculum tends to be highly critical, but not particularly helpful for teachers who want to improve matters. The term frames the construct in a way which leads to a dead end. But the underlying idea—that there is powerful learning going on beyond what’s in teacher talk and textbooks—should not be abandoned. The construct can be reframed much more constructively. The process involves looking at the factors which contribute to student socialization, and considering them as potential pedagogic tools—tools which teachers may be able to work with intentionally.

But to get to the point where we are able to manipulate the educative context systematically and intentionally, we need to develop a clearer understanding of what it actually is. Ideally, we should be able to identify its components. It’s a daunting task. On the one hand, we have the educational content, nicely organized into subject disciplines and learning outcomes, and objectively evident in teacher talk and textboks. On the other hand, we have... everything else. We can infer subtle lessons from almost any aspect of the schooling experience: the scheduling, the report cards, the posters on the walls, the assignments, the report cards, and so on. The list is, perhaps, infinite.

Rather than trying to create a running list of every element of the schooling experience which could potentially impact students, it is perhaps more fruitful to start by developing a framework within which these elements could be catalogued. Very crudely, the context breaks down into three broad areas. We have the material context, including things like the school building, the classroom layout, furniture, learning materials, and so on. We have the social context, including the complex social dynamics of the school, relationships between individuals, and patterns of interaction. And we have the institutional context, including things like school policies, rules, legalities and so on. Granted, there is blurring at the edges of these three areas, but they are nonetheless helpful in making some sense of the rather general “everything else”.

It is also useful to think in terms of the levels at which different contextual factors are determined. Not everything is within the teacher’s control. Some decisions are made at the classroom level, others at the school level, and still others at the board level or beyond. This allows us to tease apart those factors over which teachers have direct, indirect, or almost no control.

These two approaches can be superimposed to create a kind of matrix which would serve as a lens to provide some structure to the nebulous construct of the educative context. With this lens in hand, we can begin to map the landscape, identifying different aspects of the educative context, and thinking about both their existing- and potential impact on students.

At that point, the task of reshaping the educative context to support educational goals becomes a conceivable one. We can take lofty goals—things like sustainability and democratic citizenship—and imagine how we could adjust the way we do schooling in order to support rather than subvert them. It becomes a matter of designing students’ schooling experience around such goals.

This approach pushes at the boundaries of our conceptualization of teaching. We are used to thinking in narrow, didactic terms—knowledge can be articulated and transmitted, skills can be explained and coached. We are not at all habituated to thinking about teaching within the tacit domain, and the subtle ways in which schooling cultivates our students. However, a systematic framework for understanding the educative context opens access to the tacit domain, and invokes the possibility of working intentionally within it. The prospect of tacit teaching becomes viable. It is a prospect which could enhance the potency of much of what we do in the field of education.

the quiet

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:53:02 -0600

collaborations

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:53:20 -0600

sometimes it’s good to control things and sometimes it’s good to just let go and see where you get taken. this began with a drawing of a monster.. and evolved into a plushy. it’s good when kids begin to realize that their whole world is raw material for them to mess around with. that’s the link between craft and activism.

the triple bottom line

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:07:28 -0600

aroundsquare is proud to be a certified b corporation.
and it’s great to see the idea of social business and the triple bottom line gathering some momentum and profile. this week there were a couple of good articles in the ny times, by pulitzer prize winner tina rosenberg.

here is the first:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/a-scorecard-for-companies-with-a-conscience/?ref=opinion

and here is the second:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/ethical-businesses-with-a-better-bottom-line/?ref=opinion

and finally, here is aroundsquare’s profile as a b corporation:
http://www.bcorporation.net/aroundsquare

deschooling society

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 12:44:02 -0600

i’ve posted before about teaching as a subversive activity. deschooling society by ivan illich is another classic for those of us interested in rehabilitating education.. i’ve found the full text online here:
http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1970_deschooling.html#1

the building blocks of democracy

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:16:31 -0700

at the time of writing, some 800 sets of aroundsquare's goodwood deconstruction blocks are en route to egypt, for distribution into small community-based kindergartens. egypt is going through a transition, and play has a purpose in that transition.

one of the cornerstones of democracy is a citizenry which is engaged and ready to take on the responsibilities that democratic governance demands. as a proponent of real creative play in early childhood, i want to highlight the connection. it's essentially about the way in which a person positions him or herself in relation to the world.

the types of activities which young children take up do a lot more than what they appear to on the surface. there are hidden lessons beneath the surface of everything, lessons which are not taught, but rather, cultivated. the child who has the opportunity to engage in real creative play, on a regular basis, is not just playing, not just learning building, not just using their imagination... that child is practicing thinking for herself, that child is gaining the sense that she has some control over the world around her, that child is becoming empowered. the child who plays with simple and open ended toys like wooden blocks is not just learning to build towers... she is developing a disposition, a way of being, she is learning to be a builder. period. and of course there are all of the other things they learn, the concentration, the fine motor skills the cognitive-spatial-geometric-whatevery jargon that fancy people like to talk about, but the role of play is much more fundamental than that.

that's why i'm sending blocks across the ocean. by way of context, in addition to running aroundsquare, i have a day job. in that day job, i am the team leader of a large early childhood education project funded by the canadian government, which is working with the egyptian ministry of education, and other partners, to reform and enhance early childhood education in egypt. these blocks are a donation from aroundsquare, and they will find their way into some 360 little nursery schools in upper egypt. my employer, agriteam canada, has graciously complemented my donation by paying the freight cost.

kickcan review

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:47:55 -0700

a review of gwdb from kickcan & conkers..

http://kickcanandconkers.blogspot.com/2011/01/aroundsquare.html

play with purpose

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:40:34 -0700

link to article by jaelyn molyneux in avenue magazine
http://www.avenuecalgary.com/articles/page/item/play-with-purpose

crafting community

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:42:17 -0600

a few months back i was contacted by a cool little group in california that puts on crafting retreats for families who know something about something. they were looking for support to their cause, and i am pleased to have become a part of it. aroundsquare donated ten sets of blocks to help stock the “crafting community” toy lab.

In their words:
"The Toy Lab provided hours of entertainment for children and parents alike, who were given the unique opportunity to engage in creative play through generous donations from from toy companies committed to innovation and beautiful design.
Thanks to your generous support, Aroundsquare became an integral part of this unique event. Our attending families had the opportunity to live and breathe with your goodwood blocks throughout the weekend...
This is the first year that we have included the Toy Lab in Crafting Community, and it was unsurprisingly a favorite among the children. Your blocks were the star of the show - kids made some really weird and beautiful stuff with them, and tons of parents asked about them. I had a great time playing with them myself!"

i get into it more on other parts of the website, but aroundsquare really isn’t about making money... it’s much more a social enterprise... a means to make a contribution to things which are important, things which are good for people, things which are good for society. there are a whole bunch of reasons why it feels good to support the crafting community - supporting family times together, cultivating rich and stimulating experiences for children, encouraging people to be artistic and roll up their sleeves and create things, and to nurture this whole cool little corner of our culture in which i see so much potential.

if you or someone you know is doing something neat which might benefit from the presence of aroundsquare toys, drop me a line.

incoming

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:11:39 -0600

i’ve taken the shop off-line... well, removed the links to it anyways. it’s been a couple of weeks that the stock of goodwood deconstruction blocks has been dwindling, and i really have almost nothing left to sell (or even play with myself).

but the good news is that the new shipment of the little guys is on its way and should be here in the next three weeks. be patient.. it’ll be worth it. i’ve seen the samples, i’ve seen the snaps, and they’re great. if you’d like to be notified when the new stock arrives, please email me.

make | believe

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:50:45 -0600

more evidence that good things come from straight up messing around. this dragon began with no direction, no idea, no vision... it just took form as pieces were variously crumpled, rolled, folded, and cut. order slowly and spontaneously grew from the mess. hey look it’s like a dragon head, hey this could be the fire, hey, can we add this as a tail? it was a collaborative piece which started out as an old magazine, a pair of scissors, and a roll of tape. not captured here is the ensuing docu-drama as the dragon took flight and began messing with his surroundings. meta-nihilism.

messing around. seriously though. isn’t it true that the real enemy is apathy? the worst thing to do is nothing at all? it doesn’t take much to do something, anything. let a child actually be bored for a couple of minutes, and they will break free from it. it’s not a natural state for them, and they only get that way because we spend too much time leading them and directing them, and their ability to think up things for themselves begins to atrophy. little junkies, an it’s our fault. and if they’ve been hooked for a long time, it might even take more than a couple of minutes to break out of it. it might take three. give them a chance, give them space, give them raw materials, and get out of the way. it’s good for kids when we follow their lead for a change.

the politics of play

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 18:25:25 -0600

hot off the press. and in a business magazine no less. i like this article. it’s always kind of reassuring to talk with people who “get it”

less rights reserved

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 00:50:20 -0600

i’ve decided to drop the non-commercial from the creative common license i’m using on the goodwood deconstruction blocks. so take and run with it.

i’m just taking the notion a step further than before. i believe the blocks are good for kids, and i want more kids to have a chance to play with them, and that’s more important than protecting the market from knock-offs, so then its simple. ideally though, what i would like to see happen is not for a bunch of existing companies to copy the designs. but rather, for a bunch of little income generation initiatives grow out of this. if you’re reading this and interested in pursuing the idea somewhere, contact me and i’ll send you the design specifications so you can a nice job of it.

fun and games, is it?

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:42:46 -0600

toot toot.

teaching as a subversive activity

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 07:46:45 -0600

this book is a classic, and i’ve just found a site that has the full-text online.
http://iwcenglish1.typepad.com/Documents/Postman_Teaching_As_Subversive_Activity.pdf
the second chapter is particularly worth reading.

tacit teachers

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 13:23:39 -0600

think about the world around you. think about the world around our children. now, remove the stuff that's directed at them, remove the explicit stuff. remove the parents' lectures, remove the teacher talk, remove the moral of the story, remove the product that the commercial is telling them to buy.

what you're left with is everything else. it's a lot. it's actually pretty much everything. in the big picture, what's written on the billboard doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they are surrounded by billboards. what the teacher says doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that the kid needs to sit in their desk for eight hours a day listening to it. what's playing on the television doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that it's the centrepiece of the living room and the focal point of family life.

we focus so much on the messages, while we ignore the medium. by being selective about the messages, we feel like we're doing good things for our children. but the messages are the low hanging fruit. they're the easy part to deal with. the medium is the insidious part... it slides across into the mind of the child, just below the level of awareness, as an unquestioned understanding of what the world is all about. it's hard to argue against or react to something which is not explicit. it's hard to identify our assumptions.

there's no conspiracy theory here... it's just that we take a lot for granted. we accept a lot without asking questions about it. we we're not intentional enough, about enough. which is why it's important to pay a little bit of attention to the tacit teachers--the things which are taken for granted... the things which define normal for us.

toys are a part of it, but they're only just a small part of it. when a kid asks, "why is it a garbage truck?" they're not just trying to make conversation, and they're not just stringing together random words; they're rendering a sense of reality, they're exercising their minds, they're trying to make sense of the world through language... their minds are infinitely more malleable than ours. they’re actually asking about the sound of one hand clapping, and, the difference between an orange. things like this matter just a little bit more than we think. and a lot of what we usually treat as important matters just a little bit less.

so then what are the tacit teachers? what is the "everything else" which relentlessly socializes us into conformity and complacency? it's too easy to dodge the question by pretending that it's obvious by just looking around. but if we actually want to start doing something intentional with it... if we want to be constructive in our approach to the hidden curriculum, we need to tease the everything else apart a little bit.

i've started playing around with this in the context of classroom teaching. the model that is emerging still needs a fair bit of work, but it's starting to coalesce. the point is to treat each factor as something which should not just be taken for granted, as is, at face value. but it’s not to say that the teacher should be held accountable for each. the teacher’s control of most of these is indirect at best. these are nested systems. the point is to start by becoming aware that these are some of the many factors which are shaping our children, and in so doing, shaping our culture and future. then we can start to have some substantive conversation about the goals of the education system, and how to line up these various factors so that they support, rather than subvert, those goals.

they only come in green?

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:49:38 -0600

well, maybe green and red. aroundsquare is pleased to announce that goodwood deconstruction blocks have recently been awarded a “best green product” award, by Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D., aka Dr. Toy.

from the press release available on Dr. Toy’s website: “The award winning Green products are made by companies striving to inspire children to appreciate the environment and help them learn to take better care of our natural resources. These companies are making products to teach children more about our planet or producing playthings that are based on Green principles.”

benefitting the beneficial

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:24:54 -0600

aroundsquare is committed to conducting business in a way which delivers benefits at each step. to that end, we're constantly percolating questions like whether or not it is right to be selling our products to stores who are simply out to make a buck. we do want to continue to support good folks and good little independent stores, because we think they're important for the communities we live in... but the fact is, we want to leverage our efforts, and so we're extending our hand to non-profits and charitable organizations, and other groups that are out to do some good.

it's a little ironic that the archetypal fundraiser for kids' sports teams is chocolate covered almonds. we can do better than that. if your group, or a group you know about is looking for fundraising ideas, please pass along the suggestion that they contact aroundsquare (matt@aroundsquare.com or +14033997449). we would be pleased to share our ideas on how we might be able to help!

open source toys

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:54:08 -0600

aroundsquare toys are originals. we take pride in coming up with new and innovative ways to play, and super creative things to play with. we have experimented with patents in the past, and certainly see the place of patents in encouraging innovation. but as we've made the transition to a more concerted focus on delivering benefit rather than profit, we have started to drift away from the whole idea of protecting the designs. we feel like it's more important to actually get the ideas out there and to scatter the seeds a little. we give the toys away to children we think would benefit from them, so it makes sense to give the ideas away and let people run with them!

so for this reason, we've decided to skip the whole patent pending process with the new designs, and just to toss everything into the creative commons as artistic works. we reserve some rights, but not many. our creative commons license reads like this:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

With the understanding that:
Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
The author's moral rights;
Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

with all this in mind, if you want to make some of the blocks yourself, or if you have an idea in mind for an extension or a new mulch... give us a shout. we’d be happy to share with you all our design specs and work processes!

AO2 - a certified B Corporation

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:13:54 -0600

aroundsquare ltd. is pleased to announce that we have completed all requirements to be granted status as a certified B Corporation. unlike regular businesses driven by profit, aroundsquare is driven to generate benefit--to provide something good not only through our products, but also through the processes we use to conduct business.

B Corporations are a new kind of company which use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. certified B Corporations meet higher standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. essentially, it is like LEED certification, but for businesses rather than buildings. the performance standards are comprehensive and transparent. they measure a company’s impact on its employees, suppliers, community, and the environmental.

unlike traditional corporations, certified B Corporations are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their employees, suppliers, community, consumers, and environment.

in the long term, this will lead to a legally recognized new corporate form and tax incentives, procurement preferences, and a social stock exchange for sustainable businesses.
--
About B Corp
Certified B Corporations 1) meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance; 2) legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include consideration of stakeholder interests; and 3) build collective voice through the power of the unifying B Corporation brand. Currently, there are over 300 certified B Corporations from over 50 industries, representing a diverse multi-billion marketplace.

About B Lab
B Lab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab drives systemic change through three interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing; 2) accelerating the growth of the impact investing asset class through use of B Lab’s GIIRS impact rating system by institutional investors; and 3) promoting supportive public policies, including creation of a new corporate form and tax, procurement, and investment incentives for sustainable business.

another ribbon

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:33:53 -0600

remember what it was like to get a ribbon at sports day? or science fair? or even a valentine for that matter?

well, i’m a little late in posting this, given that vacation is nearly half over, but aroundsquare was recently awarded a “best vacation product” award by Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D., aka Dr. Toy, for the newly introduced goodwood deconstruction blocks. while this certainly isn’t the first award for aroundsquare... it is notable in that it’s the first for a design which we’ve kept in hand, and the first for goodwood.

play today | build tomorrow

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:43:32 -0600

why does it matter what we let our kids play with? at one level, the answer is obvious... isn't there a big difference between army guys and huggy dolls? but there is a fair bit more to it than that... at another level entirely, army guys and huggy dolls are basically just two versions of the same thing. they both prescribe a certain kind of play, they both frame the same kind of toy-child relationship, they're both heavily gendered, and completely lacking in imagination.

the thing about toys is that they are among the first material things that children spend any amount of time interacting with. the quality and character of that interaction is something which feeds in substantially to the child's development. it conditions them and habituates them to certain types of behaviour and patterns of thinking.

the trouble, in terms of citizenship, is that in most cases, we begin conditioning kids, from a very early age, to be passive, complacent, unimaginative. the toys tell the kids who they are and what their job is. too often, through toys, we restrict children. the child's mind is naturally open, and it's through this kind of conditioning that we gradually narrow their thinking by imposing artificial structures.

the trick is to surround our children with playthings which present opportunities rather than restrict them. and by this, i don't just mean toys. we need to start thinking, just a little bit more, about the quality and character of our children's play, and the way in which they learn to read the world around them.

dubulludilo

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:25:58 -0600

whodolowhatnow?

recently, most of this site has focused on the goodwood project, but experiment that sort of started it all was monkey knuckles... on the surface, it couldn’t be more different from goodwood, but the underlying philosophy of creative play and free expression is the same. to get a sense of what it looks like in action, check out the videos.

this toy is another aroundsquare original. it’s currently not for sale, but contact us and we might be able to dig up a set that we have kicking around, or else just make your own! when you make something yourself, it changes your relationship to the thing.. come on try it!

the toy has gone through a bunch of iterations and a variety of names... the first one that kind of stuck was monkey knuckles, but when i was told that it sounded like a tribal weapon, i started looking for alternatives. recently i’ve been calling it dubulo... kind of reminiscent of diabolo, and a bit of a slack interpretation of dubulludilo, which would mean two clump toy, or something like that, in esperanto.

right to play

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:30:20 -0600

aroundsquare toys serve a purpose. they do good for kids. as i’ve said before, i don’t jump to call these toys educational... most of the time i cringe when i hear people talking about educational toys, because usually what they are referring to are these inane gimmicky glossy slick flashing lights widgets which trivialize the concept of play as well as whatever content that they are purportedly teaching. there is lots of time down the road for kids to learn “stuff”... and there is even a pretty good case to be made for the line that this kind of cram-play is miseducative:
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/hurried-infant/

but i do think our toys do good. they create a space for kids to play, to think for themselves... they open doors and tap into the developing imagination.

and so with this in mind, and social justice in heart, aroundsquare makes a point of donating our toys to various places where children may not have a lot of opportunity for this kind of play. i’m fortunate, in my day job, to be doing work which takes me to interesting places and puts me in contact with interesting people who are doing interesting things. and through these experiences and this network, aroundsquare toys are reaching out to spark imaginations in surprising corners of the globe... orphanages and childcare centres in Bangladesh, Egypt, China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and also here in Canada.

recently, i’ve added a spot on the website where people can, finally, purchase the blocks online. at the same time, i’ve put in a little button to donate a set of blocks as well. this part of the site is going to grow, since there are other things which tie in which i also want to facilitate. i’m planning to add space for donating trees, to offset the wood used in the blocks’ production, and also to make donations to support children who may not be able to attend school because of the fees or materials costs.

freestyle

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:59:29 -0600

i can’t count the number of times people have told me that i should sell goodwood with some photos of what to do with it, showing some things for people to build. some think of it as inspiration; others envision full out challenge cards, or instructions of various creations with various levels of difficulty. to me that sounds a whole lot like lego. or barbie. lego and barbie are great for what they are. but goodwood isn’t about copying or being told how to play. it’s about making the space for kids to make their own decisions for a change. if we want little people to grow up into big people who can think for themselves, we need to pay attention to how much we let them do that. consider goodwood as a tool for doing just that. there’s something kind of cool about a kid who decides that he’s going to wear his lion costume to breakfast in july. that’s why goodwood doesn’t come with anything.