Episode 8 Nexus Thinking Intrigo Expansion: Rosebud Blooming
Episode 8 Nexus Thinking Intrigo Expansion: Rosebud Blooming
(Dorian enters the classroom with two teenage girls, Younger Sherry, from Shreveport,and her friend Younger Maryann, from Houston, one on either arm. They’ve come to Manhattan because Dorian knew Younger Sherry’s relatives from his mother’s church groups and he invited them to see a Broadway show because he said he could get “scalped tickets to normally sold out shows” and wants show off a bit. They are giggling)
Dorian: And this is where we do what we call “Nexus Time”
Younger Maryann: Doing time. Is that like detention? Down time? “Go stand in the corner” time, time out time?
Younger Sherry : You mean like when we were in kindergarten?
Younger Maryann: Weird huh? We were told this is a rough neighborhood. Maybe they have to have special programs to get kids not to – what do they call it up here? “Rumble?” This whole place reminds me of the neighborhood in “West Side Story”?
Younger Sherry: Wow, yes! That is one of my favorite films! So romantic. It’s really Romeo and Juliet retold in one of these neighborhoods here in New York. Is that why you need this “Nexus Time” space Dorian? (She turns conspiratorially to Younger Maryann. Teasingly) Do you think it’s because he’s a football player?
Younger Maryann: (playing along with the gag, whispering loudly with her hand faux shielding her mouth so Dorian can hear) It’s an aggressive sport I gotta say.
Down in Houston where I live boys on the teams are always getting in fights. And they always end up doing time in detention. But I never heard of a special, what’d you call it, “Nexus Time” program for them. I don’t even think I know what a Nexus is.
(Turning to Dorian) What do they do to you in here Dorian … and what is that big white globe like thing doing in the middle of the room. It doesn’t have any countries on it…
Younger Sherry: (Eyes widening, softly mocking) Oh… Is it something you all pray to? Like they have out at the Esalen center? Is it for meditation? Does it calm you down when you touch it like in some of those psychotherapy shows you see? (To Younger Maryann) You know what I’m talking about, right?
Younger Maryann: Not really. But it's more like one of those soccer balls the Italian kids in town are always kicking around. It certainly isn’t one of our sacred Made in America footballs… But damn if it doesn’t look like “the Rover" in the Prisoner! That thing better not start rolling at us
Younger Sherry: So they use it for surveillance and tracking , to keep kids like you in line?
Dorian (a little too casual):Oh—what … that? No, no It’s not… like that.
Younger Maryann Dick (still staring at the orb): Then what is it like?
Raj hurriedly enters the room:
Raj: (nervously) Um… that thing… is a… “solar PLEXUS ” – part of a science project we’re building. For the science fair. Astronomy. A model of the sun… I mean a white dwarf star…from another solar system… We haven't finished it yet. I’m Raj, by the way. Dorian’s best friend. Just give us a moment.. (Grabs Dorian by the arm and drags him to the corner of the room)
Raj: What are you DOING man?! You know this is top secret – nobody is supposed to know about what we are doing here!
Dorian: I haven’t told them a thing. And they don’t suspect a thing. Anyway, they’d think I was tripping if I even tried to tell them what it was all about… so the secret is safe with me sir! (He salutes and stifles a giggle).
Raj: (Eyes narrowing. In a conspiratorial whisper of incredulity) You’re high aren’t you?
Dorian: No, not at all…I…
Raj: I can smell it. You guys reek. What’s this about?
Dorian: Look, full confession – Sherry is from Shreveport Louisiana. Oil family. She’s the relative of the daughter of a friend of my Mom’s who teaches down at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania where my Mom wants to send me to college on a possible football scholarship…
Raj: Wait, what? You’re gonna go to… Who’s ever heard of Schippenssburg?
Dorian: That’s the point. “Shippensburg produces excellent teachers and football coaches.” says the brochure. That’s what it is known for. It’s secular but it's in the middle of Amish and Mennonite country. I think that is cool – they have some Food/Energy/Water/Ecosystem Nexus ideas going on that line right up with what we’ve been learning in this class. Everybody thinks they hate modern technology, but they don’t at all. They just want to stay away from things that are under government or corporate control? And they are smart businesspeople in their dealings with people they call “the English”. I could be the bridge. See how that aligns with our “appropriate technology mission”? I could help lead a radical nexus movement there. But the school isn’t radical at all , so no one would ever suspect. It doesn’t ask dangerous questions like Fordham, or Berkeley, or Sophia’s Dad’s school out West.
Raj: But it would break us up after graduation. And you’d be in the middle of nowhere.
Dorian: Only 3 or 4 hours away – less if I drive faster than the new fuel saving “55 saves lives” speed limit. Which of course I won’t! My Dad says, “It’s a good, solid state school.” Mom says, “No funny business.” Dad says “He’ll be around the right kind of kids.” Mom says “It’s not one of those radical campuses.” And Dad says “with his grades we’ll be lucky if he gets in.” So they sent me down to check it out last weekend. My brother is gloating. He wins again!
Younger Sherry: Um… boys?
Dorian: Oh, sorry Sherry. So, this is my friend Raj – he’s a complete Geek but he’s cool – he’s into sci fi movies and comic books like me… and this new “sustainability thing”... so we get along.
Younger Sherry: That’s what all the cheerleaders like about you Dor… you’re so complex. Maryann, Don’t you think geeky football players are THE MOST!?
Younger Maryann: (Shyly): I like all people. Z’long as they’re nice. What’s this “new sustainability” thing y’all are talking about – it’s all over the walls here too… (she walks around the room gesturing to all the posters and starts reading them aloud… )
“Teaching about Pollution”, Powered by Nature: Clean Energy for a Brighter Tomorrow”, “Clean Energy for a Purpose Driven Nexus”, “Save the Planet Man?”
Younger Sherry: Nexus Thinking for Sustainability… It’s Nexus Time?
Younger Maryann: This is the coolest classroom ever! We don’t hear nothin’ about this stuff down south. And this… this “biodigester” thing on the poster here? Turns poop and food waste into fuel and fertilizer – I can only imagine how that could help with the current oil crisis. Why isn’t THAT a thing everywhere? We got lots of food waste in our school, but they are always telling us we gotta turn down the heat in winter. Our classroom is freezing and this suggests we could make heat and electricity and grow food FOR the cafeteria, all from what it wastes? Why haven’t I heard of that?
Younger Sherry: Coming from a Texas oil family I can tell you why!
Younger Maryann: Well, I don’t like being kept in the cold and dark. Why… I’m thinking I should just move up here to New York then… just like people did on that freedom train!
Younger Sherry: You tell ‘em sister! Or… do you mean, down here to New York? Why is the map upside down in this classroom?
Raj: (Stepping in nervously) That’ was Sophie’s idea. “Turn the world upside down, free the Global South from the hegemony of the Global North – Decolonization and a lesson on how map projections affect attitude…” So, Dor… did you introduce them to, ahem… Sophia?
Dorian: (To the girls) He’s talking about one of our classmates in the Nexus Time class, her and Sarah. They’re brilliant… No, she’s gone out of town for the weekend, and Sarah’s on her permaculture farm out in Jersey, so I was going to take these girls to a Broadway show…
Raj: Oh… did you tell Sophia you were… um… going to go out? I mean… To a show? How’d “y’all” meet again?
Younger Maryann: He’s so nice! Are you going to come? I’m so excited… see, I was visiting my cousin who lives near Shippensburg College last weekend… up from Houston – we have an early Christmas break, so I was going to spend the holiday there thinking maybe there’d be snow – we visit every year…
Younger Sherry: It’s the only place she’s ever been outside of Houston her whole life… can you imagine? Talk about a small town girl from the big city…
Younger Maryann: Well, we did go to Mexico once. Briefly.
Younger Sherry: But she'd never been to New York. Or anywhere else important for that matter. And so I’m up from Shreveport visiting some fellow cheerleaders I’d met from Shippensburg of all places – and I run into her at a football game and we get to talking – my Dad in in the oil business in Houston so we had Texas in common – and she is super nice – really shy but infinitely curious… and I said, remember…
Younger Maryann: “Houston, we have a problem” she says (they laugh) and she says “Now honey chile, let me just take you under her wing cause I can fix all that… and says,
Younger Sherry: I said, “now watch, I’m fixin’ to fix you right up!” And then we meet Dorian at the hand warmer station where they serve the hot chocolate – he’s so handsome and personable, a real northern gentleman… and we come to find he’s from the Big Apple. And he’s got a drivers license… and a car, he says! And apparently he KNOWS PEOPLE who can get scalped tickets to some of the best Broadway shows, like “The Magic Show” that is all the rage… . And me… well I LOVE theater… I’ve done some acting and modeling, you know… I’m gonna go to college to be a teacher, but one day I’m going to study acting too and marry the two… well … (she pauses reflectively) if I don’t get married to some guy first and then “poof” ! … there goes that dream, right? (She giggles)
Younger Maryann: Is a girl these days better off marrying a football star or a lawyer?
Younger Sherry: Oh, football star for sure…
Younger Maryann: Yeah… I’m sure they’d understand a girl’s ambitions better, particularly if you want to be a performer. I mean they’re performers themselves.
Younger Sherry: Less controlling – Dorian, are you controlling? Didn’t you say your father is a lawyer?
Raj: You guys are high.
Dorian: (Picking up the story) So I said “It’s the last days of 1975 you guys. Come up to the freedom of the north pole! It’s Christmas! WAR IS OVER – IF YOU WANT IT..
Younger Sherry: He’s so clever. And we knew exactly what he meant too. Once you get out of rural Pennsylvania, you are officially out of the south – and the war of the sexes is over! Burn the bra! Down with the patriarchy! Women’s lib all the way! (She stops, startled by herself)
My my, now where did THAT come from? That's the first time I’ve gotten to say those things we see y’all getting to shout on TV…
Younger Maryann: Well, you are a natural dear! I feel like we’re in a theater play already!
So Dorian says, “Look guys, its only a 3 and a half hour drive to Manhattan, and we’ve got my brother’s spare room free since he went to college – football scholarship to Yale by the way… you must be so proud Dorian… and “my Mom LOVES guests” he says…
Dorian: And always wanted daughters. And.. um… I always wanted sisters… (looks pointedly at Raj for a beat).
Younger Sherry: And I said, “great, let’s call your Mom – because, you know, a girl still has to be careful right…? I mean its the 70s, not the 50s anymore. So we called her and had the loveliest conversation and she invited us up this weekend.
Younger Maryann: By train. She doesn’t want anybody driving on these slick roads in the winter. So it took over 5 hours… but never mind! We are in New York, New York! I’m so excited!
Raj: That’s great. What show are we going to see?
Dorian: Um… yeah… about that… tonight the reservations… didn’t work out. I couldn’t get the tickets – but I’m sure I’ll have them for tomorrow. We can do a matinee…
Younger Sherry: Yes, you told us when you met us at Penn Station. It’s alright. But he said visiting the school would be even more fun…
Supposedly there is an end of year dance party going on…
Raj: Yes… yes… there is… but…um… just give me a moment with Dorian will you…
(He drags Dorian into the hall)
Raj: (in a fierce whisper). Really Dorian? A dance? How do you think Sophia is going to react to that…? You’re taking these cheerleaders and southern belles to a dance? Everyone will see! And you know what they’ll think. And SAY…!
Dorian: Raj, there are two of them. I’m not WITH either of them… but I was thinking I could do you a favor too, you know? Unless you’re afraid Sarah might get jealous…
Raj: I’m not WITH Sarah.
Dorian: Well I’m not WITH Sophia either. It’s not like we’re going out. We haven’t even held hands much less had a first kiss… We never even said we were dating.
Raj: But you spend so much time together…
Dorian: We ALL spend so much time together. We’re in this special… “Justice League of Sustainability Superheroes” , right?
Raj: But it always looks like you want to..
Dorian: Well, I… yeah but… look, even if my parents would accept it, she’s never said she was into me. She criticizes me ALL the time…
Raj: BECAUSE she likes you, meathead! It’s called flirtatious provocation. Have you never read those books “how to pick up girls” or “how to read the signs” that are specifically written for dumb jocks and nerds? Oh golly, how dumb can you be? She IS into you, big time… anybody with eyes can see that. But if she finds out you are cheating on her…
Dorian: How can I be cheating on someone I’m not even dating? Besides, maybe I want to make her a little jealous. Maybe that’s what she needs to, you know… reveal herself.
Raj: This is what you got from reading “Everything you Wanted to Know About Sex?”
Dorian: I never read it either. I was afraid to ask the librarian.
Raj: And I thought I was the one who didn’t understand women. Dorian… no, you’re not taking them to the dance… I’m not taking them to the dance… it wouldn’t be honorable to … our g… to our friends. Our friends who are girls but who are friends. We are a team. A very special team. We don’t want anything to come between that and our mission.
Dorian: And I don’t want to disappoint Sophia —but I don’t know how to be worthy of her intellect yet. And I don’t want to disappoint our guests…
But… we’re here now, right? So what if instead of taking them to the dance, what if we take them into something even BETTER than a Broadway show!
Raj: Wait… you mean… ?
You’re joking…!
Dorian: Look Raj, all semester we’ve been saying we need to get Nexus Thinking out there to the world STAT, like we're in an end of the world emergency. Sophia AND Sarah have been arguing that we have our hands tied by this non-disclosure stuff… that it is inconsistent with what the world NEEDS now…
Raj: (sarcastically) Love sweet love?
Dorian: I oughta clobber you.
Raj:(continuing to provoke) It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of?
Dorian. Enough with the song references. I used to be the one who treated all this as a joke. But now… Look – I’m not saying this is some kind of (puts up his hands to make air quotes and uses a Dan Akroyd type voice) “mission from God —”
(catches himself) —I mean… I don’t even know what I’m saying.. I just feel like we have an opportunity here to connect with the youth of the world. We oughta blow their minds with nexus thinking. It is a real chance to see if the method actually works on others. Then Dr. Bates and Dorsey could study it if we decide to let them in on it.
Raj: Absolutely not. I won’t hear of it.
Dorian: Alright. We’d keep it part of our big little secret. I mean, heck Raj, we’ve already been sneaking in here and using NTHARP every week to have our own parties in tomorrowland, and see how WE, the youth of the world, can reimagine our future so it doesn’t suck. This is just something nice to do for a couple of friends from so far away there is no way word would get out.
Raj: (Almost tempted) … and another chance to get input from other youth from a completely different culture from us. Hmmm…
But… no… no… what if you can’t get them to sign the famous “Non-Disclosure Papers”? What if they don’t agree to keep their mouths shut? What would stop them from blabbing? From gossipping to the entire locker room? Threats? Intimidation? Into the East River with them, Rocky?
Dorian: Very funny.
But of course not.
We’ll… we’ll tell them what the show is like, that it is…
that the orb is… Wait… That’s it!
Raj: What?
Dorian: Eureka! I got it!
We’ll tell them The Nexus Room is an off-broadway rehearsal space testing out proprietary technology for Doug Henning’s hit play “The Magic Show!” They wanted to see that anyway. But here we can act like NTHARP is one of his projectors for public illusions… in fact, if we could get Henning here one of these days and sell him on this – oh my god.. Can you imagine the ticket sales? We’d be…
Raj: Don’t you dare… You want to really turn Sophie off?
Dorian: Okay, right. But we could still take these two girls into the future as a kind of magic show rehearsal..
Raj: (Beginning to buy in) Hmmm... and if they did talk we’d… what? How would we explain the illusions they might say they saw?
Dorian: Well… we were down at the river before we came here… you know… (holds his fingers to his lips and makes a sucking sound)
Raj: Ah… Perfect plausible deniability. The Dad of one of my best friends from Middle School, who is a philosophy professor, convinced my Dad to let me and my friend accompany him to Radio City Music Hall to see Fantasia STONED. We did a joint together in the underground restroom. I was so scared!
Dorian: YOU? Did THAT? With YOUR DAD?!
Raj: It was a one time thing. My Dad is a doctor. He said it wouldn’t hurt us and might open our minds a bit. My friend's Dad, who also did some anthropology field work, said that when you do sacred substances with the right shamanic guidance you are observing rituals that helped humans connect with nature for all of human evolution.
Dorian: You mean there are scientific and medical and psychological and environmental reasons to get high?
Raj: Not exactly that…no… But my Dad was reading that Terence McKenna book that just came out, The Invisible Landscape (1975) about time, novelty, and psychedelics and he said there is discussion that perhaps psychedelic mushrooms and other mind-altering substances actually helped expand our consciousness and helped our brains grow to the size they are today.
Dorian: Like we're some kind of mutant stoned apes or something? Man. That is far out!
Raj: Yeah, something like that. Don’t take it too far, okay? It’s a hypothesis… not even a theory. The science isn’t there.
Dorian: But maybe we can see if it is by 2025! Oh shoot, but if we really want to take these girls on a sim and not just see projected images we would need Sarah’s harp to unlock the “mind meld”.
Raj: Which… she left with me to work on the sampler project…but I don’t know if we should be draining down Dr. Dorsey’s batteries just to…
Dorian: Oh my god! Then we can…
Younger Maryann: Hey, are y’all seeing this? You’ve been out there so long… Sherry, who certainly is NOT shy, started rummaging around and found this flute…
Younger Sherry: I played the flute in the marching band before I was a cheerleader…
Younger Maryann: So she starts entertaining me and…
Younger Sherry: Rover over there started GLOWING… Look at it… It’s like it is alive… like it can hear us. Are you sure it's not some hi-tech surveillance technology? This is getting creepy.
Raj: (Pulling Sarah’s harp from a cabinet) We shall explain what is really going on…
Younger Maryann: You’re going to serenade us. Singing with one of those Kumbaya balls…?
Younger Sherry: What’s a kumbaya ball?
Younger Maryann: I’m just makin’ it up as I’m going along… like improv theater, trying to play along with these rather strange guys…
Dorian: Strange? Okay, I’ll show you strange… (suddenly assumes a PT Barnum stage presence) stranger than fiction…! You wanted to go to “The Magic Show” tonight, right… but instead you’re going to be treated by Dungeons and Dragons Master Dorian to the illusion of illusions in a special off-beat off-Broadway show par excellence that David Copperfield can only dream of… something Doug Henning wants to keep absolutely secret for now… so… (in an excited whisper) can you keep a secret?
Younger Sherry: (Laughing now, to Younger Maryann) I told you this guy was a gem…
Younger Maryann: (Excited) Sure we can keep a secret.
Dorian: Raj, play the Magic Tones!
(Raj plucks the 5 notes)
(The faces of the girls suddenly go slack and their eyes glaze over as they are brought into the simulation. They find themselves at the Rosebud Continuum in the year 2025 again).
Younger Maryann: Wo. (Recovering and blinking her eyes). How’d you do that?
Younger Sherry: Where are we?
Dorian: Behold the illusion to trump illusions – (reading as though he is the Dungeon Master starting a D &D session) You find yourself standing in the future… in Florida in the year 2025 in a place called “The Rosebud Continuum Eco-Science Center” where school kids learn applied science by living and life-testing each appropriate technology.
Younger Maryann: How are you able to make us see these things? I see real biodigesters, aquaponics, hydroponics systems? And kids of all kinds running around having a great time learning science!
Younger Sherry: (Looking at a map of the property) Food forests? Rewilding spaces, Trash Crete wildlife sculptures, solar energy, electric cars… it seems you guys have created everything my more progressive friends from California have been talking about… and this is supposed to be Florida in 50 years? It’s kind of like a personal version of the EPCOT thing Disney talked about on his TV show.
Raj: Never ask the magician how he creates his illusions…
Dorian: It’s the ultimate role playing adventure game! In the hands of a deft Dungeon Master your own imaginations are powerful engines of creation!
Younger Maryann: Not buying that – this is revolutionary! Have you mesmerized us? This isn’t because of the weed is it?
Younger Sherry: (looking around, touching things) This is obviously some kind of super advanced technology. Something you, or Henning, got from aliens? Could you imagine what this will do to the theater world? To motion pictures… to EDUCATION? Wow!
Younger Maryann: Incredible. (To Dorian) You could make a LOT of money with this…
Raj: Oh, God. Here we go again. Look, ladies, Sherry, you were more in sync with what we are trying to do here… I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but it is kind of like Paolo Friere’s Theater of the Oppressed brought to life. Particular for kids who have had the imagination beaten out of them by school…
(They start walking around the property seeing the solar panels and composting toilets and greenhouses)
Dorian: (Proudly, seeing they are connecting with the experience). We’ve been discussing this all semester. It gets even better. It’s not just one of those wrap around movies or 360 cyclorama set pieces…
Younger Sherry: Like the civil war show I saw at Gettysburg…
Dorian: Me too… I saw that too… but in this one you get to actually INTERACT with the historical figures. Like we do in role playing games. NTHARP, can you bring the leader who runs this place into the scene?
Watch this.
(From behind the biodigester sculpted to look like a dragon, emerging from the goat paddock, an Older version of Maryann appears, carrying a baby goat).
Older Maryann: Well howdy, y’all. Welcome to Rosebud. Who might we have here?
(The kids extend their hands):
Raj: I’m Raj…
Dorian: I’m Dorian…
Older Maryann: Oh, I’ve seen you here before. From that Drama in Education program up in New York, right? You’re the kids who pretend you are in 1975, using role playing to better understand how we got into the environmental mess we are in today… (she turns to the girls)
I find it a brilliant methodology. In fact, we have one of the experts in that technique, staying in one of our Wilderness Cabins setting up a workshop here in it right now. Oh… there she is…
(Older Sherry comes striding over from under the Solar Pavilion, with a bucket of leftover food).
Older Sherry: It’s called “The Mantle of the Expert” – a way of instilling expertise in students through adopting the personas of different stakeholders. We use theater techniques to make learning meaningful as a “lived experience”. (Sets down a big bucket) By the way…These are the leftovers we collected from the school lunches… to feed the dragon. I’ll just grind them up in the food grinder…
Young Maryann: (Turns to Raj) Wait – is that one of those BIODIGESTERS we saw on the poster in your classroom?
Older Maryann: Sure is! You are talking about biogas in school? That’s a welcome change… after all these years it still seems like this ancient technology is the best kept secret since the Oil-igarchy took over the world when I was born…
Older Sherry: Yep, that’s why part of my work is using what little oil royalty revenue I got growing up, which gave me a competitive edge over others, doing penance for the damages the previous generation did. What school did you say you were from?
Young Maryann: Oh, we … “came down” from New York, so to speak…
Older Maryann: (Sighs) Yes, the North and the West always seem several steps ahead of us. But here at Rosebud we aim to change all that. We mix indigenous wisdom with cutting edge science in a hands-on experiential way. We’re called Rosebud Continuum because my husband was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He became a famous football player ironically with “the Oilers” and other Texas Teams after studying veterinary medicine and then we came out here, started a construction company to pay the bills and created our own wildlife and sustainability reservation for the love of all beings.
Young Maryann: Wait… the oilers? You’re from Houston?
Older Maryann: Born and raised.
Young Maryann: Me too.
Older Maryann: I didn’t catch your name…
Younger Sherry: My Daddy was in the oil business too… marvelous and strange coincidences and synchronies happening today! Makes everything feel like some magical destiny!
Older Maryann: And you are?
Young Sherry: 17. I’ll be 18 in June. I’m gonna go to college in Louisiana and study to be a teacher – and an actor. And this is exactly the kind of place I dream of… a place where kids can learn important things by having FUN. I want to marry theater and education. That’s why we were visiting Dorian in New York, to check out interesting Broadway shows and learn about the avant guard theater scene. Do you think I could get a job here… I mean after I graduate?
Older Maryann: Well, we are all volunteer right now, but if we can get the workshops going, and the revenue is enough to cover costs, you got yourself a job…
Older Sherry: Why you sound just like ME! That’s one of the reasons I’m visiting… We figure if we can give people from around the world the experience you are having – role playing imaginative but realistic scenarios… they can use constructivist learning to co-create a better future as full participants. Democracy is very much under assault around the world right now… so we NEED places like Rosebud desperately. And what are your names?
Older Maryann: The boys are Raj and Dorian, the ones I was telling you about from New York who do the dramatic role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons but set in a 1975 classroom instead of a fantasy world. They’ve been here before. The girls are… you said you are from Houston?
Younger Maryann: We’re… I’m Maryann…
Younger Sherry: And I’m Sherry, Miss…
Older Sherry: Okay… that’s… you guys are great! See Maryann, this is exactly what I was telling you about – once the students get in role they carry the fantasy with them passionately. The characters they inhabit become part of their learning journey. They wear the mantle of the expert… they actually wear MANY mantles, and they can carry them with them into exams too. Whenever they need recall they put on the mantle in their imagination and it stimulates lived-in recall. We don’t know how many mantles a person can inhabit… or, to use modern and mythologic language, how many AVATARS then can personify… but we haven’t found a limit yet. It’s still the subject of a lot of our brain research at UCLA…
Older Maryann: OK, so in your drama in the classroom, you guys have decided that you’re the 1975 me, and “Sherry” here is the older Ms. Kerr, here?
Younger Maryann: But… we are the real versions of you… you guys are… simulations…(she turns to Younger Sherry) of what we’ll be in the future I guess…
Older Maryann: I must say you guys picked people with the perfect likeness… I mean who much more like us could you cast someone?
Raj: Dorian, won’t they, like explode… or disappear if they touch…
Dorian: Like in Time Travelers?
Raj: "Step through "The Time Portal" beyond the crack in Space and Time where the fantastic world of the future will freeze your blood with its weird horrors --The Time Travelers! – An American International Picture IN COLOR!”
Older Maryann: (Reaching a hand out): I actually remember that one! Nice to meet you, “younger me”. And “younger Sherry”...
(Raj and Dorian wince, but nothing happens).
Older Sherry: (To Raj and Dorian) Do you want us to pretend we just got anti-matter annihilated? Is that where you want to take the script? Or is that too derivative?
See Maryann, IMPROV is a big part of this, and this would be an inflection point… this is where you could decide to go OFF SCRIPT and ad lib for a while, or find a clever segue back into the script… or you pause and have the students run back to their computers and type up a new script… Then when you come back into the role you can include those new voices and perspectives. This way the learner is bound by the rigid curriculum. It’s a co-creative process.
Older Maryann: We could put those old movie posters around the classroom – and here in the pavilion we could dress it up like a set piece from 1975, but include all the native American artifacts too…
Older Sherry: And costumes… like these guys are wearing… see how seriously they take it…?
Good 70s vibe you guys. Who did you say your teacher was? (She turns to Older Maryann before they can answer)
See, this technique has become really popular around the world since I did my doctorate studies in it with Dorothy Heathcote in England. It’s HUGE in China… I’m always being asked to do workshops there. But even by the mid-1970s, Heathcote had already introduced it to Europe, Australia and North America. It has always involved “Framing students as responsible experts”, “Embedding math, science, ethics, literacy, and history inside a shared fictional context” and “Treating knowledge as something used, not memorized”.
Older Maryann: Shouldn’t we find out who these guys really are…
Older Sherry: In time… if they offer it. But you don’t want to break the illusion during the role play. It depends how deep into they are… Tell us, what’s it like in your 1975 classroom? Is it more like Welcome Back Kotter, the Brady Bunch, Room 222 or the Paper Chase…
Dorian: Oh we are definitely in the Kotter vibe. I come from a Paper Chase world though – you know, institutional power sorting people into elites, zero tolerance for play… yick…
Raj: So we kids are taking matters in our own hands and are trying to see how the future could be improved, you know, if Logic 3 was applied to education…
Older Maryann: Ah… you guys have done your homework. (Turns back to Older Sherry): Those are a couple of the anachronisms we are playing with in a retrofuturistic way. At Rosebud Continuum we base our pedagogy explicitly on the pracademic Victoria Hurth’s Logic 3 framework of purpose-driven governance that embraces and revives indigenous wisdom, married to Dr. T.H. Culhane’s Nexus Thinking and Maieutic Method strategies for sustainability education.
Older Sherry: Brilliant. Using Drama in Education Conversion has to happen without Preaching. You don’t “teach” sustainability or nexus thinking, you demonstrate it as a living contagion. Brain research shows that these ideas are configurations of memes that will self-replicate if the host is receptive. The right dramatic scenario creates that atmosphere. Rosebud becomes the host environment . So now imagine all that connected to the Dialogic/Diegetic Mantle of the Expert and you have a place where authentic learning can really happen instead of just the lip gloss of it. Dorothy was very clear to me when I trained with her:
She didn’t teach lessons — she set situations.
You have the perfect environment to play out those situations.
When you set up the right situation, Dorothy would say, Students don’t pretend to learn. They have to know to proceed. So they discover the APPROPRIATE answers and in your case, the APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIES. This is going to be so much fun.
Younger Maryann: Permission to ask a question…
Older Maryann: But of course dear…
Younger Maryann: So in this simulation you are the future me… so… what would you tell your younger self if you met her today…?
Older Maryann: As we are doing here, now? Well, I would tell me… I would tell YOU… Expand your Box… you’ve spent too many many years already trapped in too narrow an environment… you’ve got to travel more and take on other’s perspectives. You need to become a “Nexus Thinker”, you need to read more, overcome your shyness, dare to go against prevailing winds. And, whatever you do… explore indigenous perspectives. There are so many but they all depart from the usual narrative you’ve been told your whole life about Capitalism and Communism and Socialism – you’re going to discover that what has dominated your life and worldview was such a tiny tiny narrow slice of reality. As Sherry here taught me, from her Shakespearian acting school days in London:
Older Maryann and Older Sherry: “There are more things in heaven and earth…
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Older Maryann: Time to get out there and learn them… the right way!
(Fade to Snow with the Kyron:) To be continued…
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