Making Thriving Visible?

Follow along with me, Beck Tench, and the Center for Digital Thriving as we explore what "digital thriving" actually means.

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In this issue: Last week, I wrote about the origins of the Listening Tour I’ll be embarking upon and shared some adorable pics of my dog, Lewis. In this issue, I write about why I named this newsletter “Making Thriving Visible” and share the Project Zero thinking routine “see, think, wonder,” which I plan to use as a guiding structure for my posts. I end by sharing a personal moment of delight – a glimpse into my own thriving.

Over the next six months, the Center for Digital Thriving plans to have hundreds of conversations with folks about thriving in a tech-filled world. We’re especially eager to talk with young people, educators, experts in tech and/or thriving, and folks from backgrounds where tech is a lifeline for whatever reason. The tour is still in the planning stages, but I’ll be traveling around the country and also having plenty of Zoom chats. If you want to explore a visit or chat with your school, library, museum, conference, or workplace, email me at beck_tench@harvard.edu.

I? WE?

A point of clarification: While I’m leading the Listening Tour, and this is my personal Substack, the Listening Tour is a total team effort. Sometimes I’ll use “me/mine” (Beck), and sometimes I’ll use “we/our” (the Center), and sometimes it might get a little confusing! Thank you in advance for indulging me in a bit of pronoun ambiguity as I work to be authentic about my experiences while also sharing credit with my team, which is very important to me.

MAKING THRIVING VISIBLE?

To explain what “Making Thriving Visible” means, I first need to orient you to where the Center lives in the larger Harvard ecosystem. Our home base is Project Zero, which began at Harvard over fifty years ago and is known as a place of playful and innovative pedagogy. It’s the perfect spot for someone like me, and every time I get together with other folks at PZ, I learn something new about how to teach and learn.

Aside: Think of the center as part of a set of nesting, nerdy, academic groups.

The Center for Digital Thriving (CDT) fits inside Project Zero (PZ), which fits inside Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), which fits inside Harvard University. Our team at CDT is packed inside the smallest nerd.

One of my favorite PZ ideas is "visible thinking," which is a way to externalize the thinking process, usually by asking simple questions. I named this Substack, “Making Thriving Visible,” as a twist on that concept. David Perkins and Shari Tishman, the researchers behind visible thinking, call these simple questions “thinking routines.” One of my favorite thinking routines is "See, Think, Wonder."

SEE, THINK, WONDER?

See, Think, Wonder is a thinking routine that asks you to slow down, observe something, and then ask the following three questions about it:

A classic application of this thinking routine is looking at art. Imagine you’re at an art museum on a group tour, and the docent takes you to this painting:

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi (Wikipedia)

Using “see, think, wonder,” a docent would ask you to look at the painting for a few minutes and then mention things you see. Perhaps you and others notice things like her posture, the lighting, the messiness of the painter’s hair…

Then, the docent would ask what you think — to interpret the scene. Maybe someone mentions that they think she is looking outside, painting a scene, the sun lighting her face. Perhaps someone else says they think she is looking in a mirror, painting herself. This goes on for a while, conversations overlapping as people share their thoughts.

Then, the docent asks what the painting makes you wonder — what you would like to know more about or explore. Someone wonders how she’s painting herself from that particular angle. Someone else wonders about the pendant hanging from her necklace.

Art historian Dr. Richard Stemp writes, “The pendant is the real clue to this painting’s meaning – it is a mask. It looks like a face, but is only the image of one, in the same way that this looks like Artemisia, but is only a portrait…” (Source)

The beauty of thinking routines is that they are simple and approachable but also deceptively deep and capable of holding complexity once engaged. What might otherwise be a shallow glance or inner dialog of inadequacy (I don’t get art) becomes a safe place of inquiry. Thinking routines help us think differently, deeply, and collaboratively. They help us ask questions we wouldn’t otherwise ask, and they help us make moments of noticing more memorable. It’s with this spirit that I want to write this Substack.

A SAFE PLACE OF INQUIRY

I plan to spend each week over the next six months listening to people talk about thriving. I also plan to read a lot (news and academic literature) about “thriving” and also reflect on my own experiences. I’ll use “See, Think, Wonder” and likely many other PZ thinking routines to think more deeply about what I’m learning and share that here with you.

Til next time, when I’ll share more about the questions I plan on asking and how I’ll document the answers.

p.s. As promised, here’s a glimpse into making my own thriving visible. In the winter months, I become a bit obsessed with doing sudoku puzzles. My favorite app is Good Sudoku, and I love watching the folks at Cracking the Cryptic figure them out on YouTube, but for Christmas this year, I asked for a book of sudokus and have been enjoying the analog experience. It’s more tedious to annotate by pencil, but I appreciate the time spent off my phone. Plus, I find that doing them by hand is helping me develop a different sense for solving the puzzle.

Doing a sudoku on a Sunday morning.

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