Page 218 - Retos y desafios de lo escenarios emergentes en la comunicacion educativa 1

Retos y desafíos de los escenaRios emeRgentes en la comunicación educativa

many ways. Our collaborations include conservative and liberal
groups, intergenerational groups, and those whom you may not
agree with politically, but who value critical discourse, engaging with
differences, and have a basic respect for humanity. We work with many
communities and organizations including educators in Lebanon,
journalists in California, coal miners in Kentucky, youth in Salzburg,
American Muslims in the United States, and Christians in Arkansas.

So how do we encourage the practice of the civic imagination? We
have developed a series of workshops and other activities that invite
others to try to activate the civic imagination. Practicing Futures:
The Civic Imagination Handbook (Peter Lang 2020) chronicles our
process and contains instructions for six of our key civic imagination
workshops. The book is available for download as a PDF on our
website, www.civicimaginationproject.org. For the purposes of our
discussion here, I will briefly introduce each of the six key workshops
contained in the book.

The first workshop we offer is called “Origin Stories.” During this
session, participants are prompted to recall a significant memory
from their past and bring in an object associated with that memory.
They are then asked to imagine that this object possesses magical
superpowers and has the potential to bring about positive change
in the world. This exercise quickly deepens connections among
participants, as they share personal stories and experiences, and
encourages them to think outside of their established narratives.

Our second workshop is called “Infinite Hope”. In this workshop,
participants are invited to brainstorm and imagine what the world
may look like in the future, often by setting a specific date, such
as 2040, and considering aspects such as transportation and urban
design. This brainstorming session includes consideration of both
positive and negative outcomes, including the possibility of dystopian
futures. The participants then work together to generate stories of
change that will move humanity towards these imagined futures.

In our “Remixing Stories” workshop, participants share stories that
inspire them. They then work with others to rework and combine

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