Learning that Transforms Hearts and Minds
Rethinking How We See Our World Changes Everything
by Linda Sechrist
I
n the 30 years since Harrison Owen introduced Open Space Technology
(OST), it has been used hundreds of thousands of times by three-quarters of the world’s countries. Whether a few people gather in a circle to share ideas and brainstorm personal issues or thousands discuss a bulletin board of topics around tables, OST is a safe, informal venue for transformative learning.
Guided by purpose-based, shared leadership, it allows individuals focused on a specifi c task to freely speak their thoughts and be heard. It also encourages breakout groups to mine for more information—learning individually, as well as collectively, and self-organizing in order to concentrate on more complex topics. “Boeing engineers used OST to learn how to redesign airplane doors and young Egyptians used it to strategize for their Arab Spring,” as examples, comments Owen.
Circle Principle For Owen, like Jack Mezirow, author of the paper, “Core Principles of Transformative Learning Theory,”
22 Central Florida natural awakenings
20th-century Brazilian educator
Paulo Freire and Juanita Brown, co-
founder of The World Café, learning is transformation, the keystone of life, and the essence of meaningful education. “The circle principle contains the predictability of fresh, emerging thoughts and learning that never occurred previously,” explains Owen. He points to an experiment regarding
children’s capacity for self-learning initiated by Sugata Mitra, Ph.D., the former science director of an educational technology fi rm in India. On the outside wall of the building where he worked, Mitra installed a computer facing a New Delhi slum where most children were unschooled and illiterate and had never seen a computer. He turned it on and told children they could play with it. Via a noninvasive video camera, he
watched 7-to-13-year-olds discover how to use the computer and teach each other how to play music and games and draw using Microsoft’s Paint program. Repetition of the experiment in other impoverished sections of India yielded similar results. Wherever he established an Internet connection,
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