@ThinkCollab Group

Friends,

I have been mulling over for quite some time how to help Adaptive Schools Foundations Seminar participants understand the nature and process for the true development of an idea. I'm sure you all have witnessed groups struggle with the "popcorning" out of ideas without really taking the time to actually develop any of the ideas on the table. They often miss the opportunity for authentic dialogue and to develop an idea into something much greater than what the individual who originally proposed the idea had intended.

I came across a video this morning that contains an explanation that got me really excited, and I wanted to share it. Disclaimer: while it is a Sunday sermon, Bishop Robert Barron spend 3.5 minutes simply discussing the true nature of an idea. He quotes John Henry Newman who says, "Ideas do not exist in a static environment, they exists in the play of lively minds. Example. I have an idea, I chew on it, consider it, muse, wonder, and then I share it with you. You do the same and share it with someone else. Then we have a lively conversation about it. The idea grows, unfolds, deepens, not becoming something different, but becoming fully itself." He goes on to compare this idea to a river and an acorn and ends by saying, "To be perfect is to change often. Things must change in order to remain themselves."

I think the authors would appreciate the way in which he articulates this! He helped me understand more clearly the role and importance of authentic dialogue in addition to another example of true interdependence. If you would like to view this section of the video, it begins at 2:54 and ends at 6:34. I'd love to hear your thinking around this!

Happy May!

Tonia