What is a 3RDspace?

[Ralph Cordova]

On our last day, in the morning of July 13, 2012, we created a Dragonfly (Patti Swank), Octopus (Ben Bates) and a Helicopter (Jen Kohan). We then settled back inside the Tavern of Fine Arts and focused on the Quick-Write question: "What is a 3RDspace?"

Please retrieve your Writer's Notebook and share with us what your wrote in response to that question. We'd love those insights in a proposal for a to several research conferences. This data helps us make the public case that this sort of professional development is useful if not powerful for site leaders and educators.

Post your responses below:

[2h34ahwngetdf]

What is a 3rd space?

A new space, an open space, a space of possibilities, probabilities, conjecture and exploration...Open to input without the internal and external critics... a freeing space, a richer environment

springboard--a place to gain some balance and jump

time slows down

[19sucnwojeggz]

3Rd Space:

Based on the experiences I had during our institute, I would say a 3rd space is a place where colleagues can come together to collaborate, learn together, try out new strategies, etc. It is different from your home space or your work space.  A 3rd Space has a specific purpose and people use it for specific reasons. For a dancer, a 3rd space might be their practice studio, for an engineer it might be a special place where they can design/create. For educators a 3rd space should to be a stress free environment away from their classrooms, schools, administrators, where they can work collectively and productively.

[Nicole Schon]

What is a 3rd space? A place aside from work, aside from personal life, where I can take time to focus on the broader scope of what needs doing. Often times the larger challenges are let untouched because they are AO big, or because there's no one to lead the way. Here the daunting becomes just a smidgen more palatable as we think in terms of play, release our need for perfection, suspend the judgement. 

I also think of 3rd space as an alternative mental state of mind– a purposefully and focused collaborative, empathetic, fun place that allows for movement and growth.

[12u38fwvu6prl]

What is a 3RDspace? In my reality a 3RDspace is that notion that we should adapt or learn to adapt ourselves in various environments or situations that we may find ourselves in. It's the thinking that we can become that space in terms of opening our minds to the possibility of change. How we use that space, consists of exploring, envisioning and enacting. When allowed to be as creative as possible, that 3RDspace can open us up to new,untapped and endless possibilities that we may not have thought achievable.