Introduction

We are a band of two co-directors, four consultants (three high school-aged and one, mother), and a scholar-in-residence, the indomitable Andy (u/Andinio) to whom we are deeply indebted for his insights, time, and patience.

We are about ready to start editing and posting our “Vision Book” to guide the development of the Longhouse School which will open in September with a 1^st and 2^nd grade class. But first, Andinio suggests, we need to explain our rationale for this project as well as the research methodology that we stumbled on along the way.

Andy told us about a presentation he helped write entitled “Scraps of Paper in a Drawer” and presented at a conference sponsored by the Soka Initiative for Global Citizenship. It began with an explanation about how Josei Toda compiled The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy out of a stack of notes written by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi over many years during his busy praxis as a school principal. It was an astounding methodology–taking place amidst the rising tides of Japanese authoritarianism.

There are clear similarities between those times and today. Since progressive reform initiatives have lost favor in current American educational policy, it is worthwhile to ask, what is today’s equivalent to “scraps of paper in a drawer”? Or, perhaps as Neil Postman might have prompted, what is today’s version of “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” (Postman and Weingarten, 1969)?

The cited presentation argues that value-creative educators today might consider strengthening their defensive game rather than pressing to shoot wildly on offense. Andinio shared with us how he had tried, from his vantage point of retirement, to change the educational “ideosphere” through “worldbuilding.”

 

Definitions

Two concepts need to be introduced.

The “Ideosphere” is defined in Wikipedia as “the metaphysical ‘place’ where thoughts, theories, ideas, and ideation are regarded to be created, evaluated, and evolved.

“Analogous to the biosphere (the realm of biological evolution), the ideosphere is the realm of memetic evolution, where ‘memes’ take the role of biological genes. As such, the ideosphere is an entire memetic ecology: the collective intelligence of all humans wherein memes live, reproduce, compete, and mutate.”

“Worldbuilding” is defined as the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

“Developing the world with coherent qualities such as history, geography, culture, and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology, and often, if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called conlangs) for the world.”

It exists in novels, films, comics, and video games. The concept of fictional worlds stretches back to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Perhaps the names of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are familiar, too.

The Purpose of the Study

Even in a time of great paradigm shift and ideological rigor mortis, there remain endless—granted, microbial—ways to engage in efforts to change the Ideosphere and thereby create the conditions for new waves of educational policy in the future. The underlying goal of this research project is to explore a methodology that may prove helpful to people in the field during a time that may otherwise be a prolonged winter.

This is the purpose of Longhouse School–to reawaken and implement the assumed values of the pre-Columbus People of the Longhouse and to view the affects on students drawn largely from marginalized and isolated communities. Hopefully, this can leave a tiny mark on the Ideosphere. The purposes of the Vision Book and Rationale are the same. Knock, knock, Ideosphere, we want in.