squareONE: experiential toolmakers

Introductory Programs
squareONE presents its model of transformative learning to groups of any type as a fun-filled hour's worth of taste testing various ways to spontaneously explore and discover and generate insight. The tools most often used for this purpose are MOBIUS STRIP and MOVING THE SHAPES.

Group Exploration
Transformative learning workshops are the format for group exploration for groups numbering 3 to 30+. A selection from the entire menu of tools is plugged into a custom-fit design oriented around a group's specific needs and requirements. Workshops can run from 2 hours to two 3 hour sessions. Examples of redeployable designs:
[] THE VALUE OF (MY) VISION ...for entrepreneurs, organizations, any person or group focused on actualizing their personal vision. This work shop is about discovering how to center one's vision at the highest, most positive
leverage point, especially when you're at a critical juncture, in transition, or about to take a next big step. Participants will collaborate using exploratory learning tools to unlock some of the keys to transforming the assumptions at the foundations
of how one presents their vision to the world. In group work participants will explore and discover powerful knowings about how best to symbolize and 'play-out' the deep value of their vision in the here and now. This work shop is especially
recommended if you're private vision is about to be made public.
[] THE PURPOSE OF MY PURPOSE Collaborative experiential exploration, utilizing numerous proven tools, focused on exploration, discovery, and integration of personal purpose. This recommends itself for persons looking to find their calling or take their work to a higher 'key'. The program joins tools with the enormous inspirational and processing capability of a playful collaborative group.
[] TRANSFORMATIONAL BEING & EXPERIENCE IN THE LIBRARY (Seven 2 hour programs; can be configured to meet specific parameters) The programs are participatory. Each begins with a brief summary of squareONE's Exploratory Learning Model. Each program is centered around the introduction of a specific tool for leveraging a public library's resources for the purpose of spontaneous discovery.
Part 1 TRANSFORMATIONAL BEING AND EXPERIENCE
Part 2 DYNAMIC PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Part 3 NOVEL PATHWAYS THROUGH THE LIBRARY
Part 4 SERENDIPITOUS SEARCH-INTERNET APPLICATIONS
Part 5 COLLABORATIVE APPLICATIONS-DATA DUETS
Part 6 HUNTING AND GATHERING
Part 7 THE NEW LIBRARY-PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Topical Programs
Workshop format. squareONE's proven capability around specific topics include the following.
[] Career development and lateral career moves
[] Self-development - choosing your path
[] How to change your perspective from one to many
[] Loosen up! Collaboration and its core metaphor
[] Custom topics in transformative learning

Tool-focused ways to deploy spontaeous exploration & discovery
[] THE PLAY OF OPPOSITES Experiential exploration of symbolic,
conceptual, metaphoric processing using the deck of opposites, 100 cards descriptive of various dichotomies. This tool is used in a 2 hour workshop format with group of 3-12, divided into clusters.
[] THE DANCING MANDALA Experiential exploration of symbolic,
conceptual, metaphoric processing using the third version of Arthur M. Young's mandala concept wed with HUNTING AND GATHERING. This tool is used in a 2 hour workshop format with group of 3-12 participants, divided into clusters.
[] TEACHING CARTOONS A transformative tool modeled on the practical
mode of the classic teaching story. During this one session workshop learners will engage experiential methods to decode and reveal the wisdom hidden in cartoons. Then, as a kind of riotous finale, participants will collaborate on creating their own
original teaching cartoons, secret wisdom and all. Exploratory learning at it's funniest. This tool is used in 2 or 4 hour workshop format with a group of 3-24, or in an introductory presentation before larger groups.
[] THE DESERT KOAN concentrates on a trio of (Zen) koan-like aphorisms, taken from Middle Eastern mysticism and versioned by translators for English speakers. While the main focus of this program is upon a playful and participatory attempt to unlock some of the aphorism's teaching potential, something of the nature of the developmental system will be explored as a matter of the sociology of religion and the psychology of transformative learning.

One-on-one collabative exploration
Not mentoring or coaching; rather: squareONE works with individuals to facilitate collaboration upon high-leverage points of inquiry, discovery, or problem-solving. This learning in duo format can range from open-ended exploration to tightly focused learning, learning concerned with how to look at challenges or problems anew. There are wide ranging applications for this concentrated mode for transformative learning. One way to view collaborative facilitation is that it is proven useful in building feeling and thinking capacity with respect to: self-development, creative breakthroughs, executive development, open-ended 'folk' philosophical discovery. Etc.

Rhythm River - music & transformation
2 hour programs that currently use four different musical topics to instigate participant reflection upon creative human nature, self-artistry, and the musical threads able to connect across cultures and eons. The four musical topics are:
[] Kalahari originations—part 1 of “The River” The most ancient history of music is traced as well as imagined during this program. Obviously Africa is the starting point. How would primitive music come to be spread? Does our modern encounter with musical sound and nature evoke a sense of what the role of music was 30,000+ years ago?
[] The Spike Fiddle—part 1 of "Pentatonic Drift" The violin exemplifies simplicity and refinement. Yet, its simplicity has antecedents in stringed instruments found in every musical culture. This experiential program focuses on providing a taste of the variety of stringed instruments and music which, over centuries, will result in the elegant apotheosis of the violin. The Spike Fiddle, central to the musical cultures of Persia and central Asia is given as title to the program. It’s antecedents are among the oldest stringed instruments known to humankind.
[] The Color of Music—part 2 of "Pentatonic Drift" The music of the Berber peoples and Gnawa Brotherhoods of rural and urban Morocco are presented and utilized to creatively imagine the transmission of sound healing principles in a North African culture. Then the focus is shifted to the popular music of South Africa.
[] Ancient Sound—part 2 of "The River" The ancient music of Australia’s aboriginal peoples is the provocative launching pad for an imaginal voyage focused on how, over 40,000 years ago, aboriginal music, and a mythic worldview came about on the world’s largest island.

Transformative Anthropology in the urban setting
Melds squareONE's models for Exploratory Learning and Transformative Anthropology into a format for the following goals: (1) training folk anthropologists to conduct informal inquiries into people in a community; (2) to learn about one's own self in the social interplay in a community; (3) to promote insight into the entanglement of human creativity and enactment that constitutes the human universe of a community.

Presentation Topics
Lightly interactive, the following topics coalesce around introductory and research areas that may of compelling interest to groups interested in self-development, adult learning, social justice, and interdisciplinary topics.
[] What's up folks? Folk psychology, folk philosophy, folk anthropology
Investigates the conundrum of Theory of Mind as it pertains to the everyday research into how one knows what they know, and, how one knows what other people know.
[] Teaching Cartoons - Introduction (slide show)
The hidden wisdom in didactic and otherwise instructive cartoons with a side tour into the formats and formulas underlying the exploration of Sufi and Zen stories.
[] Stepping toward the beginning
A very quick trip backward in time to the instantiation of learning by observation and remembering; which is to suggest this trip goes back 1,000,000+ years. The question addressed: How does it come about that humans journey from knowing very little to knowing so much?
[] The sound of the sacred soul
...introduces the sacred music of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, various syncretic offshoots including jazz and popular music from around the world.
[] Wild Ideas - a discussion seminar (2 hr)
For the purpose of discussion, extracts crystaline tidbits from the generous, often outsider, research of Arthur S. Young, Marian Woodman, Frithjof Schuon, Ivan Illich, Thelonious Monk, Helena Schulman, Buckminster Fuller, Christina Toren, Gregory Bateson, Pauline Oliveros, Karl Weick, and who's to say whom else?!