Thanks to David Gurteen for recently reviewing the film World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements. Gurteen is a internationally acclaimed knowledge management expert who is based in the UK. His wonderful comments and explanation of The World Peace Game are on his blog.
Here is part of what David had to say about the film:
As I first watched the film and the complexity of the game started to dawn on me, I was highly sceptical that these 4th graders could possibly cope with it. I was wrong, so damned wrong! Watching the kids handle with the complexities and ambiguities of the game is absolutely delightful. I’d have little problem with putting them in charge of the world tomorrow!
About David Gurteen
David Gurteen of Gurteen Knowledge Website at gurteen.com is a internationally acclaimed knowledge management expert who is based in the UK. He travels all over the world leading conversations about our lives and our society. These knowledge cafes are open and creative group conversations on a topic of mutual interest. The format of a shared conversation that is facilitated is a great tool to surface collective knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the subject and the issues involved. Having a conversation is a path to understanding and action, unlike a meeting is. A conversation is a tool that can lead to discovery, insight, and knowing, much like a conversation is cafe.
An excellent resource on conversations is the book by David Isaacs and Juanita Brown titled The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter. Isaacs and Brown are inspired by the work of Peter Senge and Margaret Wheatley who wrote the forward to the book. They believe deeply in the power of conversation to create shared understanding and shared motivation toward action.
The conversation cafe is very pertinent to John Hunter’s work and the World Peace Game. As we see in the film, his students hold many types of conversation about the world dilemmas they are tasked with solving. We seem them learn not only the power of conversation but the difference in outcomes depending on the types of conversations engaged in. Learning to collaborate and cooperate, to honor differences and celebrate similarities are at the heart of The World Peace Game and are the basis for a knowledge cafe.
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Robin Moyle
Sienna Wright
John N. Hunter Jr.
Jenny Knight
Madeline Hunter
Stephanie Gruner Buckley