Poster developed by MindBurst Workshop with teachers at Sacred Heart College, in collaboration with the artist Paul Emmanuel.
MindBurst Workshop is a non-profit organization that develops training resources and workshops aimed at integrating critical thinking skills into teaching practice, school culture and the work place.
The content of most current school curricula does not equip our learners to face the challenges of the 21st century. By applying a few simple principles and techniques we can “go beyond the content” and equip our learners with the transferable skills they need to engage any content to their advantage. In this way we can enable young people to think critically and creatively, communicate clearly, collaborate dynamically and adapt to change with as little anxiety as possible.
Our approach to designing and facilitating innovative learning experiences includes the integration of dialogue, project-based learning, integrated studies, inclusive education and diversity literacy into teaching practice, school culture and work life.
see what we’ve been up to
Including Every Child – Exploring Practical Techniques
MindBurst Workshop facilitated an Inclusive Education workshop at Kingsmead College, Rosebank, Johannesburg, in May 2019. The school has embraced a commitment to including every child in the learning experience. This expresses itself in a determination to explore unconscious biases and growing edges with regards to transforming teaching practice and…
Continue reading21st century schools are communities that grow and build knowledge together
Our education system has to take some responsibility for the quality of the current political discourse in South Africa, in which there is a lack of willingness to engage the disagreement of others in a productive dialogue. Instead of collaborating to solve development challenges that are critical to the health…
Continue readingThe rules of engagement – exploring the skills of dialogue through hip hop
The ability to engage in productive dialogue is one of the most important skills for thriving in the 21st century. The skills of productive dialogue enable us to resolve conflict through non-violent means, empower us to participate in democratic processes and equip us to become collaborative agents in the on-going process of knowledge production….
Continue readingWhat the Liliesleaf archive tells us about research skills
We bear enormous responsibility for how we use the past to shape the future … in order to become worthy ancestors to the as yet unborn collective children. The stakes are high: the archive at once produces and destabilises the nation, and the challenge to the worthy ancestor is to…
Continue readingThe Future Is Not What It Used To Be: Fourth Industrial Revolution Workshops at Sacred Heart College
Imagine 150 Grade 8 & 9 learners in a hall playing a game they don’t know the rules to. They have to work together in teams to figure out the hidden rules of the game and then try to win it. There is minimal instruction. Learners have to do something,…
Continue readingA country does not have to be wealthy to prepare its children for the future: a reflection o the Worldwide Educating For the Future Index 2018 report
It turns out that a country does not have to be wealthy to make significant progress in preparing its children for the future. What it does need to do, according to the Worldwide Educating For the Future Index (WEFFI) report, is shift its focus beyond measuring the memorisation of specific…
Continue readingStop-frame animation by refugee children
MindBurst has worked with the refugee children of Three2Six to produce two stop frame animations, Precieuse – a refugee’s story in 2011, and a precious life in a scary world (2017). Working on projects like this with children between the ages of 6 and 11 is a revelation. We do…
Continue readingTalking and thinking about refugees
Towards the end of 2017, Mindburst Workshop was approached by Sacred Heart and Three2Six with the idea of creating a resource for teachers that made it easier for them to incorporate lessons surrounding refugee issues into their classroom. The aim of the book was to provide all the background…
Continue readingSustainable Building Workshops with St. Benedict’s
In 2018 we had the great pleasure of working with the dynamic Delia Kench and the staff of St Benedict’s on a three-day workshop that aimed at encouraging learners to think deeply, plan strategically and explore the skills associated with design – engaging some of the transferable skills valued in…
Continue readingThe Evolution Game
Learners at Sacred Heart College discover the principles of evolution by natural selection from the bottom up by playing a MindBurst boardgame. The Evolution Game was originally developed for the Integrated Studies workshops on the 4th Industrial Revolution at Sacred Heart College. It was focused on engaging learners in knowledge…
Continue readingThrowing the Bones: superstition or information technology?
MindBurst has been exploring a wealth of knowledge resources from Africa that have been overlooked by our curricula. Colonial ideas have reduced many valuable practices like African divination systems to primitive superstition. This is a product of arrogance and ignorance combined. We asked ourselves: What if we reconsidered ‘throwing the…
Continue readingGarbology
The tables are covered with thin plastic sheets like those in an evidence lab. Before each chair sits a pair of latex gloves, and on the floor next to each table waits a black dustbin bag. This is the scene that has faced learners and teachers as they arrive…
Continue readingBuilding a Control Panel of the Mind
This lesson was inspired by something the motivational speaker, Anthony Robbins, said: Questions are the control to your own experience of life … What makes the biggest difference in life? It’s not the events that shape your life. It’s how you evaluate them. If you change your questions, you…
Continue reading#iexist – a massive project-based learning initiative with King David Linksfield
We invite you to go on a deep dive with us into the process of designing and facilitating project-based learning, by exploring one project in some detail. In 2017, in collaboration with Lorraine Srage, Dino Angelou and Caryn Horowitz we facilitated the #iexist exhibition with Grade 8 and 9 learners…
Continue reading… my success is what i say it is
You are only free to act according to your own will if you know what you want. You can’t really say, “I know what I want”, if you are just conforming to some ideal or default pattern you have never questioned. If you do not know what you want you…
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