"Man Muß Immer Umkehren!"

I have the word "umkehren" tattooed on my arm. It is part of the above phrase, which is credited to the 19th century geometrist Jacobi, who apparently suggested inverting every geometrical theorem to better understand it. "Umkehren" means "to invert." There are some obvious reasons I did not want the English translation on my arm, as fitting as it my be. Like many others, I believe that Jocobi's phrase has a much broader application than the one he developed for geometry. It is important to always question assumptions and to turn some notions on their head to understand them from another perspective. As such, my tattoo serves as a reminder to challenge my assumptions when I do not immediately understand something.

In the place of such a corporeal reminder, feel free to watch this great short clip featuring musician and entrepreneur Derek Sivers, which cleverly explores this very notion.

Overcoming the tyranny of common sense

Sir Robinson is charming, insightful man who has now given two fabulous talks about creativity and learning. So he's basically one of my growing lists of nerd-heros.

He's calling for a revolution in education - one that is personalized and creates the conditions for meaningful and passionate learning.

More cool recycling ideas from Montreal coffee shops...

I love glass walls - but they are so blinking expensive. Unless, of course you run a coffee shop with an alcohol licence and a clientele that has a taste for Moosehead. Check out this great glass wall at Le Caffè Mariani (4450 Notre-Dame ouest - in St. Henri)

The two sides of the glass wall - stacked Moosehead bottles, stuck together and encased in a thick welded metal frame.

Oh hello blog. It's you again.

Yep, like most bloggers on occasion... I fell off the bandwagon in terms of writing. I'm fine with it. Life's like that. I've been playing a crazy amount of derby in other cities and have been loving every moment of it - something has got to give, and it's not going to be work or derby.

Besides writing another thing I haven't been doing very much of is reading for pleasure. However, I did manage to pick up a copy of Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future while wondering JFK a few weeks ago, and plowed through it on the flight home. I like a writer that theorizes and then gives you the opportunity to put some ideas to practice, and Pink does just that by providing the reader with a goodly number of exercises that one can undertake in order to better get in touch with the creative brain. One such exercise is to maintain a design journal, where you can note (in writing or in images) both good and bad design - in an effort to encourage a higher level of design consciousness within the practitioner. While I would suggest I'm often excited by good design, I must honestly say that I spend more time being critical of bad design and now I have an excuse to compile the two and see if I can learn something in the process. Or at least have a good coffee in the process - which is what happened today:

L'Emporte-Pièce is a new restaurant in the Plateau. It's tiny, really cute and the gentleman behind the counter can make a mean soy-latte. You should go and check it out. And pay attention to the chairs - if you are a fan of the STM you may recognize them - they are old bus seats. The guy behind the counter, presumably the owner (or one thereof), said he bought them from the STM for a steal and refashioned them into seats of the shop. Clever man. They are super durable and look great in the eclectic design of the shop, which seems to be heavily reliant of the clever re-use of a old objects and materials. The coffee appears to be all new though, so don't worry about that.  

Awesome re-use of STM chairs at L'Emporte-Pièce.

Death, the single best invention of life

Great advice from Steve Jobs: stay hungry, stay foolish.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Today was one of those days - a day when the fortuitous coming together of a number of key factors reveals something which would, from that day forward, forever appear incredibly obvious to you. The factors in question were 1) fatigue, 2) motivation theory, and 3) a student led dialogue session.  

I like having the freedom to allow my students to walk around the class, like it's theirs. I like having them lead a good portion of the class, like it's theirs. I like to imagine that this motivates them to learn more, to retain more, to consider the sometimes challenging topics that we cover in that particular class. Sometimes they might not learn exactly what I was hoping they would, but sometimes they learn something much deeper. I always learn something, even if it's just that it's okay to let go and let someone else, someone less "experienced" be in charge.

Every week in my Social Context of Business class, a group of students develop and implement some kind of class activity to help their colleagues better understand the topic of that week - be it ethics, or consumerism etc.  This forces the group in question to develop a solid understanding of the topic at hand, in addition to creating some interesting ways of sharing this information with the class. Examples of such exercises include scavenger hunts, the development of barter systems, quiz shows, dialogue sessions, and puzzles. Fun is often a key element of this half of the class.This week they had their peers experience a controversial topic from multiple perspective - I feel it was a highly effective exercise.

It's not like this in all my classes. In some of the coordinated classes I teach, there seems to be a pressure to teach the topics from a given text, in a given fashion. Perhaps as a result, I feel a little less passionately about teaching those topics - I leave the class less inspired. It only just now occurred to me why, precisely, I cannot and will not continue in this vein.

This morning, in one such coordinated class I lectured on the topic of intrinsic motivation. I did this by standing in front of the class and talking about it. "More autonomy, more responsibility etc.... lead to better outcomes," I explained. This I explained by standing in front of class, using examples, real and fabricated to illuminate the topic. I can't imagine a less original way to cover a topic that relate to something as interesting as what drives people. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that, given the power dynamic between student and professor, every class presents the opportunity to put this concept into practice - to give these bright, curious people a chance to develop ways to improve their own learning.
 
This realization made me understand why the structure of my "Social Context" class seems to be so effective in bringing students together around complex ideas. It's because they do it themselves - it's not imposed on them. I trust them as bright and original thinkers to come up with a variety of solutions to the challenge of real  education. At it's root, part of the reason I implemented this structure to this particular course in the first place was because I too was entrusted with more autonomy in the creation of the course. The course coordinator has given me the freedom to cover the topics that I feel most relevant to the subject, in the ways that I feel most effective. I feel this freedom has challenged me to become a better educator, and the freedom I grant my students seems to encourage them to be better learners. It's like a motivational cyclone - kind of out of control, but powerful nonetheless.

What Teachers Make

For all the others doing that teaching thing...

Inspiration: Yong Ho Ji

Yong Ho Ji is a Korean born sculptor and artist who builds mutant "monsters" out of rubber tires. He takes a modified natural material, rubber tires, and transforms familiar and somewhat threatening animals into beautiful yet unnatural creatures.

Tire waste is clearly a problem in car-centered societies such as ours (according to the Environmental Protection Agency, at least 290 million scrap tires are generated in the United States each year). Yong Ho Ji presents one of many reuses of this incredibly common waste material. Otherwise, whole tires have been reused as bumpers for boats, highway barriers and less commonly as a construction material for home building. It is not uncommon to now find recycled tire crumb in mats, stair treading and in athletic fields. It's amazing how a material so commonly used for a sole purpose can have such a variety of afterlives - probably not uncommon for most of our waste, when you think about it.

Clearly, one man's waste is another man's treasure. In 2008, one of Ji's sharks went for $145,000 USD at auction.

Inspiration: from Latin America via Treeehugger

Treehugger.com is generally an excellent source of great green ideas and design... here is a fun and inspiring slide show on the creative reuse of common materials - including a button lamp, a number of products made of running shoes (from flower pots to flooring), and a humorous, if not slightly questionable, application of Barbie doll parts.



See the whole slide show by clicking here: Clever and Crazy Recycled Design Ideas from Latin America