The search for "aha!" moments

In 1988, Matt Goldman co-founded Blue Man Group, an off-Broadway production that became a sensation known for its humor, blue body paint and wild stunts. The show works on the premise that certain conditions can create "aha moments" -- moments of surprise, learning and exuberance -- frequent and intentional rather than random and occasional. Now Goldman is working to apply the lessons learned from Blue Man Group to education, creating Blue School, a school that balances academic mastery, creative thinking and self and social intelligence. "We need to cultivate safe and conducive conditions for new and innovative ideas to evolve and thrive," Goldman says.

So it's 1969, New York City,

third grade music class,

and our teacher brings us into a room
with nothing but a piano and chairs.

And one by one, he calls us up,

and he plays middle C,
and he asks us to sing it.

(Singing)

And you're either instructed
to go to the right of the room

or the left side of the room.

(Laughter)

And when all 35 kids are done,

the left side of the room,
which I was a part of,

was told to stand up
and go back to home room.

(Laughter)

And none of us ever received
another music class again

in elementary school.

An in club and an out club
was established,

and I didn't even know
what the gating test was in the moment.

A few years later, English class ...

(Laughter)

first paper of a new semester,

and I get the paper back,

and it's C+,

with the comment,
"Good as can be expected."

(Laughter)

Now, honestly, I didn't mind a C+.

I was just happy it wasn't a C- or a D.

But the "good as can be
expected" comment ...

even at that young age,
it didn't seem right.

It seemed somehow limiting.

Now, how many people here
have had an experience similar to that,

either at school or the workplace?

We're not alone.

So I guess it might be ironic

that my life path
would lead me to a career

of making music and writing
for Blue Man Group

(Laughter)

and starting a school.

(Laughter)

But school was torture for me.

As someone who didn't have
a natural proclivity for academics,

and my teachers never seemed
to understand me,

I didn't know how to navigate schools

and schools didn't know
what to do with me.

So I started to ask the question,
even back then,

if these environments
didn't know what to do

with people who didn't fit
a standard mold,

why weren't we reshaping the environments

to take advantage of people's strengths?

What I've come to believe

is that we need to cultivate
safe and conducive conditions

for new and innovative ideas
to evolve and thrive.

We know that humans
are innately innovative,

because if we weren't,

we'd all be using the same arrowheads
that we were using 10,000 years ago.

So one of the things
that I started to question is,

are there ways to make innovation easier

and happen more frequently?

Is there a way to take those aha moments,

those breakthroughs that seem
to happen randomly and occasionally,

and have them happen
intentionally and frequently?

When we started Blue Man Group in 1988,

we had never done
an off-Broadway show before.

We'd actually done almost no theater.

But we knew what we were passionate about,

and it was a whole series of things
that we had never seen onstage before,

things like art and pop culture
and technology and sociology

and anthropology and percussion
and comedy and following your bliss.

We established a rule

that nothing made it onstage
if we had seen it before,

and we wanted to inspire
creativity and connectedness

in ourselves and our audiences;

we wanted to do
a little bit of social good,

and we wanted to have fun doing it.

And in the office,

we wanted to create an environment
where people treated each other

just a little bit better,

just a little bit more
respect and consideration

than in the outside world.

And we continued to iterate
and collaborate and find solutions

to create things that hadn't been seen.

Over time, I've come to identify
the optimal conditions

for these types of creative
and innovative environments

are clear intent, purpose and passion:

this is working on something
bigger than ourselves.

Personal integrity:

it's doing what we say we're going to do.

It's being our authentic self
in all interactions.

Direct communication
and clear expectations,

even when the subject matter is difficult.

Grit and perseverance:

iteration, iteration, iteration.

Establish collaborative teams.

Instill deep trust and mutual respect.

Everyone on your team is in.

There is no out club.

We rise as a team, we fall as a team,

and decisions are decisions
until they're not.

Embrace multiple perspectives.

This means all voices matter,
all emotions matter.

Address disagreements head-on.

People should feel seen and heard.

Take risks and celebrate mistakes.

A commitment to being
a learning organization,

always trying to spiral upwards
the innovation and learning curves.

And speak in one voice.

This is perhaps the glue
that holds all these conditions together.

The concept is that we speak
in the exact same manner

about someone who's not in the room

as if they are in the room.

Now this seems basic,
but it's an aspirational practice

that helps deal with difficult situations
in a more respectful way.

Sewing this practice in can have
a profound effect on raising the bar,

on mutual respect, trust,

reducing gossip and politics
in the office and the classroom,

and thus reducing the noise that gets
in the way of the innovative process.

At Blue Man Group, iteration
was essential for our creative process.

We were writing a piece

where we were trying to illustrate
the consumption / waste loop

in a funny and creative
and surprising way for our audiences.

Now, if you have yourselves thought about
trying to do the same endeavor,

I can save you a lot of time
right here and now.

I can definitively tell you

that oatmeal, Jell-O, Cream of Wheat,

Gak, pudding, clay, tapioca,
Silly Putty and tomato paste

do not slide through a tube
that's coiled up under your costumes

that's meant to come out
an orifice in your chest

and spray towards the audience.

It won't happen.

(Laughter)

After months of iteration,
we finally happened upon bananas.

(Laughter)

Who knew that bananas
would have the exact right properties

to stay solid even when pushed
through a tube with forced air,

yet slippery enough to have
the dramatic oozing effect

that we were looking for.

(Laughter)

This piece became a signature
of the Blue Man show.

But we didn't throw out
all the rules of theater altogether.

We had set designs.
We had lighting designs.

We had a stage manager calling the shows.

But I'm fairly sure
we were one of the very first shows

that was connecting with our audience
in a respectful way,

by hanging them upside down,

(Laughter)

dipping them in paint,

slamming them against a canvas,

(Laughter)

putting their heads
in 70 pounds of Jell-O,

and then making them
one of the heroes of the show.

(Laughter)

Besides that, we didn't reinvent
what didn't need to be reinvented.

(Laughter)

Years later, we took all this learning
and we created a school --

a school for our children
that we wish we had gone to,

a school where it was just as important

what happened in the hallways
between classes

as what happened in the classes;

a place where you got music class
even when you couldn't sing middle C.

At Blue School, teachers
and parents and students

are equal collaborators at the table,

intentionally creating a safe space

where they can develop
a lifelong, joyful passion for learning.

Again, we didn't try to reinvent the wheel
when it didn't need to be reinvented.

We don't shy away from
the more traditional methods

like direct instruction,
when it's the best way into a lesson.

But we balance it with an integrated
learning across all subjects approach,

and balance is the key.

In fact, Blue School was founded

on a balance between academic mastery,
creative thinking,

and self and social intelligence.

I realize that this might sound
like common sense,

but in some circles, this is radical.

(Laughter)

And these qualities have brought
a lot of attention to Blue School

as a truly innovative school.

Nearly 10 years in,

we announced the expansion
of the middle school.

Our faculty asked our sixth graders

to participate in the development
of middle school values.

Their process began with a question:

What do you need from our community
to be happy and productive at school?

Students moved through a six-week process
of individual work, collaborative work,

refinement, and consensus,

and the list they came up with
is really extraordinary.

Be engaged and present with each other.

Respect and support
what others need in order to learn.

Be inclusive of our diversity --

the way we look, think and act.

Cultivate the practice of self-awareness
and awareness of others.

Honor and make time for fun and joy.

And challenge ourselves,

practice being OK,

making mistakes,

and support each other through them.

Remember, these kids were 11 years old
when they came up with this.

They articulated what took us
20 years to identify.

One of the great by-products
of creating these vibrant communities

is that we become attractors for people
who want to prioritize these values.

They want to prioritize it above things
like money and prestige and tradition.

We can all be on this road together,

you at your own values
in your own companies,

in your own communities and families.

For us, for me, it was about
prioritizing children's voices

to give them the tools to help build
a harmonious and sustainable world.

I invite you to be on this exciting,

passionate, joyful journey together.

And together, good as can be expected

is limitless when the expectation

is that by reshaping our environments,

we can change the world.

Thank you.

(Applause)