Playing with Social Construction: GPB at the Taos Institute Symposium In late February, GPB Founder Cathy Salit and I traveled to New York City for the Co-Creating Social Worlds 2026 symposium. About 75 people gathered at Mercy University for two days of conversation about how we might reimagine our personal, public, and political lives. The symposium was hosted by the Taos Institute , a global community of scholars and practitioners (therapists, educators, organizational consultants, community leaders) who study and practice social constructionism . If that term sounds academic, here's the simple version: social constructionism says that meaning, knowledge, and even our sense of self aren't fixed truths we discover sitting alone. Instead, we create them together through our conversations and relationships. The way we talk actually shapes what becomes possible. Many Taos folks have participated in GPB programs over the years, so there's already a natural connection between our communities. The symposium was co-organized by Dr. Saliha Bava , a Taos Institute Associate and Board member, and a Professor at Mercy University who runs the Relational Play Lab. Her work explores relational play , which is the creative, improvisational process through which we co-create ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Our Contribution Before the conference, participants submitted short papers called "Food for Thought" that others could read in advance. Cathy and I wrote about something central to GPB's work: the idea that play isn't just a tool we use to have better conversations . When we introduce playful structures into how we relate, the playful interaction itself becomes the transformation we're seeking. The how and the what are the same thing. You can read our paper here. We put this into practice by facilitating a dialogue session where we used simple playful invitations: starting every sentence with “What I like about what you said…”, pausing for 5-10 seconds of silence after someone spoke, responding with an enthusiastic "WOWWWWWW!" to ideas we heard, and other small constraints. These tiny shifts changed how the whole conversation unfolded. The conference wrapped up with Cathy and me leading the final plenary session for everyone still gathered. Since many of us in GPB speak in the language of play, I thought I could help illustrate some of the ideas of social constructionism through a description of the games we led participants through: 👽 Alien Anthropologists: We Construct Meaning Together Pairs walked around the room as aliens visiting Earth for the first time, making wild guesses about what human objects were for. A microphone stand became a nose-picker for giants. The TV screen was a strange 2D landscape where humans could somehow interact. The constructionist connection: Much of what we take for granted as an obvious "fact" was once just a meaning that humans created together. And if we created it “then”, we can continue to create it anew. 🙃 Upside Down Introductions: Identity Emerges Through Others Participants paired up and shared an important story: a childhood memory, a risk they'd taken, or a meaningful relationship. Then each partner performed the other person's story for a small group. Specifically, we performed each other's story in the first person – we performed as “the other”, which is a very different experience! The constructionist connection: We don't figure out who we are in isolation. Our self-understanding emerges through relationships. Seeing your own story reflected back through someone else's performance reminds you that identity is something we co-create. 🎭 Directed Performances: Breaking Habitual Ways of Being Finally, people shared a meaningful takeaway from the symposium, but with playful constraints. Some had to deliver their insights as if sharing top-secret intelligence. Others could only use one-syllable words. One person told theirs as a fairytale beginning with "Once upon a time." The constructionist connection: How we show up in conversation is partly habits built up over a long time. These playful invitations disrupted those habits, creating space for new meaning and connection to emerge. What I Learned For me, this experience reinforced something I already knew but got to feel in a new way: social constructionism is more than a theory to study. It's something we can play with. When we change how we converse, we change what becomes possible. The room was filled with brilliant scholars, therapists, and change-makers from around the world. Through these simple games, we experienced together how play can transform both our ideas about co-creating new worlds AND our actual practice of doing it. We left feeling more connected, inspired, and ready to bring play into our own work.