“Yes, and…” Higher Education Network

Launched in 2021, the “Yes, and…” Higher Education Network is a broadly interdisciplinary ‘learning lab’ for educators working in formal/academic and informal/community learning environments. Initiated by Institute faculty, Dr. Carrie Lobman (Rutgers University) and Gwen Lowenheim (Pace University), we meet monthly from Zoom rooms globally to share our work – discoveries, innovations, successes and quandaries – and in that process, create a dynamic discovery zone to advance practical-critical alternatives within the often stultifying and oppressive constraints of traditional pedagogies.

At a time when the developmental demands on our species far exceed capacities for information processing, systematic knowledge-building, and even “critical thinking,” we are inspired by the learning-leading-development framework of early-20th century developmentalist Lev Vygotsky. Building upon Vygotsky’s discoveries about the importance of creative, improvisational play in human development, and the Institute’s advances on his seminal discoveries, we bring a 21st century sensibility to the role of performance and improvisation in fostering learning ensembles.

We continue to advance an understanding that educators and students are both creators and consumers of our learning. We visit and revisit successes emerging from grassroots, community-based, performatory “learning labs,” including those built by ESI co-founders, Fred Newman and Lois Holzman, and emerita colleague, developmental psychologist, Lenora Fulani, and educational disrupters worldwide, playfully stimulating developmental learning for all.

Join us! Please contact Gwen Lowenheim, glowenheim@eastsideinstitute.org.

Gildin, B. and C. Lobman (2003). Performing the Way to Positive and Developmental Relationships in Outside-of-School Programs. Children & Schools, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2024, Pages 59–61

Holzman, L. (2010). Without creating ZPDs there is no creativity. Vygotsky and creativity: A cultural-historical approach to play, meaning making, and the arts, 27-39.

Liberali, F. C. (2009). Creative Chain in the Process of Becoming a Totality/A cadeia criativa no processo de tornar-se totalidade. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso, 2, 01-25.

Lobman, C. (2018). Reconnecting learning to development through performance ensembles. In S. Burgoyne (Ed.). Creativity in theatre: Theory and action in theatre/drama education. New York: Springer Press.

Lowenheim, G. (2021). Embracing Uncertainty: Co-creating classroom communities for meaning making and discovery. Creative Academic Magazine, April 2021, 29-31.

Pernecky, T. & Holzman, L. (2019). Knowledge as play: Centering as what matters in T. Pernecky (Ed.), Postdisciplnary Knowledge, (pp. 115-133). London: Routledge.

Perone, L. & Lobman, C. (2021) Bringing Creative Play into the College Classroom an episode of All Power to the Developing! podcast of the East Side Institute.

Power and Open-Ended Play in Higher Education, a panel discussion as part of The Play, Development and Social Justice Series at the East Side Institute.