An ode to Collective Learning*

What do we want,
from this space,
here together?
Cocooned by the question of a collective future.

What does it mean to be truly together?
To listen.
To learn.
To let go of what’s known.

What is knowledge?
We ask,
as our brains start to open

Where is power?
We question,
as the singular turns plural

Stop telling us who.
Stop telling us how.
Stop telling us when, what is and what’s not.

Start listening to those being stunted by noise.

Start listening now,
to the planet we’ve exploited.

As strangers,
we stumble into a newly formed circle.
A womb, someone said.
Or an igloo with holes in.

Education in the wild.

In a wild.
We share.

Who’s work is important?
And who’s control are we under?

Who teaches who?
And when can we swap?

When do we learn?
From the start to the end?
Who decides for us?
And why should it stop?

Where is our power?
To form new collectives.
To make our own lessons.
And build our own futures.

Who cares enough,
To speak out against it?
Or who cares enough,
to mend it or break it?

But we need to be careful,
with ourselves and each other.
Where did the care go?
And how do we find it?

An experiment, we said,
without metrics to count.
Success will mean nothing,
until we’ve tried something out.

Why take a picture?
Why write it down?
When is our time together just about now?

The language of us.
The language of we.
The language of love,
peace,
protest,
and anarchy.

The time to be radical.
The time to be kind.
The time to be wrong.
The time to be quiet.

The time to hope.
The time to believe.
The time to belong.
The time to breath.

The time to hustle.
The time to stop.
The time to listen.
The time to act.

The time – for us all – is now.

* A summary of the dialogues that emerged inside the first Collective Design School experiment at the V&A, between Sept 14-22, 2019

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