MINDFOOD V: Top 3 (Non-Ed) Spaces to Learn About Education

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All right, everybody, welcome to our latest episode of MINDFOOD, your space for easily digestible

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content. This discussion is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Michael Dippold,

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Ezra Friedlander, and Sue Woltanski. Thank you for your ongoing support. You can learn more about

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Human Restoration Project at humanrestorationproject.org and be sure to support our end of year funding drive,

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which you can find at humanrestorationproject.org slash support. Anyway, so this is our latest

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discussion of MINDFOOD. And today, Nick and I are going to be talking about our top three picks

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for places to learn about education.

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And there's only only two rules behind this. And here's our methodology. So Nick and I are

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going to be looking at other fields or professions and providing examples of what we can transform

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or learn from that. This very much is an expansion to get really academic here for a second,

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of this idea of semiotic domains, which is the idea that you learn a lot from other related fields,

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as opposed to just drilling over and over for people in your field. So if you go to a conference

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and you're like, hey, I'm going to learn more about teaching math. So you go to a conference

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about teaching math. After a certain number of conferences, you're likely to not find that many

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different people that you could talk to, where you're going to learn something that's really

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that new, you're reaching a point of diminishing returns. Instead, the argument of semiotic domains

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goes that I could go to another related field, for example, maybe a philosopher, like a philosopher's

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conference, who's talking maybe about like, theoretics and concepts of maybe space time,

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I don't know, something like really random, you're not only going to learn a lot about that topic,

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you're also going to be able to apply it to your understanding of math and transform it to learn

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something even more in your own field. Yeah, it's the idea like you have your bubble of professional

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practice that you're an expert in. And the idea is that to be able to grow that bubble, you can

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only do so much inside of that bubble. But to be able to grow it, you need to reach out and make

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connections to other semiotic domains that you're not an expert in. And that will in turn, like the

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dialogue between the discourse between those two domains will actually grow your own practice in

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your own as you, you know, become more of an expert in the other ones, then you grow in your

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own professional practice and become better at that. Yeah, I mean, a tangible example would be

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if you're learning how to play an instrument, let's say the piano, something that's semi outside of

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your semiotic domain might be learning how to play the drums, you're going to learn a lot about

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like rhythm and technique that you would learn and drumming that then you could apply to piano.

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And what's really important to understand about semiotic domains is that it's not that you're

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just going to become a better piano player, you're going to transform the way that you play piano,

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because of the way that you learn how to play drums and vice versa. So here's here's an example.

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And this is something we have a whole video on that you can find on our YouTube channel.

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And that's over video game design. So video game designers do a lot of stuff that's honestly really

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similar to education. But one thing that all video game designers basically have to do

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is have a tutorial, there has to be a way to learn how the game that you created is played.

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And one specific thing I think teachers can really draw a lot from is this idea of teaching

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player mechanics through action or through trial and error. And in this example, I have it on a

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screen here. There's a lot of examples of bad video game tutorials, like where text just comes

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up on the screen and tells you what to do, and then you just kind of figure it out. But Nintendo

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specifically is really good about this idea of trial and error. And in every single Nintendo game,

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pretty much, there is usually a video and of what it is that you're supposed to do playing at

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somewhere on the screen, and then you just do it. And then the game makes you do that exact same

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thing over and over and over again. So in the example I have on screen here, like it's teaching

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you how to jump. So you have to jump up this like little tiny cliff ledge in order to get to a coin.

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And there's a video playing showing Kirby jumping. And you will sit there until you figure it out.

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And then moments later, when you know you're going to jump again, they got another cliff.

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And then it's going to take you through a variety of different things that are going to challenge

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your ability ability to figure out how to jump like crossing a larger gap, or maybe like how to

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go up even higher, which is spamming the jump button because Kirby can like float slash fly,

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right. So the way that we can think about that as an educator is that how much of education is

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learning by reading a giant descriptive task of that thing, and then either never applying it or

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never having the opportunity for trial and error? Like what is the the jumping equivalent in a

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history course or something? I think I've been playing a lot of Ori and the Will of the Wisps

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with my with my son for some reason he likes he likes that. But it's challenging for him,

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especially the more you progress, the more complex the game gets my goodness.

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What's cool about that, I noticed while I was playing with him is as you you reach these like

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iridescent trees, and it's like this sign where you're going to unlock this new power. But what's

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cool is that when you unlock that power, very often you're in a location in the game, because

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it's very much like the game about metroidvania is where yeah, you have to use that power to like

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move out of that zone and into the next thing. So you actually have to apply it to be able to even

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leave that that place where you just got that new power. And then very often it's like the key to

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unlocking like the very next part of the map just like oh you got this new power now you have to

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apply it all these new ways in this new realm that we're gaining you access to. But the cool part is

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then very often you have to traverse back across the game and you find that you can use those new

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tools and techniques to access parts of the map or do things that you couldn't before even in parts

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of the game that you have played and access unlocked previously. So there's this cool like loop

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of you know iteration and interaction as you build in your both your strength of your character and

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your skill as a player. That's just really exactly. And if you want to learn more about that go check

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out like our massive video slash deep dive into it. But it's my hope that as Nick and I share these

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examples both to each other, but also you as the listener, make those connections as a skilled

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educator. So you listen to this stuff and you're like oh that makes me think a little bit differently

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about this even in the short time that we're describing this content. So that said here's our

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top three examples of other things we can pull from other fields. With that said I'm gonna start

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with my number three and then we'll go back and forth. So I know it's kind of a cop out because

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it's very similar to video game design, but there is a difference in terms of how board games are

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designed. And Nick as you know like I have a pretty substantial board game collection,

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huge board game fan, and whenever I'm playing board games I think a lot about education as well. And

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the one specific example I want to talk about is this idea of keeping players at the table.

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So unlike a video game which the majority of which are designed to be played online now,

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in a video game like if you lose you get to start right over. Like you go back into a lobby,

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like a different lobby, or maybe there's like a respawn system, it ensures that you keep playing

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it. But in board games if you lose early on in the game you're just going to be sitting there

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awkwardly at a table while all of your friends get to keep playing the game. And most modern

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board games recognize that and have tried to remedy it. So like an old school example would be

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like Monopoly. If you lose Monopoly I guess you just sit there or you go like walk in the other

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room awkwardly because Monopoly is not a fun game objectively. But what I want to paint a picture of

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is social deduction game. Now I don't have enough friends that are interested in board games sadly

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to play a lot of social deduction games so it's not my favorite genre. But it is a good example

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of games that are often played in school sometimes. Did you ever play like Mafia or One Night Werewolves?

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Or any of those kind of games with kids? So as you probably know like in Mafia or Werewolf,

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which are very similar to each other, the way it works is that the one player is the killer,

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all the other players tend to be just like civilians or they have specialized roles,

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and each night within the game world the werewolf will kill one of the players. That player is then

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out of the game and then people vote on who that player might be that is the killer. There's

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different roles they can investigate etc. The problem with that game is that if you're killed

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by the werewolf or by the mafia member you just sit there and watch, which is not a very fun

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interaction. And having played this with kids over many many many years, kids love it, but if you're

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the first one out it sucks. Another example of this, of a game that's iterated upon that,

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and in my opinion approved it, is Deception Murder in Hong Kong. Have you played this?

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So Deception Murder in Hong Kong is a very similar premise. It's a game where

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there's a crime scene investigation, and at the beginning of the game

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one of the players is a murderer. They choose their method of making a kill, and then

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overnight a forensic scientist who's one of the players finds the murder weapon and the location,

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presents the evidence to the other players, and shows them what happens. And the goal of this

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game is that the other players have to figure out through the forensic investigator, by asking

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them a series of questions, who the other murderer is. So it basically goes around the table. Everyone

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has to present what they think it was and how they think it occurred, and over time the forensic

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investigator can take away specific clues. They can't communicate directly. They can take away

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certain things to try to contradict the murderer. It's always difficult to explain a board game,

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but what this game does is that it allows the player to always remain in the action,

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because the decision isn't made until the end of the game technically on who is actually going to

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be out. Like one player isn't being eliminated over time. You're voting. What do you think the

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connection is here to education? I think in this case, right, keeping players at the table is like,

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how do we recruit player or student engagement throughout the duration of a course or the

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duration of an activity without alienating kids, without creating winners and losers,

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without creating cycles that cause kids to fail early or to lose the game early and then end up

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staying out of it, getting bored and doing something else. It's kind of the analogy that

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I'm making, right? It's how do we keep students engaged is kind of the equivalent of how do we

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keep players at the table. Am I reading that right? Yeah. I think to add on as well, it also,

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just when we're designing activities or like a lesson or something, it's ensuring that kids

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always have something to do. So like when we're designing a lesson, that the agency is constantly

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at the hands of the students and no one ever has taken out of that space. Yeah. It's really

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like that, that universal design for learning component where, like you said, the agency is

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with the kid to be able to like recruit multiple means of engagement, interaction, expression,

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whatever. So they make choices about how to fluidly move from one task to the next.

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All right. I think that's a good summary. Let's go on to your number three.

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Oh, now if this was supposed to be numbered, this would be my number one.

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They're not in any order for me. They're not tiered.

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When I thought about arts and music and education, I think what it brings to education,

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I'll start with this, is just the sense that art is all about communication and meaning making and

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sense making about the thing. Like how am I going to express a particular idea with a tool

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for an audience, right? Depending on what it is that you're going to do. If it's a physical medium,

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if it's a digital medium, if it's music, or if it's written or whatever, right? The arts

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allow you to express yourself in all those different ways, but also take into effect

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your own context. And let's see here, the other thing that I have on here on the left is actually

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an album cover from a band that is probably going to get a lot of play in the metal album of the

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year scene, which is a band from the Czech Republic. They're called Malo Karpatan. I don't

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know if I'm pronouncing that correctly or not, but what's really cool is that their music is all in

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Czech, so it's all Czech language, but this album actually tells stories from the Protestant

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Reformation. If you go through and read the lyrical themes in English, obviously for me,

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it's telling stories about Habsburgs and King Philip and all these other kinds of things

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on the musical backdrop of metal. And I've really found too that heavy metal music draws from so

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many different walks of life. It's an expression of all these different cultures, but within this

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common language of pounding drum rhythms, distorted guitars, etc., I could listen to

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metal music that's influenced by Japanese culture, a Japanese historical theme,

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expressed through this. I can think of bands that have done the same for Chinese history.

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Right. They're using semiotic domains in the opposite way. They're transforming their

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understanding of music by understanding historical context, both musically, because I'm sure they

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use motifs. Metal is probably the closest thing to classical music that exists in terms of that

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genre. There's a lot of overlap between the opera, metal, and classical music interests and fields.

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And then there's also, I think a little more mainstream, but Queen is pretty famous for

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incorporating operatic elements into their work as a classic rock group. It's very apparent how

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that transforms the way that you listen to their music. And so that's, I just think the more that

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the educators can dive into, just like other cultures or other, you know, especially arts

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and music from all those other things are a way of understanding, not only then those other, you know,

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ways of expressing, but then thinking critically about the ways that we can construct our own

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spaces. Right. And like the stories that we tell and how we tell them and, you know, the signs and

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symbols and the means. And you even said like motifs, right? So we can understand our own

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culture and the ways that we communicate and the way that we tell stories. Yeah. I mean, there's

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two quick examples that come to mind right away, which is the first is if you're using, I think

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oftentimes music and sound are left out of our thinking when it comes to lesson planning or

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school design, right? Like, yeah, I remember this is a really basic example, but whenever I would

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talk about the different decades, especially like like the 1920s onward in the United States,

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we would analyze music from each decade period. So like we'd look at protest songs from the 1930s,

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or we would look at like the the rock and roll themes, the 1960s, etc. And it's both literally

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being able to hear it and hearing like the motifs and talking about like the history of music and

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where it comes from and like how jazz leads into rock and roll, etc. And like why that is and how

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that works, but also then analyzing the lyrics and how the lyrics translate to historical context.

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Like there's a lot of really interesting thematic stuff from music theory that also applies to

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like the art world, but also applies to what's going on in history. There's also the element

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too, though, kind of expanding upon this, that I always found arts and music education to be

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perfect examples on why progressive education makes sense, because they are inherently progressive

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education. The way that you learn how to play an instrument or draw or illustrate or do graphic

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design has to be in a progressive way or else it doesn't make any sense. You don't spend 10 years

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learning from a workbook about scales and chords and then starting to play the instrument your

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senior year of high school. You start right away in like third through fifth grade or something

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playing your instrument. And then you learn the theory as you go in like short doses,

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which is pretty much how you're supposed to do progressive education and all of the other

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subject areas. You're applying earlier, learning experientially, reflecting on what you're doing,

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and you're performing as well, right? You're actually doing that thing for a real audience

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with a real group of people. All right, number two. My number two are building designers and

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city planners. So specific shout out here to Sophie Fenton, friend of the show, HRP person.

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Sophie's work is she has a, I believe a doctorate in education or something similar to it from

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Monash in Australia. And now she works to design buildings, specifically she designs a lot of

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schools. And a concept that she brought to my attention that I wasn't aware of is this idea

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called human centered design, which is kind of a spin off of design thinking generally.

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I'm actually going to play this video because it's not very long.

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Human centered design is a creative approach to problem solving. One that starts with people

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and ends with innovative solutions tailored to meet their needs. When you understand the people

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you're trying to reach and then design from their perspective, not only will you arrive at unexpected

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answers, but you'll come up with ideas that they'll embrace. Human centered design is both how you

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think and what you do with it. It's a process that consists of three phases, inspiration,

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ideation, and implementation. The inspiration phase is about learning on the fly, opening

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yourself up to creative possibilities, and trusting that as long as you remain grounded

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in the desires of the people you're designing for, your ideas will evolve into the right solution.

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In the ideation phase, you come up with lots of ideas, some too crazy to work, some too crazy

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not to try, and you'll refine them, tossing out the bad and improving the good. Making things

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helps you learn, grow, and test your ideas. Building a simple prototype gets your idea tangible

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and gives you something to put right back into the hands of the folks you're designing for.

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Without their input, you won't know if your solution is on target or how to evolve your idea.

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Keep iterating, testing, and integrating feedback until you've got everything just right. During

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the implementation phase, you'll build partnerships, shore up your business model, and get your idea

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out into the world, which was always the goal in the first place. Anyone can practice human

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centered design, and everyone benefits because it gets us all to solutions that are adopted

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and embraced. So human centered design, I should note, is not exclusive to building design,

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but it's something that building designers are thinking about to expand upon this. And then I'm

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going to be curious to hear your thoughts about the education connection. There's an article,

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which I'll link into the show notes called 11 principles for turning public buildings into

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community anchors, which is from the project for public spaces. Just to read the first three,

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because they're really connected to this, but they talk about how the fact the community is

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the expert. And they bring up this example of designing a downtown public square in Fort Worth,

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Texas. And they talk about like developing online surveys to figure out like what people want to see

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and developing out like drawings for that and how to bring people together. And how they want like

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a park like setting for lunchtime use with food and information kiosk and a public plaza with trees,

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a quiet area, a city hall with fountains and a cafe, a major focal space. So it's defining with

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the community what they want to see and then developing out those spaces. How about how like

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you're creating a space, not just a design. So people are thinking about words like safe, fun,

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beautiful and welcoming. And those intangible qualities can be measured quantitatively in a

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variety of ways of figuring out things like accessibility, comfort, sociability. And then

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finally, number three is that you can't do it alone. So it's all about this idea that it's built

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with community. You're designing public spaces for the public so you can bring people together. So

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you actually need to talk to those people to figure out what it is that you're going to build,

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like all the stakeholders, etc. I think what a lot of these offer, right, is a model

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that there might not be practiced as necessary that port over, but there's a model of a way of

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doing and a way of thinking that we can bring back in to either designing school spaces just

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like straight up or redesigning school spaces or thinking differently about school spaces. But

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modeling that process as we go through other practices, whether it's about instruction or

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decision making, DLCs, like whatever, like that human centered design process could be an

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interesting model to try in other places and just see, you know, take what works and leave what

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doesn't. Yeah. I mean, there's the framework component and there's also the literal component

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of what if educators and students were involved in the process of creating a school? What would

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that school literally like physically look like, feel like, sound like? Because the way that schools

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are constructed aren't really conducive to the idea of public gathering for the most part. Usually

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the hardest part of working within a school to do the types of stuff that we're talking about

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is finding large public space and finding storage. Those are usually the two, like what do I do in

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this scenario? Because they're designed to just be kind of sectioned out in the small classrooms.

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It is interesting that you mentioned, you know, that is a hurdle when we go into spaces and talk

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about it, because very often I think when you're in the context, you can't think about it any

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differently because you're so, you know, it's the water that you swim in. You can't think about how

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to use it, but very often the work that we do is- Yeah, it's the work that we do when we talk with

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teachers or, you know, go to schools and kind of discuss with them these ideas. It's just like,

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well, what if we did this? And very often that's just kind of the push that they need then to open

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up their thinking about everything. And then like all everything's on the table then. All right.

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You're number two. Cool. It is labor organizing is my number two. Yes. And this is because in

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my experience, there was not a better, nothing made me a better educator than being involved

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in organizing for my local union and then for state and like getting involved at the national

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level too. And that's for so many different reasons, but I try to just emphasize a couple

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here. Like the first thing that's not even mentioned on my list here is just like that

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concept of solidarity, right? Like the notion that, you know, as educators, as like a professional

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class of people situated inside communities and students, there's really like an element here where

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like we kind of see ourselves all in this kind of fight together. How do we get students on board

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with practices? How do we, you know, make sure that school is not a system of structures and

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practices that are being done to them on a day to day? What, how do they have recourse if they feel

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like they're being, if their voices aren't being heard in those processes? So that concept of

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solidarity and then kind of importantly too, just identifying shared goals and objectives.

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So it's like, Hey, what is it that we want to do? What do we want to accomplish? And then how are

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we going to get there? How do we build consensus or provide, you know, pathways for, for difference

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within that range of opinions? Obviously I was listening to a great podcast and they said,

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democracy is like 60 people getting on a bus and then all having to decide where we're going to go.

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You know, like there's, you can only go one place and we all kind of have to get there together.

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So the classroom is really like a trial space for what that looks like. And I think for too,

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too many kids and you know, for too many teachers, that looks like I'm the boss and you have to

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listen to me and the kids are the workers in this arrangement. They don't have an hour. Well,

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that's great if we're training kids to go work in the Amazon warehouse, but it's another thing to,

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you know, if we want them to be actual participants in a democratic society, they need to know,

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have practices, principles, systems at play to see how they're going to work and how they can fit

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into it, how they can be active agents in that process. Something that we talk a lot about in

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our own professional development is this idea of radical transparency, which is a lot of times

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teachers will take on new initiatives that are meant at addressing student concerns and challenges,

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but students don't know that those new initiatives are aimed at things that they were saying. So they

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just feel like there's this new hierarchical, just thing that came out of nowhere that they're

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being subjected to and tested on as opposed to feeling a part of that experiment or a part of

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that new process. So being radically transparent means to be talking about with kids, hey, we're

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trying this together. Here's the reason why, and here's why I need your thoughts on it. And kids

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typically love that kind of stuff. Like they like being involved in shaping their classroom experience

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and being able to give you feedback, which leads to my number two, which is a huge part of labor

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organizing is staying connected together, like having spaces where you can meet up together both

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synchronously and asynchronously to communicate and staying involved with each other. And something

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I did in my last few years of teaching is I had a school discord, which comes with its own caveats.

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It's been improved a lot since then. But what I found was that kids would use that discord

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to learn from each other from an academic perspective, so like they would post their work

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and get feedback on it. But perhaps more importantly, it was a space for kids to talk

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to each other and build community. So a lot of kids who were maybe a little more introverted or

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folks who just prefer to chat online would really open up in those online spaces. And at all hours

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during the day, you would just get kids talking to each other about random stuff. And it's just

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really nice as an educator to be able to see that you're seeing these new connections that would

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typically be made. And I can also elicit feedback there as well, whenever I would need it. So like

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there were times where it was like six or seven o'clock at night, I would be planning a lesson for

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the next day. And I would just go on our class discord server and say, Hey, I'm thinking about

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doing this. Do you all want to do this to sound cool? And I would always get like 10 to 15 different

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responses from kids telling me either know that's terrible or that's great. Which kind of leads me

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to my third day. My third anecdote is that when you lessen that hierarchy, it's not that the

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hierarchy doesn't exist because obviously a teacher has certain roles and responsibilities

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and so do students. But when you lessen that hierarchy, kids are going to be a lot more

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honest with you in hopefully kind ways where I would make proposals and kids would go like,

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no, I really don't want to do that. And that helped me shape and tailor the things I was doing,

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which ultimately made my job a lot more enjoyable. So I didn't feel like I was going and just like

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subjecting kids to things they didn't want. We could do things that were purposeful and meaningful

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for them. It's again, modeling different ways of thinking, you know, that you wouldn't perhaps

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bring into educational, bring into education or bring into a classroom setting. But then once you

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realize how important they are to like the world outside of school, you realize that they're

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actually a vital part of they're actually a vital part of classrooms and a vital part of education

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because they're running invisibly in there the whole time anyway. Before we shift to our number

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one, one more thing on that is it's really similar to how we try to model our own nonprofit work.

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Shout out if you're on our discord, you should join our discord. The whole purpose of how we

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run our work is that we're hyper transparent about what we do and why we do it. And we also

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try to give folks as many opportunities as possible to share what they think and join

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an ongoing community. We see it as a grassroots movement. It's a collective group of people

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pushing for change. So I think we do like I'm pretty proud of the fact that our I feel like

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our nonprofit work is much more transparent and open and, and more of a community than perhaps

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other education nonprofits that are out there. Alright, so my number one are accessibility

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consultants or accessibility designers. And this is something that I feel like I've grown a lot

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with especially in the last few years working at HRP. I'm also partnering with our good friends

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at Stimpunk who have taught me a lot about these concepts. And I think this could be in two

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different ways. I kind of cheated I put two on here. But I think that one is more well known,

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and maybe the other one isn't. So I think when some people think about accessibility, generally,

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they might be thinking about like alt text or captioning from an education environment,

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which is still something that many people need to learn. So I'm not saying this is irrelevant,

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but like certainly like alt text is a big one, like understanding like how do you write good alt

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text? Why is it important to use alt text in your work? Like how many of us actually put alt text

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within, let's say like a Google document or something on our on our images, etc. Like those

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things do matter for accessibility. And it seems I think with like turning on captions or using a

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microphone in a large space, the number of times where I do professional development, or there's

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like a thing going on. And then there's like a relatively small group of people and then

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someone hands you a mic and go like, Well, I don't need a mic. I talk loud. That's anti accessibility,

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because you don't know if there's a person in there that really does need the mic in order to

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hear. And it's that's always very frustrating me because I think that's a really it's like a

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teacher thing. Like teachers think they have this teacher voice, and therefore they don't need

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microphones. But if you learn about accessibility, you recognize why that's a problem. I don't I

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don't think they're doing it because they are anti accessibility, to be fair, that this is the reason

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why it's important to have this perspective. The perhaps more, not more interesting, but less well

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known thing is also about how accessibility designers are thinking more innovatively about

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how they literally build spaces. So I found this video, this is fascinating to me. So this is from

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the Pittsburgh International Airport. And it's a space called Presley's place. It's a I mean,

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you'll see in the video, but it's interesting how they've contracted accessibility designers

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to think differently about flying. And I think as we watch this, it's interesting to note like,

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what does this mean from a classroom education? International Airport, I came up with the idea

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of a sensory room being put in the airport for all people with special needs.

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And it happened. Ready? One, two, three.

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Presley, he was diagnosed with autism when he was two. So when we went and tried to figure out how

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we're going to, you know, adapt as a family with a child with special needs, we joined a preschool

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readiness program. And when we went there the first day, it was a nightmare.

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Really quick, just to add context to this video, if you can't see it,

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the space is divided into two separate areas. One side is a, like, it's like a section of a

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plane. So like the plane seats, etc. And then on the walls, it looks like the rest of the plane,

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like it's drawn in 3D, which is meant to be a space to experience what a plane is like before

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you get on it. And then the other side of the space, which we'll share here in a second is like

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a sensory space with like lights and sounds and calming images, etc.

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But his teacher there, she showed us the sensory room. And when we went in and he was able to stay

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there and eventually come outside with everybody and play with the kids. And then each day he would

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just, that room helped him just like it is right now. So that's how I came up with the idea. I was

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sitting at work and thinking, you know, what can I do to help everybody, you know?

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And this sensory room, this room for children, for adults, for folks with sensory processing issues

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is the best in any airport anywhere in the world, hands down. And you guys all made that happen.

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It's just, it's overwhelming to think what kind of a difference this is going to make to families,

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to be able to travel, to the passengers on those planes who are sitting next to those families.

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There's a huge ripple effect of this. It's not about awareness, acceptance. We want to accept

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everybody that's different just because they look different or act different. They're no less than

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us. Pittsburgh International Airport accepted us. And I have a huge family of special needs children

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and adults that we welcome here. So you guys did it. And I thank you so much. From the bottom of

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my heart, you'll never understand. I love that idea of having little area that's modeled like

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the plane so kids can experience that, especially, you know, for autistic kids and kids for whom those

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changes are, or sensory processing disorder, you know, where those changes are, can be like

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catastrophic, right? Where they can set into motion some cascading, you know, effects that they need a

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lot of time and support to be able to recover from, being able to experience it ahead of time

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and kind of know what to anticipate maybe helps less than that anxiety. So that way, you know,

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they can better address the situation on a plane because a plane is the last place that you want

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to experience all those things all at the same time. Very hectic, very chaotic. You know, it could

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be loud. It could be. Right. It's also a perfect example of why like designing at the margins

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benefits everyone. Because if I had children, or like when I think of myself as a child,

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it probably would have been beneficial to have a room where I could see what the plane was like

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and talk about like how the seatbelt works and like where the luggage goes. Because out of all

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spaces that cause me personally stress, an airport is number one. I find airports to be,

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it's not necessarily even the plane itself. It's the process of getting on the plane,

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having to go through TSA, having to like, make sure you're not holding up the plane,

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having to find a spot for your luggage, having to get the seatbelt on, having to get past the

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people like it's, it's a lot of just like really awkward and rushed social interactions all

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occurring at one time with a lot of very tired and usually very upset people. It's like the perfect

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storm of bad places to be having a space where you can practice is useful. And then there's also

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like spaces like rocking, like rocking chair type things, there's a quiet room. There's things that

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this is not just designed for kids, it's also designed for adults where, you know, you could

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go in there if you just wanted a quiet space. And that's, that's super useful. I mean, it's

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going back to that example of human centered design or universal design. I mean, those things

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that we think of being like accommodations actually just are better for everybody. Like

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being able to have a ramp instead of just stairs, you know, makes it not only accessible to people

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who need that just to get into the building, but then they make deliveries easier. They make it so

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you can push, you know, a baby carriage up the baby carriage. What is this? Like the 19th century,

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but push a pram up the same thing for elevators. Like I'm just thinking about real common things

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that like eliminate the need for all of like this, this patchwork. Yep. And these are things

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that are shown time and time again, they benefit everyone. Another example I didn't put on here,

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but I considered is that in Japan, whenever you're riding the subway systems, whenever you're inside

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the station, you'll hear these constant bird chirps. And I thought to myself when I first

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got there, I was like, man, these birds never shut up. It's like constant every like 15 seconds,

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but they're artificial. What they are is they're birds, quote unquote, that chirp at the

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entrances to the station so that if you're blind or like hearing or vision impaired,

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you can be guided towards the entrance. But they serve a dual purpose that if there's like an

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earthquake or something, and you need to escape or get out of the station and like maybe something

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like collapsed, et cetera, that serves as a way to get you towards the exit as well. So a lot of

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examples of accessibility design benefiting everyone, not just those that explicitly are

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designed. Obviously from a classroom angle, this one's interesting to me. And I pulled it out

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because the airport one is based around what someone saw in a classroom space. So having a

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sensory friendly space in a classroom now being pulled towards airports, which could then be

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juxtaposed and pulled back into classrooms. We talk a lot about flexible seating. And like

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flexible seating is another good example of something that benefits everyone. It's beneficial

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to the sense that if you're someone who needs to like move around or like rock around, et cetera,

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flexible seating could do that for you. I also like to shake around and move constantly. I hate

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sitting down for long periods of time. Like that benefits me too. I would just prefer that all

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chairs were like that or have the option to have chairs that are like that. Hell, I use a standing

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desk for that very purpose. So how many classrooms would benefit from having an accessibility

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consultant or the understanding of an accessibility consultant to redesign those spaces?

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I feel like my last one is pretty dumb now compared to your last one. It touched on something that I

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thought was important that wasn't mentioned in my other ones that I thought we could really learn

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from a lot as educators. And that's just like the general field of engineering. I'm not an engineer,

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but I have friends who are engineers and work in those spaces. But I have experience through it,

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through design thinking, project-based learning, just learning about how those fields have changed

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from a model that's going through this huge process of approvals and forms. And again,

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it used to be very hierarchical in these places where you get an order and you go through the

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thing and then you go through the whole process and you end with this finished product and then

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if it's good or it's not, like whatever, to one that's now a lot more flat and iterative.

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BD If you're engaging in project-based learning,

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you're probably using the design thinking model. The design thinking model is technically the

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engineering design principles or the engineering design process rather. That's the same thing.

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That's where it comes from. So the concept of experiential learning is very much paired

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intentionally with engineering. That's the pairing. It's also probably worth noting that

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a lot of higher education, workplace, recruitment efforts, etc. are shifting to a portfolio model

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that wants to see what you can do as opposed to what you can show through a test or something

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like that. So MIT, which recruits a lot of engineers, only takes a portfolio. You have

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to be able to showcase what you can actually do. For as much as we caution, tools should not

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look like workplaces, but I think it is interesting where industry is more responsive to

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better ways of practicing their craft. We can absolutely learn from that and borrow, again,

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those models and practices and processes as they help benefit learners and then play a better role

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in the long run as then they can say, oh, I've been iterating my whole time in school, iterating

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now in my field is just porting over the same, it's just transitioning context, but it's not

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learning a new practice from start. So I think it can be beneficial for kids and classrooms to

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do that. To summarize here at the end, the goal of this really is again to demonstrate that

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we can learn a lot by branching out into other fields and other professions, which makes it

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really interesting to pick up a book or watch a movie or documentary or something over something

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that's completely outside the scope of what you typically would read or typically would do.

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I'm curious to hear more if you've read anything interesting recently or know anything that we

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should reach out and look into when it comes to these semiotic domains. As a heads up, our

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video game video actually features a PDF that talks about semiotic domains and demonstrates

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a lot of examples of how you could incorporate this into your teaching and learning. So again,

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thank you for joining us. We appreciate you being here and talk again soon.

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