About Heliotrope ‹ Heliotrope

About Heliotrope

Heliotrope is an international social enterprise based in Canada. It was established in 2004 to promote a powerful learning game system called Prelude. Prelude is now being used in Middle Schools, High Schools, Colleges, Community Agencies, and Workplace Training. It helps foster self-awareness, creativity, collaboration, and an appreciation for diversity.

These skills are referred to variously as EQ for Emotional Quotient, EI for Emotional Intelligence, or SEL for Social and Emotional Literacy. They are needed at all stages of life, from sandbox to corporate suite. Their lack is directly linked with dire, costly societal challenges like school dropping out and workplace bullying.

Prelude uses the natural elements – fire, air, water, & earth – as a metaphor. This helps players to positively picture themselves, each other, and their relation to community and the greater world. In the process, players create striking artifacts for their life-career portfolios. Whether a player is 12, 20, or 40, Prelude can be revelatory and transformative. It’s great fun too!

This proven learning game system has four activity modules. It can be played in several 45-minute units, or half a day. Training is online and requires less than 60 minutes. Prelude is easy to learn and implement.

Our Vision

Like sunlight, the human imagination is a limitless source of transformational energy. Einstein said it encircles the world. Everything begins with trust in one’s innate capacity to dream, to aspire, and to create.

Our Mission

Heliotrope helps nurture the human spirit at school, at work, and within the community through innovative learning tools.

What Is A Heliotrope?

Heliotrope is one of those words with several different meanings. It describes variously a small purple flower, a gemstone, a survey instrument, and a botanical phenomenon. Plants that face towards the sun throughout the day, such as sunflowers or shamrocks, are also called heliotropes. The phenomenon is called a heliotropic effect. This term also describes what occurs when groups create and share life-affirming images of their future. People naturally respond to this positive vision just as flowers turn towards the sun.

Prelude Testimonials

Education

Prelude, is going to be a crucial new addition to education and training on a global basis. Our perspective is informed by over a decade of progressive work in national education.

Heather MacTaggart, Executive Director — Classroom Connections

I cannot imagine a school or community agency now using our resources that would not want Prelude as a prelude to them. Within very little time, Prelude transforms a group of perfect strangers into a high-efficiency team comprised of individuals who understand and appreciate their own personal strengths in new ways, and respect the unique assets of all other team members.

Phillip S. Jarvis, Vice President, Global Partnerships — National Life Work Centre

Prelude has helped changed my classroom and my practice. It enables teachers and students to share a journey of discovery. As a result, my Grade 7 students have a better understanding of themselves, how they can better relate to each other, and to the world around them. The students are more comfortable with who they are and who they are becoming. This, in turn, gave us a better appreciation of what each individual offers the group, and what “working together” actually means. My classroom is a more positive and dynamic learning space. Prelude supports students by allowing them to discover and reflect upon their positive inner aspects. It helps them develop self-esteem, a “can-do” attitude, and real working-world skills – negotiation, compromise, and collaboration. Students are better equipped to begin to assume the responsibility for their own education

Gail Klinck, Teacher – Massey-Vanier High School; Cowansville, Quebec

In all my years facilitating workshops of one month, one week, and even one day, I’ve never seen students learn about themselves or come together as a group as quickly and enjoyably as they do with Prelude. This is an important new tool for college student orientation programs and for staff development too.

J.D. Szezepaniak, Life Skills Coach and Readiness Coordinator – Northern Lakes College, Alberta

Community Agencies

This is a wonderful activity. The overall concept of Prelude is unique and serves a great purpose in the educational and/or employment field. It gave the participants a boost of self-confidence, it helped with their team building and most importantly, it provided them with an “Ah Ha” moment vis-à-vis the artwork they created. The “I, We, and All” transition was spectacular!

Zeina Dghaim, Facilitator/Coach, Employability Skills for Youth Program – Centre for Education & Training, Ontario

‘Prelude’ was instrumental in bringing participants together and creating a positive avenue of self-expression throughout. As individuals moved into teams, they also became more aware of their level of responsibility during their chosen Community Service Projects. Prelude deserves to be implemented into the existing school system curriculum and/or introduced to the community at large. Its benefits are far-reaching..

Marion Prochnau, Lead Counsellor – Sunshine Coast Employment Centre; BC

Workplace Training

Our staff found Prelude fun, engaging and stimulating. More than that, it revealed assets in some of our team that had previously remained hidden and it brought other HR issues out into the open and challenged us to deal with them. We are currently determining how we can add Prelude to the SiG tool kit of resources available to our 500+ clients who are running social ventures.

Allyson Hewitt — MaRS Director of Social Entrepreneurship; SIG@MaRS Director

Management & Advisory

Howard B. Esbin created Prelude and founded Heliotrope. He oversees strategy, research, marketing, and sales. Howard has 25 years of senior management experience in the private sector, international development, and philanthropy. He earned his doctorate in education from McGill University in 1998. His work has been published by UNESCO, the International Labour Organization, and the Canadian Education Association. Please visit Heliograph, to see what Howard’s writing about these days.

Ross McKegney is a business technologist and serial entrepreneur with a decade of experience in enterprise architecture, product management, technical pre-sales, strategic partner management, and software R&D. He is responsible for Heliotrope’s technology platform underlying Prelude, evangelizing the platform to stakeholders, managing strategic alliances with technology partners, and building and managing the R&D organization. Ross has filed 10 patents in areas ranging from digital media to SOA to business-to-business e-Commerce. He holds a BA/BCS from UNB, an MSc in Computing from Queen’s University, and an MBA from the Rotman School. In parallel to his progressive career in technology management, he is a professor of technology strategy at the UOIT business school, and advisor to several technology-oriented startups.

Chris Lowry, M.Ed. is a green specialist in media, education, and communications. As Heliotrope’s Business Development Director he promotes and facilitates Prelude for workplace training, staff development, and team building. He is also Senior Network Advisor with Green Enterprise Ontario (GEO), a sustainable business alliance. Chris co-founded Green Enterprise Toronto (GET), Street Kids International (SKI), Razorback Press, and The Journal of Wild Culture. He’s also worked with agencies such as MSF/Doctors Without Borders (Canada) in the field of child health and rights. In 2004, Chris completed a Masters in Philosophy of Education at OISE/University of Toronto. Chris is also an award-winning producer who has had senior roles in both independent media production businesses and non-profit organizations. His AIDS education cartoon Karate Kids was translated into 30 languages. Chris’s writing is featured in leading international publications including World Health Forum, Development Communication Report, and Children, Youth and Environments.

Heliotrope’s advisors include the Centre for Social Innovation and MaRS, and the Eastern Townships School Board.

Prelude’s Genesis

Chapter I

Prelude’s design is informed by H. B. Esbin’s doctoral and postdoctoral research into participatory learning, the creative process, and positive psychology. It’s also informed practically by two decades in senior management spanning the private sector, international development, and philanthropy. The following outlines the game’s genesis.

Esbin’s first career was in the jewellery industry. Over 15 years, he held executive positions in manufacturing, importing, and retail. For example, Esbin oversaw the merchandising of Mappins, a national upscale retail jewellery chain of 120 stores. Given his great success in producing highly saleable collections, Esbin was increasingly called on to train others in more effective merchandising. It soon became evident to him that most people devalued or denied their own imagination and creativity. As a trained designer and gemologist, from a long line of designers, he’d taken his natural ability for granted. Now he wanted to help others rediscover their own innate capacity. After much reflection, Esbin returned to university to learn why and what could be done about it.

In 1985, Esbin enrolled in the visual arts education bachelors program at McGill University. This included a year teaching practicum. The student teacher was expected to prepare and teach lesson plans for classes from Grade’s 1 – 11. For his own Grade 11 class, Esbin wanted to do something special with the students. During a random search in the McGill Education Library, a book caught his eye. Don Pavey an educator in the UK wrote “Arts-Based Games” in 1979. It hardly had been out of the library in several years.

Greatly intrigued, Esbin decided to try Pavey’s ideas with his Grade 11 class. The students were resistant at first. This experience was unlike anything they, or Esbin, ever experienced previously. However by the time it was over four weeks later, they’d all were highly engaged and energized. The photo below of that class captures their spirit. Esbin then condensed the process for his practicum professor and fellow teachers-in- training at McGill. They played a version over 2 hours. Here too the experience was positive. Esbin went on to graduate and postgraduate studies. He didn’t think about the Art Arena Model again for 18 years. In retrospect, unbeknownst to Esbin, it actually lay dormant, as is explained below.

It’s worth sharing a little of Pavey’s genius. In the late 1960s, he’d been searching for game using visual art making that would promote winning as a group outcome involving all teams. Although Pavey discovered many interesting models and tools, he didn’t find what he sought. In the tradition of all great visionaries and inventors, he went about creating his own game. He ultimately called it the Art Arena Model. AAM helped players strike a dynamic balance between freedom and control as well as individual and group expression. Throughout the 1970s, thousands of individuals across Great Britain – in primary schools, high schools, universities, and business – played some version of AAM. Arts-Based Games was Pavey’s magnum opus incorporating his remarkable research and experiences.

[In 1970, in a strange synchronistic foreshadow, just as Pavey was getting into full swing in London with the Art Arena Model, Esbin was a first year painting student at Pratt Institute in New York. For the foundation design course, he had to create some kind of group activity. He designed a game called Shh! This involved a group deciding in silence what pattern to create with a set of 64 silk- screened 10" x 10" cards. Esbin was trying to combine elements from John Cage and the I Ching. His design class played Shh! in November 1970. This was the only time it was played. Interestingly Shh!, like the Art Arena Model, also used a grid and involved the group creation of a mural.]

Chapter II

In 1992, Esbin’s doctoral fieldwork took him to Kenya where he lived with a community of stone carvers in a remote part of that country. His research focused on how one generation transferred its visual knowledge and skills to the next. During his time in Kenya, he also provided technical assistance in small business development to the International Labour Organization, the Mennonite Central Committee, and Royal Netherlands Government.

After returning to Canada in 1994, Esbin spent the next decade as a senior executive in the non-profit sector. More specifically, he oversaw two complex, innovative organizations, Bridgehead and Hope Beachfest. Both involved diverse cross-sectoral and cross-cultural networks of stakeholders. In 1998, Esbin finished his 300-page doctoral dissertation called “Carving Lives In Stone“. It’s been called an important addition to the field of educational ethnography. Esbin’s research showed that this remote carvers community had developed a powerful cross-generational, participatory learning process that had great relevance for Western Education.

Chapter III

In 2000, Esbin began writing a book on the role of imagination in medicine, sports, etc. By 2003, he had severe “writers block”. Then, one day that October, out of the blue, he remembered the Art Arena Model. In a flash, he also realized it was a perfect example of what he was trying to write about. That same month, also out of the blue, he was asked to facilitate a training workshop for the Association of Canadian Colleges. Esbin suggested he try to recreate the Art Arena Model. The organizers agreed. Working with the original photos, his notes were long gone; Esbin was able to reconstruct the basic process. This also included condensing it to a 3-hour morning activity.

In November 2003 the Art Arena Model was played for the second time in Canada after 18 years! Although not without its challenges, the group experience again proved to be engaging and energizing. Esbin knew he could adapt the model to align with his research on participatory learning and applied imagination. However he also had a great responsibility to find the creator of the model and author of the book. This proved difficult because Esbin could not remember the name of either. Thankfully, the head librarian at the McGill Education Faculty Library found a reference after much sleuthing that took the better part of a year. The book had been out of print for a long time.

Chapter IV

In April 2004, Esbin then wrote to Don Pavey in London explaining his ideas and asking to meet. At Pavey’s invitation, in June, Esbin flew to London to meet for the first time. He outlined his ideas and offered some form of compensation for working with the Art Arena Model. Pavey, then in his 80s, gave his blessing for Esbin to adapt AAM freely and without condition. In Pavey’s words, he wanted Esbin ‘to bring it into the 21st Century. The photo below is of the beloved, inspired, and compassionate Mr. Pavey and was taken by Esbin in 2006. It shows Pavey in front of his ingenious Nailing The Impossible exercise. You have to see it to believe it. There is good reason why Esbin calls him Magister Ludi.

Esbin founded Heliotrope in 2004 to develop a game system using elements of Pavey’s model. Between 2004 and 2008, Prelude was piloted successfully in schools, community agencies, and in workplace training across Canada. During this four year period, the game also evolved greatly. In 2009, ‘early- adopter’ institutions began licensing Prelude.