Frames versus Crazy Life

Optionally, see my last two posts for background: one, two.

Here's a doodle seeking to portray a distinction. 

Frames are discrete and identifiable components of our space and experience. In contrast, crazy life is beyond description!

The distinction is between complex, crazy life, which is unpredictable, organic, emotional and contradictory, versus the discrete components we can identify and manipulate in our environment.

My little 'frames theory' seeks to identify what we can and can't manipulate in our school environment - or any environment.

Fundamentally, I believe the problem with schooling is the attempt to control complex, crazy life. The factory frames of industrial schooling act as if human beings are products that can be operated on via a standardised set of frames. These frames restrict space for 'crazy life', agency and initiative.

In contrast I believe in broadening out the space for 'crazy life' and I am pioneering frames theory as a way of putting language around that.

For instance, in this video below there is a great deal of space of unpredictable and complex interactions by real breathing agents called human beings. Yet there are frames... some visible, some invisible. but the art form is deliberately designing physical, virtual, and cultural  spaces  to encourage self-actualisation in all of its glorious and subversive unpredictability.

Whiteboard + Table Legs = Revolution

Whiteboard Table

A couple of years ago my colleague Mitch Layland bolted an old whiteboard to some old table legs: 

The idea went viral - lots of teachers started asking for them:

Consider what a revolution 90° makes. It's a political revolution!

A vertical whiteboard is for broadcasting. It is a one-to-many delivery system.

In contrast a horizontal whiteboard table is space to be claimed. It allows many-to-many collaboration via line-of-sight.

Vertical is tyranny, horizontal is  power to the people! 

Here are the tables in action, including a video:

When we have visits by teachers from other schools, the whiteboard table is always remarked on. As soon as you seen one, the idea seems simple, powerful and obvious. 

But until you see one, the idea does not occur. 

Which begs a question: what else aren't we seeing? 

Or more broadly: How can we develop the ability to see the bleeding obvious?   

Some people are gifted it in this, but not me, and I want a method for acquiring the skill.

I label and describe physical objects as 'frames' in an attempt to uncover the obvious. 

 In my last post I introduced 'frames theory' whose very purpose it is to develop this skill, exposing blind spots and challenging the tyranny of the familiar

 So I shall conclude by recasting the whiteboard table in the terms of frames theory.

Younglings reconfigure space without thinking about it.

The physical classroom itself is an 'organisational frame'.

An 'organisational frame' is matter organised in a particular way.

e.g. a classroom might be: four walls, a door, and some windows. 

Organisational frames are nested. Within a classroom we find lots of other frames: a vertical surface with legs, called a 'table', and another called a 'chair'. 

In frames theory we try to see these objects like lego bricks, and approach them with the attitude of a toddler who smashes things into other things, turns things upside down stacks things on things, and so on, with no end goal at all. 

The point is to be playful, and you can't be playful if you think space is immutable.

Obvious to young learners.

So we ask, what if we used the tables as chairs? or the chairs as tables? Or we turned them on their sides? Or added legs, or put them on wheels?

Then we notice the whiteboard up the front and we ask: what if we put it at the other end? Or put it on the floor? Or dangled it from the roof? What if we cut it in two?

Back to kindergarten for me to see the obvious.

What if we put it on a table? 

The language of 'frames' forces us to step back and label the bleeding obvious, which is a step toward transforming the familiar.  

Go into a space, and take an inventory of the frames, and define them like you're an alien from Mars.

 What is right before your eyes, that you're just not seeing?

 POST-SCRIPT: an excerpt from "Antifragile" by Nicholas Nassim Taleb, p188

"We keep being reminded that the Mesoamericans did not invent the wheel. They did. They had wheels. But the wheels were on small toys for children. [] They used vast quantities of human labor, corn maize, and lactic acid to move gigantic slabs of stone in the flat spaces ideal for pushcarts and chariots where they built their pyramids. They even rolled them on logs of wood. Meanwhile, their small children were rolling their toys on the stucco floors"  

Introducing 'Frames Theory' for Innovating in Schools

​To change something you first need to perceive it is changeable.

Introducing 'Frames Theory' for Innovating in Schools

'To make the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.'

How to innovate… step back from the familiar, recognise it as arbitrary artifice, and tinker with it.

In that spirit I offer my fellow educators a toolkit I have been working on for a couple of years now.

I call it 'frames theory', and its purpose is to open pathways for innovation by identifying existing components of practice - both physical and psychological - thereby making them ripe for change.

Let the crowd be hushed… Ladies and Gentleman, Steve Collis is delighted to unveil ‘Frames Theory’ and invite collaboration!

It's simple: there are just four 'frames'.

You can use the four frames to notice distinct components operating at school, and so consider tinkering with them. The components deliberately span domains: physical, mental, social, tech/information. 

With a hat tip to Occam and his razor, here they are:

1. Organisation frames (O-Frames) are groups of objects or ideas.

An O-Frame is a cluster of elements (physical objects, ideas) with a discernible set of relationships. Every physical object is an o-frame.

For instance, rows of desks facing the front of a classroom (note that the words 'rows' and 'front' set up organisational relationships).

Beyond School: an atom is as equally an O-Frame as a company's organisational hierarchy!

2. Sequence frames (S-Frames) are action steps. 

An S-Frame is a series of actions taken in sequence over a time period.

For instance, a school routine of lining up outside a classroom, greeting the teacher, then coming in, sitting down, and eyes out the front. Equally, the timetable is an S-Frame, as are social scripts played out unknowingly by teachers and students.

Beyond School: algorithms are S-Frames. 

​Objects or concepts organised in a particular way,

A sequence of actions.​

3. Narrative frames (N-Frames) refer to story-telling.

An N-Frame is specific to psychology. Our minds interpret the world through the filter of story.

A narrative frame contains goodies, baddies, archetypes, goals, pitfalls, & more.

For instance: good guys, bad guys, allies, enemies, a range of archetypes, notions of progress, quests, pitfalls, and more. In school, teachers broadcast N-Frames at learners in phrases that frame 'where we are' and 'where we're heading'.

You can use 'N-Frame' to refer to any of these elements. 

Beyond School : ingroup/outgroup thinking, the 'other', and goal seeking behaviour, are all manifestations of N-Frames. 

4. Explanatory frames (E-Frames) refer to explanations.

​Explanatory frames are our explanations that connect the past to the present and future.

An E-Frame is a theory of cause and effect, such as ‘if I flatter this person they will like me’, ‘that person is angry at me because I forgot their name’ or ‘the climate is warming due to carbon released by human activity’.

For instance: at school, a veritable plethora of invisible E-Frames play puppet-master, sitting behind classroom management – ‘I need order so I can teach’, standard testing – ‘data leads to better learning’ or opposite 'testing wrecks learning', and relational dynamics - ‘the teacher hates me’ or ‘that student sabotages my classes’.

 E-Frames are our interpretative apparatus, and they guide our future goal-seeking strategies.

They also happen to be fallible and unreliable to an extreme degree in all matters other than the most concrete propositions. Much damage is caused due to misplaced confidence in E-Frames. 

Cognitive biases render most E-Frames useless or harmful, for instance the ‘fundamental attribution error’, whereby we attribute our own behaviour to context, but others’ behaviour to personality. 

Beyond School: scientific  theories. 

all memes are frames but not all frames are memes

Frames vs Memes

Some might equate ‘frames’ with ‘memes’ but they are not the same beast. I'm pretty sure that all memes are frames but I am certain that not all frames are memes.

Using Frames to Innovate

Together, the four frames provide language for identifying changeable components of a situation, from policies, to physical spaces, to teaching philosophies, habits, inventions... just about anything. It's a universal toolkit.

The point is, once we identify an arbitrary frame, we can change it.

That's the whole point! 

We can ask, ‘what if we changed that O-Frame to this other one?’ or ‘this E-Frame to this other one?’.

Wondrously, we can dissect and recombine frames with blind impunity, with no master plan for why the new combination will be better. You don't need a plan or a justification! It's called hacking, innovating, reinventing, and it doesn't need a reason.

​tinker!

Just mash up some new frames, and see what happens! While you do it you can say "I'm mashing up frames!" like a crazy chef.

A physical example: replace the classroom chairs (O-Frames) with lounges (a different O-Frame) . Do nothing else. See what happens.

A psychological example: as a teacher I might realise take the E-Frame that ‘student X is setting out to sabotage the class’ and replace it with ‘student X is hungry and therefore grumpy’. Whether or not the student is hungry or not is irrelevant – the point is to manipulate the E-Frame (our interpretative theory) and then observe the results. 

Similarly you can identify and tinker randomly with S-Frames, N-Frames, or bundles of them.

We don't have to have a master plan to innovate, just the courage to take what we see and tinker with it.

Frames are Everywhere

There is so much more I want to say about my little frames theory. I have been chewing on it quietly for years.

School is only one context - once familiar with the terms, you see frames everywhere! 

Piano playing consists of O-Frames and  S-Frames. Computer programs are S-Frames and computer memory consists of O-Frames. DNA and proteins are O-Frames. In cells, S-Frames emerge from Brownian motion as O-Frames bump into each other in a molecular storm.

​The cat is an O-Frame, and so is the QWERTY keyboard. Together they make a new O-Frame I would like to re-invent such that I can type!

A baseball or cricket field is an O-Frame, but the rules are O-Frames. Listen to the commentary and you’ll hear E-Frames and N-Frames.

Ingredients in a cake are O-Frames, and the cake is an O-Frame, but the recipe is an S-Frame.  

Frames provide a vehicle for seeking insights in exotic fields, since they appear in multiple domains, and at multiple scales.  Heck, our galaxy is an O-Frame, but so is my cat.

Frames nest within other frames, thereby spanning scales as well as domains. 

In coming blog posts I intend to present some case studies on the frames in action, and perhaps get more up close and personal with each of the four frames in turn.

An Invitation to Collaborate

Have I caught your attention? Has a light-bulb plopped on – some intrigue – some sense of potential? Please join me and let’s explore frames together.

First step, leave a comment, won’t you? I need to gauge how accessible I have made the frames. 

Second step, I've created a wiki for frames - head over and add something, anything - add just one example of a frame!

Third step, you could post your own blog post where you grapple with frames… I’d love to hear your thoughts and see where you take the ideas.

Creatively,

Steve

Pure Potential

Being a teacher has some un-price-able fringe benefits. Apart from everything else I do, I'm also still in the classroom and am reluctant to leave.

​I never, ever, go to bed wondering about whether my work has been worth it, whether it 'means' something. I'm very lucky!

​Now, I mention this because an ex-student who I taught French for a number of years, has cropped up on... wait for it... Cleo's Bachelor of the Year list, partly by spinning out some seductive French.

HA HA HA!!!!!!!!​

Here's a video of him. I remember his mannerisms from 'back in the day'. ​

2013 CLEO Bachelor of the Year: Josiah Cameron Get new music videos and MTV show videos on MTV.COM.AU. www.mtv.com.au More from 2013 CLEO Bachelor of the Year Watch videos Watch New Music Videos | Music News
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He's endlessly cheerful, always laughing, always making people around him laugh. ​

Good on you Josiah Cameron! Go for it!​

And that's it for every young person with whose lives we have the privilege of intersecting, influencing.

They're all pure potential: bundles of possibility not yet collapsed into actuality.

They'll not only see a future we'll not see, they'll create it. ​

Even though I can articulate with increasing clarity the dysfunction of the construct of 'school' - still it remains the best job in the world... a privilege to work with younglings-under-construction... who knows where they'll go or what they'll do!

A Shared Story

Have a look at this lovely artwork by Bev Doolittle. What do you notice?​

​'The Hills Have Eyes' Bev Doolittle

​Spend a few more moments taking it in, and observe what your mind does. The longer you scan, the more you'll see, and once you've seen, it's hard to unsee.

Can you feel your mind's obsession? It's automatic, hardwired, foundational. 

Every problem is a people problem, every space is a people-space. Beware my temptation to construct an illusory simpler world that operates by forms, templates, emails, rules, lesson plans, the bizarre fictions called 'outcomes', timetables, compliance, deadlines and data.

At the heart of everything: a shared narrative.

Not a prediction. Not a linear extension of past data; some vain attempt to tame the future via induction. 

A shared vision for the future​.​

A community with a shared narrative is unstoppable. When our narrative minds are resonating, control is not required.

I don't know how this one ends, but isn't the sound of it sweet?​