MYFest Schedule: All Years

Come and dance with us!

In our first synchronous meet-up we’ll get to know each other and decide what we would like to do together. People who have done readers theater before can share their experiences, and we can decide what kinds of plays we want to read together for MYFest24, and we can also brainstorm some plays we might want to write together. And, of course, we’ll read a play. Or two!

Join us for the first community building session - meet other participants, share your hopes and expectations for MYFest, ask any questions you have. Please register in advance for this session. Click on the session name to find the registration link.

This will be a continuous lowkey way to capture the beautiful quotes, concepts and other ephemera we come across. You can share your favourite quotes of all time, or just drop in something you’ve seen on the day. It will be a spot to recharge and be inspired by amazing things others have found. At the end of MYFest, we could collectively create something from what we’ve discovered. Click on the name of the session to see the link to the Padlet.

This is the Wisdom of Fools website: MYFest24.LauraGibbs.net This is the asynchronous MYFest-long event. We will have a month of asynchronous activities and prompts in June, followed by a workshop in July when we can talk together about what we've learned and decide where we want to go next.

The phrase "artificial intelligence" can be quite misleading, and the difference between intelligence and understanding can be disastrous. Join this exploration of the limits of machine intelligence. Session recording and slides now available!

ChatGPT (and other LLMs) can be an all-purpose tool, but why use a hammer when you need a screwdriver? In this workshop, we'll build customized GPTs to better serve your goals. Session recording and slides now available!

Healing circles are a means for people to come together for meaningful connection through deep listening and compassion. Using poetry, and other forms of creative expression, healing circles invite participants to move out of intellectual consciousness into emotional consciousness, connecting more deeply with what’s in their hearts as well as their minds. Spaces are limited so separate registration is required. Please click on the session name to find the link of the registration form.

Theresa Destrebecq will be facilitating a book circle on the book Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin. Book circles have maximum 18 participants, and we try to build community by maintaining the same set of people over the entire period. If you are planning to attend this book circle, you will need to fill out a separate registration form. Click of the session title to get to the registration link.

Join us for an hour of supporting each other's writing... quietly... where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we've accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

For this session, we will be using a Voice & Silence framework to explore how we ourselves, or those we educate or support, use Voice or Silence. This framework is a four-quadrant model which distinguishes between productive und unproductive forms of Voice and Silence. It originated from the work of Amy C. Edmondson and Tijs Besieux, with the intention of helping foster high-quality conversations. Whether in a social, traditional work or educational environment, we all share the challenges of providing the best possible balance of equal voice, diversity of thought, reflection and critical information. This framework can offer essential insights into how inclusive our meetings, training or exchanges are and why. The Silence & Voice is a 2 part series, with asynchronous work in the middle. Again, if you are unable to attend the 1st session, it won't make sense to attend the 2nd session as you will be missing the foundational work, and the independent writing on the break day. However, if you can only attend the first session, you're welcome to. Click on the Session title to get to the registration link.

Join us for the first community building session — get to know other participants more deeply, imagine how to make the most of your MYFest experience together, get support on some of your pressing challenges this year.

TBA Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

Asynchronous preparation for Session 2 Writing of experiments using a dedicated Google slide deck

Join us for an hour of supporting each other's writing... quietly... where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we've accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

To live a meaningful, happy and fulfilled life, we as adults take the charge and responsibility to heal ourselves from whatever made us disconnected from our essence. We take the lead to restore our authentic self to accept who we are and acknowledge our unmet needs and unattended emotions; some of us feel unsafe, unseen, unaccepted or unworthy; some feel not good enough to show up to the world as who we are; gradually and subconsciously we developed a survival persona with its various coping mechanisms to feel safe and significant. Some of us have developed a selfless pattern of behaviors and some have developed selfish patterns. Becoming awakened through pain and struggles, some of us are ready to see and perceive that self-kindness is crucial for health & growth. Our journey with understanding our 8 capacities gives us safe spaces to reach out to ourselves and expand our inner wisdom to restore our self-concept and reconstruct our beliefs; a new set of beliefs that enables us to break the cycle of unhealthy patterns and move forward in-life. I have created the need for developing the 8 capacities within us out of my own personal wisdom of how self compassion is crucial to receiving and living a healthier life. I was able to connect, feel and heal. I have progressed on reclaiming my inner wisdom and enjoyed a new reality of becoming self compassionate. Recording and slides now available.

Session 2: In this follow-up session, we will be • sharing our experiments with each other • cross-checking the experiments with the insights from Session 1 • refining and fine-tuning our experiments to plug-and-play Takeaways At the end of both sessions, you will have a more diverse understanding of how people contribute and what they need to do so productively. In addition, you will have a collection of experiments to use for your own work environments. In this follow-up session, we will be • sharing our experiments with each other • cross-checking the experiments with the insights from Session 1 • refining and fine-tuning our experiments to plug-and-play Takeaways At the end of both sessions, you will have a more diverse understanding of how people contribute and what they need to do so productively. In addition, you will have a collection of experiments to use for your own work environments.

This hour-long interactive workshop will introduce 3 approaches to working effectively with change-resistors & work through a case study together, with plenty of time for reflection and sharing. Outcome: lowered frustration for trainers and aspiring change-makers. Session recording, worksheets, and slides now available!

In the face of systems of oppression, it’s easy to feel down-trodden and hopeless. In this workshop, we will identify types of power, what our power-style might be, and build solidarity and mental well-being for/with one another. Session recording and slides now available!

This interactive session will look at poetry and how it can be used to support reflective practice and learning in higher education and beyond. Session recording and slides now available!