1: We start by listening

Session 1: March 14

Preface: We Start by Listening

Who is here? What stories? How do we see the world?

We are coming together as a collection of more than twenty people, many of us strangers to one another. How do we start the process of becoming a single group of learners, with enough mutual trust to have honest discussions and playfully create together? We start by listening. Who is here? How do you see the world? Who do you think you are? What’s going on? We’ll learn about each other, and we’ll start to identify the many stories we each bring into the room — stories we use to make sense of the world, our work, and our ability to create.

Lecture and activities

• Introductions: the course, the professors, the syllabus
• Activity: meet a lot of people in a really short time
• Activity: use drawing and people-grouping to get our beliefs out where we can see them. What is our scope of influence? What state is it in? What is our relationship to it? 
• Lecture: reflection and framing — We see through our beliefs. What’s actually happening supports many different beliefs, depending on the lenses and stories through which we see the world.

Key concepts

• We each see and understand through a set of stories and beliefs
• Moving quickly from surface chat to defining stories can help a group develop trust