Playshop for the Nat’l Assn of Tech Prep Leadership

IDEAS is always experimenting. We also have a long history of collecting fascinating colleagues and friends on the road of story. A few years back, we were doing some work with the Navy Learning Strategies Consortium and we were part of a discussion panel on “learning games”. The dialogue was, to shine it up a bit, “robust”. In the middle of the melee, we got to know a fascinating and passionate young man from Texas named Jim Brazell. Now, there are a lot of people who glom on to the label “Futurist”. Jim is the real deal. He has a handle on what is going to happen next, particularly in education and with a strong focus on how we can and MUST integrate the arts, science, math, engineering and technology so that we can HAVE a future.

Recently, Jim, Kelly Pounds (IDEAS’ VP of Learning) and Bob Allen spent a couple of days with two other wonderful thinkers-Mary Shenck-Ross and David Thornburg. What came out of it is a new co-venture called Radical Platypus. We’re a Platypus because we come from such diverse backgrounds and world experiences just like our namesake expresses a lot of different genetics. We’re Radical because we’re pooling our speaking, leadership and creative talents to help organizations-especially in education-change the future through playful investigation and strategic action.

Last week, Jim and Bob Allen had a chance to do what we’re calling a “Playshop” for the National Association of Tech Prep Leadership. For those of you who aren’t current in the lingo of education (as we weren’t), “Tech Prep” is the name today of what we used to call “vocational education” back in the day. Its also called “CTE” (Career Technical Education) and it is way cool. Jim set the stage with three stories about how CTE looks today, how it bears on jobs and how it may affect the future. Then Bob dug into our StoryJam arsenal and we facilitated several explorations that enabled about 100 educators to craft a revolutionary platform from which they will build their action plans for bringing TPE into its proper place. In the end, we got good feedback from our audience. One quote was “You and Jim complement each other in terms of styles and presentation skills. It was like the right brain and left brain processing the message and playshop.”

The Platypus is on the loose! We’ll keep you posted on where we’re playing.