BLIPS: Tom Schreiber - Another Maiden Voyage

~ Art director, painter, graphic designer and storyteller Tom Schreiber returns to discuss how creativity affects his work and personal life.

Topics include; Education, Jazz, Herbie Hancock, Constructivism, The Reggio Emilia Approach, Provocation, Emergent Curriculum, Scaffolding and Lisa Murphy on Play: The Foundation of Children's Learning.

Recorded August 2026 in our cars between Van Nuys, CA and Stanford, CA.

This episode contains original music by Malcolm Moore and artwork by Tom Schreiber.

Please visit-
makercompassstudio.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

All right, we are back. This is Creativity is the Cure, and today I'm bringing back my very good friend, Tom Shriber. How are you doing today, Tom?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I'm doing great. Malcolm, how are you? Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

I'm good. We are on the road again. We are both headed to work.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, I'm on the road. You know, make plans and be surprised when they change, right? Is that does that sound familiar?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Indeed. And what I wanted to bring up is when you were on my show before, you and I kind of were both in limbo. We were both looking for a job, kind of drifting at sea, and although always staying positive, we didn't know what was around the corner.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, well, it's an exciting moment to be in between jobs, right? Because you're just floating on that ocean and and all the things that could possibly catch your interest in that time uh do. And so it's a time of great curiosity and continued learning.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Tell me, what is your new job? What type of thing are you doing, and what area of the world are you working in?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

So right right now I'm on some small part of the Stanford campus, and I get to serve as an early education teacher and work with young people in within a Regio Emilia framework, and it's it's really quite wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

That's amazing. And what age students are you working with or what grades?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Innovators age three to five.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Wow, that's pretty young.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

It is.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Over the years, I've worked with all ages, everything from TK up to 12, and I love the age you're working with because they have not become jaded in any way. They're more open to things, they're less aware of other people perceiving them, and when I did music, it was really funny to see them dance because I don't know where these moves came from, but they weren't afraid to just go wild. And it just always blew my mind. What is your perception of that beach group?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I came to play. I was uh listening to that. I know you had um Will Lee on recently, and and uh that track of all the all the tracks, that one kind of jumped out to me as an early educator because it really does make the connection between the kind of play we associate with the arts and with music and with the free play of childhood, of discovery, of learning, you know, when we think about young children, we're thinking about young artists and scientists in a pure state of nature, just soaking in the world and and constructing their own sense of how things work. And it runs across everything that, you know, later as adults we're gonna characterize as okay, that's chemistry or that's math, or that's social emotional learning. It's just play for them.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yeah, and if we can remember to do this as we grow older, that keeps our minds sharp.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

What type of work do you do with the kids? Are you doing artwork or things beyond that? What's a typical day?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

It is generally going to start with what in Reggio we call provocation. In uh Italian it means something quote we'll have to bring Armando on. Um it means something a bit different than it means in English. Within the Reggio Emilia framework, uh provocation is uh uh something you put out as a teacher, as a guide to learning, to create questions, to to spur curiosity. And and so what we practice is an emergent curriculum. That is to say that we we uh study as teachers what the children are learning and what they're interested in, and how we can extend that learning by going deeper. You know, it might be learning about water. Well, then uh is there interest in learning about um what makes up water, molecules, or how water affects our um atmosphere, and we learn about rainbows and such. And so it's it's really a free play of uh going deeper and making jumps, and provocations will generally start out as something to interact with on a table, and uh something that creates conversations. There are conversation pieces, and and children learn best through experiential learning. And so they're immersed in an experience. Uh they're you know in the sensory bin, they're uh picking up gooey things, they're they're building things with cardboard. It's it's really great fun.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Right. You're making me think of my friend Lisa Murphy, the educator and author who is seriously into the art and the science of play.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

And I must say I have her book on Yes Foundation.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

It's amazing, and she's a great public speaker. For me, I've gone, like I said, from elementary to middle, and now I'm with high schoolers. But since I've moved to California in 2013, I'm really up on the constructivist approach, which has a lot of illusions into what you're talking about because I'm about to start a job as the director of a music academy, and I have to build this program from the ground up, and I have everything from kids playing in modern band or orchestra or things like that to choirs. But my first two days are coming up this Thursday and Friday, and the first thing I'm gonna do is have the kids build out a survey, find out what they're into because I want to give them incentive.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Like I said, with a constructivist approach, when I ask them a question, I want to hear what they have to say first. Well, because number one, it might be better than my idea, and number two, it has to be interactive, just like what you do. You know, you and I always talk about jazz and improvisation. Right back to the beginning of this conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Right. Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about might be thought of as the head in in jazz. You know, the idea that you start within um the the existing frame and how is new knowledge going to find its way into and find a home within an existing frame. Uh yeah, that's very much what we what we mean when we talk about uh extending a child's learning. It's building on what they already know and what more can be fit within that those paradigms. And of course, sometimes you create a whole new paradigm. That's that's particularly exciting.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

And I love your metaphor of jazz and playing the head because I'm laughing because I'm thinking, all right, we get to school, we all at the beginning of class, we play the head, we play the melody, and then each kid takes a solo, blows over the changes, but we all have to support them in playing the chords and listening and paying attention and reflecting back. If somebody does a riff, we echo back, and then we all come back together at the end to play the head. And may I suggest to everybody there's a great Herbie Hancock song called Maiden Voyage, and I think for you and I, as we head into the year and teach these kids, we're definitely on a maiden voyage on myriad levels. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Abs absolutely, absolutely. To be a teacher, and that is to say, a guide to learning, it's really about co-learning. I think that's where you can offer the most and and be that supportive scaffolding guide to learning, is you're you're right there along you're in the front row seat. So you experience things together. You experience things through the the learner's eyes and what they're communicating back to you. That is the full experience. I'm sitting here at a quiet place, uh, Stanford Cactus Garden, which is a nice little place on the campus. I like to come to reflect and write. I used to come here with my children when they were young. Um, we used to just go out and discover would be the frame. Let's go discover. And uh it was it was a place of free play and discovery, and you know, in this case, learning about cactuses or cacti, however you choose to say it. It's nice how things come around again.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Let's leave with this message. Let's you and I go to work today, but let's not lose that frame of mind that your three to five-year-olds have going on right now. Totally open, totally open to play, not judging, not being jaded, just being open to everything in life. Let's play the melody, let's do some solos, and that's then let's come back together at the end.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

What if? What if, right? That's the I I think uh here in in Silicon Valley, that that framework, that mindset, uh a growth mindset is so fundamental to possibility and what can be. And it's you know, it's really our privilege to be able to uh embrace that and as much as possible to live in that space.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Tom Schreiber, always good to talk with you. Good luck today on your maiden voyage, and let's make sure we return again soon. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

And and absolutely, Malcolm, and to you too, as you uh embark into those new waters and such an exciting program and opportunity for you. It really feels like a perfect fit.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

All right, signing off from Van Nuys, California. Always good to talk to you, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

And signing off from the Stanford, Arizona Cactus Garden. A pleasure, Malcolm.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Have a great day.com. That is J E F F E R S O N D E L E O N E.com.