Street Smarts by David Pearl
So there I am on a cobbled street in Amsterdam in 2008 and something strange is happening. I am walking in a tight circle, round and round, like this part of the street is magnetised. And before you ask — no, I haven’t been taking drugs. I have come to Holland for a few days to decompress and think about my future career. Where next? What’s my next step? What direction should I go? I have been wandering the streets asking those question. Listening to the sounds. Looking for signs. And now the street is ‘answering me’. It’s saying ‘stay where you are and explore’. And that’s what I have been doing ever since. Exploring the inspirational potential of the ordinary city street and how we can use it as a medium for learning.
Several years of research and experimentation later we set up a non-profit social enterprise to share what we’ve learned with the wider world. It’s called Street Wisdom.
I don’t know about you, but my tendency is to hurry through the street on my way to and from work, meetings, events. The street is just a means of getting from A to B. And travelling along is something you do as quickly as possible, preferably listening to music and answering emails on your smartphone. Look closer and you’ll see most people have their attention turned inward. They’re thinking about what’s just happened or what’s about to. More often than not, worrying.
What happened to me in Amsterdam — and I’ve been learning more and more about ever since — is to turn your attention outward. To treat the environment as your conversation partner. To ask it a question and see what it replies.
It turns out streets are fantastic places to learn. It’s no coincidence, I think, that curriculum, course and way — all words associated with learning — are also descriptions of streets.
Learning on the move is not a new idea. The peripatetic philosophers (from the Greek peripatetikos or ‘walking about’) were so called because their founder Aristotle was said to have walked about while lecturing. The fidgety French philosopher Rousseau claimed ‘my mind works only with my legs’ and Neitzche went even further claiming ‘all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking’.
Nor is it new to use the streets for inspiration. The Flâneur movement in 19th Century France saw poets like Baudelaire sauntering incognito in the busy streets drinking in stimulus: “Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy.”
What we’re doing with Street Wisdom is to update the idea and give people a simple way to transform any ordinary street, anywhere in the world into a learning tool.
It’s not complicated. We worked hard to make it truly simple. The principles are ones you can try any day for yourself. Essentially, you tune up your senses. Then you think of a question you’d like a fresh answer to and go for a wander.
We have a four-step approach to tuning your senses, but the fast track is simply to slow — right — down. That means breathe, walk, blink, do everything way slower than you would normally. You’ll know you’re doing this right when you feel people are looking at you oddly. The point is to break the unwritten rule which says streets are there to be hurried down. The minute you change the default tempo of city and start to wander — things get interesting.
Another important factor in successful street learning is asking a question — not just thinking, but actively asking — and repeating the question almost like a mantra. This helps you focus, make connections, find meaning in your surroundings and spot answers you’d otherwise miss. Your rational mind may find this silly at first. How can a street talk to you? But when you start to really engage your senses and intuition you come realise that the street is ALWAYS talking to us; we’re just not listening.
Asking the Street can include asking the strangers you meet there. It’s amazing how often random strangers have exactly the wisdom you are looking for. You’ll find answers are everywhere. And so, if you reach out to ask, are teachers.
The final key to environmental learning is the question you ask. We recommend it’s not too universal (what is the meaning of it all?) or trivial (hmmm,diet coke or regular?). And nothing with a judgement or self-criticism hidden in it. A good example is the participant in Sofia whose original question was ‘why I can’t concentrate properly?’ With a bit of tuning he went out on the street making the much more productive request ‘how can I channel my lively mind for optimum results?
Street Wisdom is active in 18 countries and we’re hoping it’s going to become a truly global movement bringing inspirational learning to every city street in the world.
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize.” Thich Nhat Hanh
David Pearl is founder of Street Wisdom. This is part of the “Teacher” section of our new series of Hacker, Maker, Teacher, Thief essays. You can buy the book that inspired the series, Hacker,Maker, Teacher, Thief: Advertising’s Next Generation, here.
