Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.

Matthew Worwood:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello and welcome to a very special Thanksgiving episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. And I say it’s a very special Thanksgiving episode because Cindy and I did something that we have never done before, and it’s a first for our podcast. Cindy, what did we do?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes, we had the opportunity to go to Denham, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Boston, to the new TLC studios. And tlc LC stands for Teaching, Learning and Creativity Studios that just launched its opening, and it’s designed by Fable Vision and Peter and Paul Reynolds, who you may know from the book the Dot and Ish. And they held a little. Actually, it was a big noise summit with 15 different creativity and education specialists in this special studio. And so Matt and I decided, hey, I wonder if they would let us use their podcast studio to record a live episode. And, well, they did. Surprise, surprise. And we decided to make this our very special Thanksgiving episode.

Cyndi Burnett:
So we have so much gratitude for Peter and Paul Reynolds in letting us use their space and interviewing them as part of this special podcast.

Matthew Worwood:
And also gratitude to Donna Luther, who was a previous guest on the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. If you haven’t watched that episode, Donna Luther is a principal of Montessori School just outside of Denham as well. In fact, it’s in denim.

Cyndi Burnett:
It’s about 20 minutes from denim.

Matthew Worwood:
Okay, 20, 20 minutes. But I think Donna was very influential in organizing the Big Noise Summit, and there was just incredible people that had some amazing conversations. It was. It was a really great group of people, and I’m hoping that we can reach out and bring some of them onto our podcast episode. But it was also a little bit last minute. I mean, from a creativity perspective, we kind of had this loose idea of, wouldn’t it be fun if we went out and actually did a live episode? We didn’t know what it would look like. We wasn’t really familiar with the equipment. We hadn’t planned it.

Matthew Worwood:
We kind of just went into the studio and just went with the flow didn’t we?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And I think at the end we actually make a big noise. And the energy in the room was palpable. I mean, Matt, I left there feeling so elated and so inspired to continue this work that we’re doing and just inspired by all the participants that were there.

Matthew Worwood:
Totally agree. So without further ado, Cindy and I bring you our episode recorded at the Big Noise Summit at the TLC Studios for this special Thanksgiving episode. Hello and welcome to a super duper episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. It’s Thanksgiving and I am extremely thankful for where we are because. Cindy, where are we?

Cyndi Burnett:
We are together in Boston, Massachusetts doing an incredible day long conference and it’s.

Matthew Worwood:
Called the Big Noise Conference. And this is the first time we’ve ever done a podcast together, isn’t it? In person?

Cyndi Burnett:
In person, yes, it is the first time. And we have some great guests that are here today at this Big Noise Summit. So Donna Luther, who is our first guest that’s going to be on this special gratitude episode, is a head of school at the Inle School which I have had the great opportunity of going to talk about gratitude. And it was the most creative school I’ve ever been to, a Pre K through 8th grade school. And she also runs the summer Stars program in Boston. And so, Donna, welcome back to the show.

Donna Luther:
I’m so, so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me and thanks for being part of the Big Noise Summ.

Cyndi Burnett:
And thank you for inviting us to be part of this Big Noise. So I know you’re one of the people that came up with this idea, so we’d love to hear from you to start. What made you decide that we need a Big Noise Summit?

Donna Luther:
We need a big Noise because there are so many of us that believe in creativity and education. And it seems to me and seems to us that we’re all in little silos around the country and around the world. And the idea is if we all got together with the same message that we know and love, and it’s deep in our hearts that we could really make a big noise and figure out how to extend the idea of creativity and education in very big ways around the world. So we wanted to gather some folks with like minds about that. We don’t always have the same approach, but we certainly have the same intentions about creativity and education. How do we get together and become sort of like the Beatles, greater than the sum of our parts?

Matthew Worwood:
And Donna, we are planning on inviting some of the guests who have been here today, but could you just Give us a little bit of sense of where everyone’s coming from and some of the specialities that we’ve got on display today.

Donna Luther:
Absolutely. Well, first of all, we have the two of you, right. And that’s a huge gift to us. So thank you, Cindy and Matthew, because you bring such expertise from very different places and yet an amazing sensibility about kids and creativity and what should be happening. Matthew, in particular, thank you for your session that you did with us on AI and creativity. Because what I understood from that is really the future is still human, which I hope, hope we’ve all known for a long time. But that’s really important to remind us of that. Technology is a tool and will remain that and will keep improving, but it’s the human’s involvement with it that’s going to matter.

Donna Luther:
We of course are hosted today at the TLC Studio by Peter and Paul Reynolds and their sister Jane. And we’re in a brand new place that’s going to be opening tomorrow actually. The TLC Studios is teaching and learning and creativity and it’s here right in Dedham, Massachusetts. And it’s the hope is that the impact of the work of the Randalls family will bring teachers from all around to actually be together and inspire each other in the world of creativity and bringing that back to their schools, which is so important, I think like we know about the creativity business in all of us. Teachers are in a lonely business too, right. And so for them to learn to collaborate and be together and inspire and spark more creativity in the work that they do is really important.

Cyndi Burnett:
Before you leave and thank you so much for kicking us off with the group. I’d love to hear one thing that you’re grateful for in your school right now.

Donna Luther:
Thank you so much for asking. I’m so grateful for the community. I think we’re a really community based school and you feel the spirit of community when you walk through the doors and I love being a part of that and I know all of the children and all of the families do too.

Matthew Worwood:
And actually, Donna, just before you go, I do want to just pick up on community because that’s one of the things that I felt was a theme running through this morning’s discussions, the importance of community. And we’re going to be bringing the Reynolds brothers on after you to talk a little bit about the physical space that they set up here as part of the TLC Centre. But the community that you’re talking about, it’s a physical presence, but also continuing the mission online as well. So you can reach a global community.

Donna Luther:
Absolutely. Because I think think that not everyone can come to Dedham, but we can spread the feeling of this really around the world. And so we’re trying to create a core group that will help propel all of that energy as far as we possibly can.

Matthew Worwood:
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, Curiosity to Create.

Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to Create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional, professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So next, we are very excited to be sitting with Peter and Paul Reynolds of Fable Vision. Now, for those of you who are out there listening, you’ve probably heard the name Peter H. Reynolds because it’s all over children’s literature. And you’re probably familiar with International Dot Day after the book, the Dot Book and Ish, which is my other favorite, of course. But so many books. How many books do you have?

Peter Reynolds :
Gosh, I don’t know. I set 85 books with my name.

Cyndi Burnett:
On my 85 children’s books. So we are sitting with a children’s book legend and I am just so excited to have them here today. I met them eight years ago at the Creative Problem Solving Institute that my son was so inspired by listening to them speak. He sang all three verses of Surf in USA as a gratitude toward them. So our session, our episode today is all about gratitude. So that just shows how grateful my son was just to meet them. So we are so excited to be here at your new TLC and we would love for you both to talk about what made you decide to build this space, create this space for educators and what your goal is for this space.

Peter Reynolds:
Great to be hanging out with you again and making some noise. Some big noise. We are in TLC Studios, which is a part of our not for profit, the Reynolds Reynolds Teaching learning and Creativity.

Matthew Worwood:
Right?

Peter Reynolds:
The Reynolds. Right. Hence TLC.

Paul Reynolds:
The Reynolds center for Teaching Learning and Creativity. Reynolds TLC.

Peter Reynolds:
Yeah. And about 30 years ago, we started a company called Fable Vision. And it was an animation company originally and then it turned into an interactive company. And because I, well, we had both been doing learning. You were doing learning in the workplace. I was doing Learning with kids in schools.

Paul Reynolds:
And we compared notes and just checked in on the universal truths of learning that you have to establish personal meaning and it needs to be engaging. And the power of story to actually cause learning was key to the work we were doing with adults, just as it was with kids in the classroom. And so we launched fable vision in 1996, so we’re close to 30 years in. Along the way, there were also projects that surfaced that really needed a safe harbor that were not ostensibly commercial in any way. So we launched our nonprofit, the Reynolds center for Teaching Learning Creativity.

Peter Reynolds:
I’ll just go back to Fable Vision because Fable Vision, we have a really cool studio downtown Boston on Newbury street and was at the Boston Children’s Museum. And during COVID we moved to Newbury Street. But it is an incredibly creative space with 35 full time artists, writers, programmers, recording artists, thinkers and people doing great work helping organizations who are trying to make the world a better place. Like whether it’s through entertainment, Nickelodeon or.

Paul Reynolds:
Smithsonian, Jim Henson production, National Geographic. So people come to us and say, can you help us cause learning in a creative way using some form of media, storytelling and technology? So we’ve been doing that for 28 years with an amazing, amazing team.

Peter Reynolds:
And on any given day we probably have another 30 to 35 freelancers out there. So we’ve got a lot of creative people in the Boston area doing amazing, amazing work. And if you come visit our space and you’re invited to come hang out in that space, you will say, as most people do, wow, I just feel more creative being in this space. And so over the years I said to Paul, I’m like, really? What? Our studio is the feeling of the best classroom, right? You just feel more creative when you’re in that space. And we have more work to do when it comes to school design school spaces need to feel more learning spaces need to feel more engaging and exciting and spark curiosity. So we thought, wouldn’t it be cool to replicate the studio? But instead our clients wouldn’t. We wouldn’t have clients. We would have teachers come in and hang out with us and see and feel what it’s like to have a creative space, a creative learning space and so, and have a safe place to.

Paul Reynolds:
Feel recharged, to have them build their own confidence to say, actually I am creative, I’m getting more creative every day. And a place to do hands on constructionist learning where we want people making things, video, audio, podcasting.

Peter Reynolds:
And obviously kids are welcome to all ages. But we have, we have a special bias towards Teachers, because we feel like teachers. Number one, one of the hardest jobs ever. Number two, it’s getting harder all the time. And under resourced and underappreciated, underfunded. So we notice Teaching Learning and Creativity also stands for.

Matthew Worwood:
Right.

Peter Reynolds:
It’s a tlc. And Tender Loving care, which is what that’s one of our missions is to provide a little bit of love to the teachers that deserve it.

Matthew Worwood:
And I do want to follow up on that because that was the connection that I made immediately. Tlc, I always talk about that. And quite often we say, well, I think they need a little bit of tlc. And there’s certainly at times in the year, we all need a bit of tlc. And of course, educators, particularly during specific times of the academic. I just want to go back a little bit because we are in this physical space. Cynthia and I, as I said, extremely grateful for the opportunity to record this podcast in this physical space. One of the morning challenges at the summit was designing what a school might look like.

Matthew Worwood:
And we had the freedom, we had all these different materials and coming up with ideas of designing a school without any boundaries. So I wondered if you could just elaborate a little bit more. What. What are the physical components that you see that have to exist within a physical environment when it comes to promoting and facilitating creativity?

Peter Reynolds:
Well, I think color is one of the big ones. For me, it’s color and making it feel not like the school boxes that we all can remember. Not that that can’t happen. I think amazing things happen in rectangular boxes. But the way that schools are designed. I travel across the country and around the world and I often see similar setup. There’s a chalkboard in the front and there’s a teacher at the front, and there’s a desk at the front. And all the tables and chairs are kind of faced toward the teacher.

Peter Reynolds:
And I think one of the things, the way we design the space is very, very modular. It can change. And any given day, this whole space changes. And it might be a space where you do want to hear, you know, a sage on the stage, which is a beautiful thing when there’s an amazing sage to share. But we also like when they’re around tables and people are gathered around, like today, such amazing people who all could be sages on the stage, but they were around the table, which of course, circular table. We love circular table because nobody’s at the head of the table. All ideas are good ideas, and that’s one of our mantras. All ideas are good ideas.

Peter Reynolds:
And we wanted to, like today Whatever people wanted to say. And then very quickly, we physically saw buildings built. We saw these cardboard structures and people’s imagination.

Paul Reynolds:
Yeah, it was fun to imagine the perfect learning space. And each group came up with a physical manifestation of that and some sketches to map out what components, which is.

Peter Reynolds:
What we did in this space. We are in a space that was back in the 50s, a bank, and it still has a bank vault. And so if you come visit us in Denham Square in Denham, Massachusetts, not just one town south of Boston, you will get to go sit in our vault, which you both sat in today. And it’s all painted with blue clouds, and there are stars flickering, and there’s low lighting, and there are books and toys and comfy places to curl up and just.

Paul Reynolds:
And we’re about 20 minutes just outside of Boston, just to let people know, because I think we referenced Dead of Massachusetts. People listening to this might not know where Dead of Massachusetts is, but we’re just 20 minutes.

Peter Reynolds:
Massachusetts is in the United States of America. Because I know this is a global podcast.

Paul Reynolds:
That’s right. That’s right. People all around the world.

Peter Reynolds:
So you are all invited, the entire world is invited to our TLC studios.

Cyndi Burnett:
And for those educators listening, we did this wonderful activity that they just referenced to design our ideal creative learning space. And so we encourage you to do that with your students as a starting point, to have discussions about the space that you are teaching in to hopefully enhance the environment that you have and the walls that you are working within.

Matthew Worwood:
And just to build on that. Cindy, one of our actions, our 10 actions for creativity in this book that we’re hopefully going to bring out in 2025, talks a lot about maximizing the environment. And I’m going to throw it out there because it is a Thanksgiving episode. And I do want to encourage us to be thankful for things is to consider your current environment and identify some of the physical attributes of your space that you’re actually thankful for. And then when you’ve identified those things, consider how you might repurpose them or perceive them in a new way that perhaps might fuel a new idea in your current learning environment.

Peter Reynolds:
I love that. And I mean, today we’re celebrating. We call it Big noise, right? Because we’re trying to amp up all the good things that are happening. And there’s lots of creativity happening around the world. Sometimes, you know, it’s officially funded and sanctioned, and sometimes teachers just kind of sneak it in, and parents and people in learning spaces are just making it happen. And it’s encouraging when you hear that good things are happening and it’s contagious, you know, when you hear a good idea. So we are combining voices, so all voices need to chime into this course of creativity.

Paul Reynolds:
And speaking of gratitude, we are grateful for creative educators, the ones who are doing the R and D work, to invent new ways to cause learning in authentic and enduring ways. And people love to rail against public education. We actually know legions of teachers out there who are doing amazing work, breakthrough work, and really proving, proving what is possible, that even in constrained environments, amazing creative learning experiences are possible. So a shout out to all the educators who are doing the good work, even despite all of the challenges.

Peter Reynolds:
So.

Matthew Worwood:
And we are planning on making a really big noise on this podcast in a very short while. But before we do that, you had mentioned parents and I just want to come back to this physical space because and one of the themes, I’d mentioned it with Donna just before you came on the show, that it seems like community is a big part of this and making connections to this community of educators that are out there doing great things. But we also want to make that connection to parents. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how we do that and perhaps how this space might serve as a place that can facilitate conversation between parents and teachers as well.

Peter Reynolds:
Absolutely. Yeah. We forgot to mention parents are welcome here. And I love the idea of bringing parents in, talking to teachers. Of course, I’m a big believer that parents are teacher ish. I mean, they are teachers as well. Right. Because school happens to be teaching down the street.

Peter Reynolds:
But when you get home, you’re still learning and there’s so many learning opportunities to be had. So definitely parents are welcome. And speaking of community, if you come visit TLC Studios, right around the corner is our bookstore. We just celebrated 21 years in Dedham Square. And that is also a community space. You know, yes, it’s a bookstore and a cafe, but it’s a community space. And we encourage people to find their favorite community spaces wherever they happen to be. It might be a cafe or a park or create your own, because this bookstore didn’t exist 21 years ago.

Peter Reynolds:
I walked into a little store that was closing and I said, I wonder what this thing will become? And I slowly turned around and I could see it shimmering into existence. Books and toys and blank books and art supplies. And by the time I had left the shot, I looked from the street and I could see, I saw this little magical bookshop. I turned it into a watercolor. I shared it with Paul. And Paul said, let’s make it happen. The Blue Bunny books and toys.

Matthew Worwood:
And I do want to do a shout out because I love the piano outside as well that says you can, in essence, play me. You’re inviting people to play. And I do want to make a connection. And a past episodes, we spoke about the importance of, you know, quite often we think about how, you know, I want to be big and really be successful on a global stage, but there are also things that we can do in our local communities and be leaders within our local communities, and that’s really important as well. And so it seems small, but that bookstore, when you go there, it’s more than a bookstore. It’s a lot more than that. And I think that piano represents that.

Peter Reynolds:
That’s lovely. Yeah, definitely. Everybody, you know, you can make change happen in your. In your home, in your neighborhood. And if we make those 8 billion changes, we will definitely be moving this planet to a better place.

Cyndi Burnett:
So we are concluding this amazing day of making big noise with some of the most creative educators we have come across. And we are so grateful on this Thanksgiving special episode to be sharing some big noise with all of you.

Peter Reynolds :
Ready?

Donna Luther:
Thank you, everyone.

Cyndi Burnett :
Thank you.

Peter Reynolds:
Thanks for coming.

Cyndi Burnett:
This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is Curiosity to Create, and our editor is Sam Atkins.