Culture

12 Apr Improvising With and In

Posted at 17:00h in Applied Theatre, Creativity, Culture, Education, Human Development, Learning Environments, Outside of School, Play, Psychology of Becoming, Theatre 2 Comments

Since 2016, I’ve been editor of a series of books—Studies in Play, Performance, Learning and Development—published by Palgrave Macmillan. I’m proud of the nine books I helped to get written and published. Every one of them has made important contributions within and across education, psychology, youth development and theatre/performance studies,...

13 Mar Words to Ponder #48

Posted at 17:46h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Performance Movement, Psychology of Becoming, Words to Ponder 1 Comment

These Words to Ponder are those of performance activist Hector Aristizabal, taken from a wonderful interview with him at Creative Art Space. To be creative is to participate consciously in the ongoing creation of the world. Creativity is not primarily about producing art. It is about entering into relationship with life...

11 Mar Appreciating Vygotsky … and Writing Letters

Posted at 20:38h in Culture, Education, Human Development, Learning Environments, Psychology of Becoming, Vygotsky 0 Comments

If you're a reader of The Developmentalist, my "developmental" advice column, you know I'm a fan of writing letters. They are a particular way of organizing your relationship with the person you're writing to and with yourself. Writing a letter and never sending it can be just as good as...

07 Feb More Dilemmas! More Letters!

Posted at 15:57h in Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Play, Psychology of Becoming, The Developmentalist 0 Comments

Greetings All, As I hope you know, I gathered many of the letters and responses that appeared in this column into a book, A Developmentalist's Guide to Better Mental Health: Navigating Everyday Life Dilemmas. (My editor at Routledge urged that title, although I would have gone with something more provocative.) If you...

27 Aug Words to Ponder #47

Posted at 21:31h in Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Words to Ponder 0 Comments

I think about how exhausting the indicative becomes - the constant demand to perform progress, to show we're winning, to prove harm is decreasing. Bayo Akomolafe...

26 Aug Excavating the Myth of Empathy

Posted at 21:55h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Critical psychiatry, Culture, Psychology of Becoming, Psychotherapy 2 Comments

I’ve been pondering the popularity of empathy for quite a while now, and I’ve been meaning to write something telling you why I find it so distasteful. As a way to ease into that create space, I share a bit of conversation “A Meandering Search for Method: Becoming Human in...

15 Aug Rhizomic Revolution

Posted at 03:05h in Community Organizing, Creativity, Culture, Psychology of Becoming 0 Comments

Carrie Lobman, the East Side Institute’s Leader of Education and Research and my close colleague and friend, gave the keynote address at the Cultivating Ensembles annual gathering last week. I love the title of her talk—“Boxes, Dualisms and Rhizomes”—and I loved the talk even more! Carrie urged that we go...

02 Feb Imagination and Teardrops

Posted at 20:02h in Creativity, Culture, Psychology of Becoming 0 Comments

I just learned about Gianni Rodari, a children's writer and Communist almost unknown in the US. I love this description from a New York Times article about him: To Rodari, imagination was always revolutionary, because he thought that, when readers picture different worlds, they stop taking existing conditions for granted and...

28 Aug David Brooks says “Grow up, America!” Social therapists tell us how.

Posted at 16:23h in Community Organizing, Culture, Psychology of Becoming, Social Therapeutics, Social Therapy 2 Comments

Just had to share this wonderful piece by social therapeutic practitioners Jennifer Bullock and Marian Rich. The World Needs Social Therapy! Thank you David Brooks for your recent thoughtful commentary titled Hey America, Grow Up. We appreciate your invitation to build a new culture that supports maturity, community, empowerment and well-being....

12 May In Conversation with Bayo Akolomafe

Posted at 03:13h in Creativity, Culture, Human Development, Language, Politics, Psychology of Becoming 2 Comments

During the second half of 2022, Bayo Akomolafe and I had a series of recorded Zoom conversations, with my Institute colleague Janet Wootten spurring us on, Bayo and I both wanted to make these conversations public. and you can find slightly edited transcripts of them here, titled A Meandering Search for Method: Becoming Human in a...