winded.vertigo

we reward the smooth version. the clean deck.
the confident summary. the doc with no loose ends.

but smoothness is often just the sound of feedback being removed.

the hesitation someone edited out. the failed attempt nobody logged. the "actually, this didn't work" that got sanded down before the meeting.

a system can get very good at looking coherent without getting any better at responding to the world. it stays smooth right up until it meets something it was never built to register. then it snaps.

the crease is the inconvenient part. it's also the only place you can see where something actually learnt.

jamie has a piece on reading the marks instead of polishing them away — worth your time if you've ever mistaken a clean surface for a working one. there's a whole substack waiting once you start pulling that thread. https://open.substack.com/pub/windedvertigo/p/learning-to-fly-the-crease-as-curriculum?r=5ka9ut&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

much of sustainability education focuses on external systems. markets, policies, technologies, and organisational change. what is less often addressed is the internal capacity required to stay with those challenges over time.

we close the series by facilitating contemplative and regenerative pedagogies with Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), focusing on the role of reflection, attention, and inner development in responsible management education. these are not additional layers to an already full curriculum, but ways of shaping how learning happens within it.

in this session, faculty explore simple, structured practices such as freewriting, journaling, and moments of pause as pedagogical tools. the aim is not to introduce something abstract, but to create space for deeper engagement, clearer thinking, and more deliberate decision-making. inner development is approached here as a complement to systems change, not a replacement for it.

the question is less about adding new content, and more about what students need in order to stay present to complexity, make thoughtful choices, and sustain their work over time.

read more: https://www.unprme.org/pedagogy-certification/

most approaches to faculty development focus on the individual. new tools, new methods, new ideas to bring back into the classroom. what is less often designed for is what happens after, when those efforts need to be sustained, challenged, and evolved over time.

this week, we facilitate building communities of practice through sensemaking and storytelling with Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) by shifting the focus from individual improvement to shared practice. pedagogical change rarely holds on its own. it is carried through relationships, reinforced through conversation, and made durable through the ways people make sense of their work together.

in this session, faculty explore how communities of practice form and what allows them to last. storytelling is approached not as performance, but as structure. a way of articulating experience, aligning around shared purpose, and making decisions about what to continue, what to change, and what to let go of. the work is not only to build connection, but to create the conditions where that connection continues to generate movement.

read more: https://www.unprme.org/pedagogy-certification/

conversations about ai in education often move quickly to tools. what they can generate, how they can be used, and how quickly they are evolving. what is less often addressed is how these tools are understood, questioned, and situated within broader systems of responsibility.

this week, we facilitate leveraging ai and emerging technologies for responsible management education with Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) by starting from that gap. ai literacy is not only about using tools effectively, but about recognising how they shape decisions, reflect bias, and redistribute accountability. the challenge is not simply integration, but interpretation.

in this session, faculty examine how ai can be used as part of the learning process without losing critical distance. real-world cases, governance frameworks, and structured prompts become ways of engaging students in how these systems operate and where their limitations sit. the focus shifts from what ai can produce to how it should be evaluated, questioned, and applied within business contexts.

read more: https://www.unprme.org/pedagogy-certification/

we talk about learning like it starts from scratch, a blank page, a clean attempt

but nothing returns to blank

fold a sheet of paper into a plane, no instructions
throw it, then unfold it

the marks stay
the crease where expectation met reality and had to adjust

that mark doesn’t disappear
it shapes what happens next

in his latest reflection, jamie writes about the crease as curriculum
and why the signals we smooth out are often the only places learning has actually occurred

read the full piece on substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/windedvertigo/p/learning-to-fly-the-crease-as-curriculum?r=5ka9ut&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

play in education is often misunderstood as a break from serious work. something to lighten the room or increase engagement. in practice, it can function as something much more deliberate. a way of structuring how people encounter uncertainty, test ideas, and respond in real time.

this week, we facilitate play as pedagogy for uncertainty and innovation with Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) by treating play as a rigorous design choice. when learning environments are built to be active, social, and iterative, they begin to resemble the conditions under which real problems are actually navigated. ambiguity is not removed. it is worked with.

in this session, faculty examine how structured forms of play, from simulations to improvisation to design challenges, can be integrated into business education without losing depth. these approaches do not replace analytical thinking. they create a setting in which it can be applied under pressure, alongside judgement, collaboration, and adaptation. the question is not whether play belongs in serious learning, but what becomes possible when it is used with intention.

read more: https://www.unprme.org/pedagogy-certification/

lectures are often designed around the logic of the person teaching. ideas are organised clearly, explained thoroughly, and delivered efficiently. from the learner’s perspective, the experience can feel very different. the structure that feels smooth to the teacher can leave the learner doing relatively little of the actual cognitive work.

this week, we facilitate active learning strategies with Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) by focusing on that shift. active learning is not about adding activities into a session. it is about changing where the work of learning happens. when learners are asked to retrieve, apply, and test ideas themselves, the role of the session changes from delivery to design.

in this session, faculty work through that change in practice. familiar lecture segments are examined and restructured so that the cognitive load moves back to the learner. what emerges is not a replacement for content, but a different way of organising it. the question becomes less about how much material is covered, and more about what actually happens to that material once it is introduced.

read more: https://www.unprme.org/pedagogy-certification/

play is the technology. justice is the direction. aliveness is what becomes possible when both are present.

these aren’t separate values. they operate as one system. remove any one and the others don’t just weaken, they distort into something that can look right while reproducing the same outcomes.

play without justice doesn’t open things up. it redistributes freedom unevenly. the same people experiment, the same voices take risks, and the same communities remain outside the conditions that make growth possible. it can look alive, but it’s selective.

justice without play resolves structure but flattens possibility. people have access, but not agency. the process is equitable, but nothing unexpected emerges. equity without vitality is still a system that isn’t learning.

aliveness is not a layer you add. it’s what happens when the conditions hold both.

when there is real room to experiment, and that room is not limited to those who already feel safe. when risk is possible, and the lowering of that risk is distributed, not assumed.

that’s the design challenge.

not play alone. not justice alone. the integration.

because the question isn’t only whether experimentation is possible, but for whom, and what becomes possible when the answer is everyone.

what does it look like when aliveness is absent?

it looks like meetings that run on time and produce nothing that matters. teams hit their KPIs and quietly disengage. learners complete the module and forget it by Thursday. organisations function, and innovate never.

it looks like competence without curiosity, participation without investment. people show up because they have to and leave exactly who they were when they arrived. no real surprise, no revision, no risk. just maintenance.

we’ve normalised this. built systems around predictability, control, and outcomes we can name before anything begins. we call it professionalism. we call it rigor. we call it “just how work is.”

but the cost compounds.

people stop asking the interesting questions. stop sharing the half-formed idea. stop encountering anything that might change them, because the system has made change too expensive. error becomes threat. uncertainty becomes failure.

this isn’t burnout. burnout is loud. this is quieter.

it’s the slow exit of aliveness from environments that were never designed to hold it. the gradual narrowing of what’s possible, not because people can’t, but because nothing in the structure invites them to.

and over time, the system loses its capacity to learn.

aliveness isn’t a reward for getting it right. it’s a signal that the conditions are working.

you notice it in the design decisions nobody announces.

the feedback process gets redesigned because it only worked for people who already felt safe speaking. the partnership starts over because “consultation” meant one meeting and a sign off. the evaluation framework gets scrapped because it measured compliance, not agency. the intake form gets rewritten because it assumed a first language, a stable address, a specific kind of family.

these aren’t grand gestures. they’re structural shifts. small moments where someone asked who isn’t this working for, and changed something. not a statement. not a commitment. a different design.

justice doesn’t always look like transformation. sometimes it looks like a slower timeline. a harder conversation. a process that becomes less efficient because more people actually hold power in it. sometimes it looks like stopping something that works fine for the people it was designed for, because it’s failing everyone else.

the form isn’t the point. the conditions are. and conditions are always designed by someone. the question is whether the people most affected by those conditions had any say in shaping them.

you don’t add justice to your work. you notice where your design is already excluding it, and you redesign from there. not as a phase. not as a review. as the foundation the whole thing stands on.

because when the conditions aren’t equitable, learning doesn’t just slow down. it stops. and no amount of good intention builds it back.