Pursuing Questions
Welcome to Pursuing Questions: Imprints of inquiry, possibilities for play, and provocations for living. This is a podcast, formerly known as The Playful Podcast, is for those cultivating an ethos towards mutual flourishing, healing, learning and living well throughout the human experience; and that is the vision for this space. Guided by 5 values and 3 intentions, what might be encounter?
Intentions:
Imprints of inquiry: I wish to capture traces of my journey, because I believe it is worthy of being studied. critiqued, and expanded upon. I aim to cultivate my own awareness, reflection, and empowerment in moving my practice. What I say here is a landmark in time; not meant to be absolute truth, rather, to be interpreted within the context discussed. Podcasting is a tool for collecting and archiving pedagogical moments, thought, decisions, and practice.
Possibilities for play: I strive to expand the potential of parallel practices, by "going public" with incomplete ideas to seek feedback, to embrace questioning and being questioned, and to practice sharing knowledge generously. I believe that through knowledge sharing we are nudged towards improvising and playing with new ideas. Much of what I share is in a light-hearted spirit of saying "yes" to what is offered my way, and responding as best I can from a playful place.
Provocations for living: I take up long-term inquiries about fostering playful dispositions, pursuing human and more-than-human well-being, mutual flourishing, reflecting on practice as a facilitator, broadening relationships with knowledge, highlighting the value to revisiting experiences, playing with ideas, and unraveling pedagogy to inspect its ideals, protagonists, and assumptions. What I share is meant to be generative, to activate possibility and life itself by provoking, expanding, and spiralling that which is most compelling within a pursuit.
Values:
Curiousity: curiousity is my compass. I ask questions and work from a place of pursuing curiosity over compliance, normalcy, or or acceptance. I believe in living the questions, now.
Interconnection: Although I often prefer the term interdependence, my value of interconnection is what guides me towards pursuing connection, always, and lead through connection. I value serendipity, linking ideas, relationships, knowing that we are all connected in multitudes.
Reciprocity: I believe in sharing knowledge generously, making thinking available and accessible, and aiming to live in a world where we receive and give openly. I believe in modelling the kind of offerings I hope others to generate as well.
Wisdom: I believe in entering into embodied relationship with wisdom, as lived, rather than consuming and producing facts or information. I consider lived experience and generational knowledge to be as valued as reliable data, and as such, this podcast is not trying to elevate my work to a hard science; rather, declare its legitimacy as living wisdom and insight.
Upwards Spirals: Joy. Flow. Play. Revisiting. Repetition. Deepening. "Again"....I believe in pursuing the paths towards, and ingredients that, sustain upwards spirals of flourishing, passion, pursuit, and drive. Our nervous systems are hard-wired to detect threat and our instinct is to survive, and as a society we have put so many resources into correcting the undesirable. To compensate for some of these patterns, I believe we need intentional rituals of gratitude and generativity, and a practice of studying what "works". To do so, I believe in starting from a place of what "is," which is so often what "was" and what "will be": the patterns in our thought, behaviour, and emotion that cause us to wonder, repeat, and pursue. Noticing and attuning to our own spirals can support deepened intention, awareness, and joyful pursuit grounded in what we already know, value, and have affinity for.
Pursuing Questions
Flight Log: Turbulence, Tides & Tracing Trajectories
How would you describe pedagogical leadership? What does the daily experience of pedagogical leadership look like and feel like? While our guiding documents and emerging literature attempts to define this role, there is so much value in exploring how pedagogical leaders describe and document their work. This episode aims to capture some raw thoughts and descriptions of pedagogical leadership - in order to better understand it as a practice. It’s been a year since the last episode in Season 3, so what better way to kick off this season than by delving into pedagogical documentation of this leadership role? Here, I offer and explore metaphors that bring visibility to the foggy contours of an evolving role and the lived experience behind the title 'pedagogical leader.' Some of the metaphors relate to active listening, noticing, professional judgement, confidentiality, and infusing space. Tune in to hear about the highs and lows, slow growth, planes, ships, gathering, and more!
Background sound attribution:
Marble run - piano intro by tenonic -- https://freesound.org/s/725580/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Everybody Has a Story (pensive cello & choir) by SondreDrakensson -- https://freesound.org/s/749371/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Woodstock Chimes of Mars on Firebeacon Hill, near Boscastle by Philip_Goddard -- https://freesound.org/s/698495/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
Natural Ocean Waves, Water Droplets & Bubbly Sounds by DudeAwesome -- https://freesound.org/s/386454/ -- License: Attribution 4.0