The Human School Connection Catalog

Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn't literally predicting the 2020 pandemic-but she got eerily close. Her game, set in 2019, featured scenarios we're now familiar with (like masking and social distancing), and participant reactions gave her a sense of what the world could-and eventually, did-look like. How did she do it? And what can we learn from this experiment to predict-and prepare for-the future ourselves? In this episode, Jane teaches us how to be futurists, and talks about the role of imagination-and gaming-in shaping a future that we're truly excited about.

The social and environmental challenges we face today are not only complex, they are also systemic and structural and have no obvious solutions. They require diverse combinations of people, organizations, and sectors to coordinate actions and work together even when the way forward is unclear. Even so, collaborative efforts often fail because they attempt to navigate complexity with traditional strategic plans, created by hierarchies that ignore the way people naturally connect.

"It is so important that we fight for the future, get into the game, get dirty, get experimental. How do we create and proliferate a compelling vision of economies and ecologies that center humans and the natural world over the accumulation of material? We embody. We learn. We release the idea of failure, because it's all data. But first we imagine."

Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen.

"There has been a tremendous emphasis on all things related to 'story' in our society, hoping that by doing so, you'll help them tell theirs. Social media encourages us to share our stories, giving the entire world an opportunity to like and react to them at the push of a button. Creative services on their surface all seem to aim at helping clients tell a compelling story. This is all well and good, but it's all happening in correlation with a culture that's constantly disappointed, anxious, obsessive, and discontented. Perhaps this is because we've made story the be-all and end-all when its intended purpose is to serve as a beginning."

"Design offers methods not for a changed world, but an ever-changing one. In the face of current challenges- those here today and those yet to come- we all need ways to prepare to act even when we are uncertain. We'll always need to find our way to our reservoir of creative abilities, and figure out how to apply those abilities to each situation."

"Here's what we heard, over and over again: What's true of the vision and learning model for the kids needs to be true of the professional culture and operating norms of the adults. To help students become capable, caring, self-directed learners and creative problem-solvers, these educators believe, their schools should deliberately model those same attributes for them-in their design of learning, for sure, but also in the ways the adults work together, address problems, design systems and procedures, and engage with the community."

"I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not mediation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or public meetings. Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well."

"How you answer the question depends on what you want out of the team experience… What are you after? What evidence are you seeking? This is a fundamental question that task designers often skip, usually because they think the curriculum or the standards make it obvious. It's not obvious."

"How you answer the question depends on what you want out of the team experience… What are you after? What evidence are you seeking? This is a fundamental question that task designers often skip, usually because they think the curriculum or the standards make it obvious. It's not obvious."

Might stories count as a form of data?

Complex adaptive leadership recognizes the need of today's context to acknowledge the expertise of the crowd.

One example of how we can prime the thinking of our communities to see other human-centered possibilities for the current education system.

Do you ever feel like you're going through the motions to get through the day? Do you continue to do what you do because you have always done it that way? You may not even have considered that you can change what you're doing AND have more joyful experiences. My book, Define Your WHY, shares stories and involves you in activities to get to know YOU better so you have a more meaningful life where you can live and learn on purpose. This book is for anyone who wants to discover or re-discover their WHY so they can grow their purpose.

A bold new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together - at work, at home, in our communities, and beyond.

Overemphasizing test scores as measures of achievement is potentially harmful to education. The contributors identify key traits such as mindset, motivation, social skills, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit that students, teachers, and schools need to acknowledge and cultivate. Educators are asked to shift the evaluation paradigm to focus on a multiplicity of skills necessary for success in the 21st century.

When a culture abandons the aggressive pursuit of status markers, the result is unexpectedly liberating.

Public education in the U.S. is at a crucial crossroad. Here's what it looks like for school districts to choose Bravely.

Why do some leap ahead while others fall behind in our chaotic, connected age? In New Power, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms confront the biggest stories of our time-the rise of mega-platforms like Facebook and Uber; the out-of-nowhere victories of Trump and Obama; the unexpected emergence of movements like #MeToo-and reveal what's really behind them: the rise of "new power."

If a kid asks for your feedback, by all means you can give it; it would be impolite not to. But what we should be measuring and comparing is not our children but the quality of the learning environments we provide for them.

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities--businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government--do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like--there are many success stories out there, and they've been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.