​

BIG Questions Institute Update

April 27, 2025, No. 185 (Read online)​

​

What Happens When We Imagine Together?
​

Last week, as the dogwoods were blooming and the “diamonds on the water” on Lake Michigan sparkled in the spring sunshine, I got to facilitate a Dream Summit near Detroit.

​
Our Big Questions Institute team had already conducted many listening sessions (similar to a focus group) with a wide range of stakeholders at the school, from fourth graders to teachers, parents, Board members, and even grandparents before my visit. Driven by our Big Questions, we had learned so much – from What is Sacred? (i.e., What do you hope the school holds onto in the years to come? What matters most?) to What is Success? (i.e., We will know our school is successful if students …) and more. The range of voices helped us to sense-make and reality-check. A clear picture was emerging, reflecting the pulse of the school, to begin planning for the near future.

​
But then, something cracked open. Nothing could have injected the pulse-check, joy and energy that a few hours gathered collectively to listen to one another and practice imagination could have infused. The Dream Summit, as an option in their strategic planning process, surprised the skeptics, the enthusiasts, and even me, who knew what I had planned (!). It’s not the first time it has happened, and it never gets old.

​
You see, as educators, along with students, parents, and Board members filled a gym for several hours – even those arriving clutching their coffees and clenching their jaws, anticipating yet another waste of a morning in the name of “professional development” – a creative process began. I believe this is the power of community, when the conditions for community-building align with intention.

How does this happen?

We start with respecting the experience and intelligence of all the contributors. The Head of School opened with an honest summary of the state of the school and clarity on leadership’s intentions for the day, as well as a strategic process with all of the teachers.

​

They then joined a larger group, so we had a room filled with subject-area experts (including the students, who can speak to the vital topic of their experience at school, and parents, who are often missing from the formative conversations so they don’t realize the processes behind the decisions they are told about), and there was time and space to “set the table” (including building psychological safety and belonging), share real experiences and insights across perspectives, to walk around and see/hear what others thought, and ask sincere questions.

​

We framed the conversation in our simple, yet powerful 2-step process: “Face Reality” and “Imagine Harder.” This not only offered an opportunity to zoom in on the current experience of school and our individual learning stories, but to zoom out to the bigger picture of what schools around the world like theirs are learning, and where we might go in the future. In this case, we considered the year 2040, when the current 3 year old’s are expected to graduate from high school. We know and love those children, so their future feels tangible, possible (and emotional), even though “2040” still might sound like science fiction.

As the group was led through an imagination experiment into 2040, then “returned” to 2025 to share what they saw, and captured these in Headlines from the Future, the quote from Johanna Hoffman in Speculative Futures rang true:

Through the collective experience, it really felt as if, even for a few moments, trust had been built, and imagination was being nourished - essential elements that have become too scarce in our world today. The energy in the room came from cultivating the kinds of connections we collectively gain when we are Proactively imagining the future in personal ways. Ultimately, it created a “human experience” rooted in community wisdom.

From What’s the problem? To What’s possible?

Another power of collective imagination is the shift from What’s the problem? to What’s possible? This helps us collectively move from a deficit mindset to abundance. As adrienne marie brown has reflected, “We are in an imagination battle.” When we engage in our own moral and collective imaginations, we can take back our own imaginations, and we can begin to uncover creative approaches to What’s possible?

​
This is one way of understanding why the collective imagination practice made us all so happy. As my selfie with the group against the Wordcloud in the background shows, the overwhelming feelings leaving the Dream Summit were hopeful, excited, inspired, optimistic. If we can realize those emotions from a half–day’s work, that’s not a bad thing.

​

Now, the challenge will be to turn those dreams into possibilities (and yes, measure them), and keep building the hope and potential that was experienced together on that sunny spring morning.

In Peace,

Homa

​

What we are reading and listening to

Some new and exciting resources to fuel your inquiry

​

​Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business, by Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaeufer.

​

Burnout from Humans: A little book about AI that is not really about AI (free download here) by Aiden Cinnamon Tea and Dorothy Ladybugboss (Vanessa Andreotti)
​

​

​UNESCO AI Competencies Adapted for Students, created by the Western Academy of Beijing's Wayfinder Learning Lab.

Our friends at the Western Academy of Beijing have taken the UNESCO AI Competencies and adapted these for teachers, students, and leaders to practice, complete with "I can ..." statements and additional resources, ranging from Project Zero's cultures of thinking applications to the Mandarin translation.

Learn (and Partner!) With BQI

If you are making decisions for next year's budget, consider partnering with the Big Questions Institute.

You might consider doing a Dream Summit to launch, consolidate, or check-in with your strategic plan, or a presentation (recorded or live, in person or remote) for the start of the next school year?! Other areas we will be accompanying schools and educators in the coming year include:

• Professional learning for faculty and leaders (topics include: building belonging and cultural competence; exploring the Big Questions and auditing classroom practices using fearless inquiry; designing classroom experiences for student agency and real-world relevance; AI tools)
• AI integration with curriculum
• Strategic planning
• Board governance and capacity building
• Head of School and Board evaluations and goal-setting
• Engaging parents and families in big questions around the direction of school and education
• Support to build the effectiveness of teams around personal aspirations and strategic goals
• Coaching individual leaders and aspiring leaders

We're working to design healthier, more joyful, just, relevant, and sustainable futures for school communities. Get more details here.​

​

You can reach out directly to Homa Tavangar: homa@bigquestions.institute to schedule an exploratory call.

​

Thank you for this testimonial!