Index of Comments

The Index of Comments provides a listing of all comments made in EDN.

Enquiring Minds: Responsibility, Authority, Power, and Learning

Nice to hear from you Sebastian. I agree with your description and have experienced it a number of times. It would seem that the practical reality of something called self-organization is really an illusion fostered by a preference for word-crafting. The ideas rarely leave the paper they are written on, though the propaganda surrounding the "innovation" is broadcast far and wide. Creating the appearance of something seems far more important than actually making it. Talking about it more importan...
Hello Brian, thanks for your comment on this issue. It fits nicely with a post I have published the other day at http://seblogging.cognitivearchitects.com/2006/02/11#a1715 I have recently joined an EU financed (ICT) research project in which we are supposed to create "educational models" that would inform new ways of supporting "scaffolding for self-organisation", and such. It all sounds great on paper but as soon as you try to work on these issues in an interdisciplinary team you are confr...

Questions: What Are The Most Important Questions About Learning?

Great additions Robert. Thanks:-)...
Fantastic questions Brian! I have a few more although they are probably implicit in what you have already. Is learning holistic? (eg social, emotional, spiritual aspects) Are there developmental stages in learning? (common?, individual? lock step?) What is transdisciplinary inquiry learning? (integrated? multidisciplinary? interdisciplinary? ways of knowing...) What is transformational learning? (Difference between informational and transformational?) What is the role of play, humour in learni...

Web 2.0: TagCloud and Bloglines Subscriptions

Hi James, I'm thinking you are precisely right. I've played with this a little bit and really see nothing that useful in it. Nothing there a quick search wouldn't reveal. The tagclouds here are likely to disappear before too long. Thanks for the comment, Brian...
I think tagclouds are designed for geeks and research. They should be hidden away unless you are doing that. I think they are a transitionary information visualization to something more useful and with less "overload". Seeing hundreds of text links is painful to my eyes even if some of the links are larger. It would nice to be able to change modes of visualization between tag clouds to other more minimal formats. Designers will hopefully come up with some solutions for this in the months/years t...

Theory: Learning Theory on a Crash Course

Hi Doug, "We're better off knowing whose lunch we're being fed whenever we're being informed." This again speaks to the need for critical awareness - critical examination - critical investigation in learning. The idea of being critical is not to tear down or merely oppose authority, expertise, and so on, but to understand it - to push it further - so that its lines of force, and therefore its limitations, can be clearly seen. Too often, critical examination is dismissed as pessimism or cynic...
Hi Pearl, "I constructed something entirely different from the text." That is as it should be. "Why such resistance to the piece?" To be clear, if I resisted it I would choose to ignore it and not to write about it. I don't equate resistance with challenging and examining specific aspects of it. My intent was not to provide a comprehensive review, but to focus in on notions presented specifically related to learning theory. In addition, the comments left on the original article I found quite s...
Hi Chris, "Let a thousand flowers bloom." I agree. I would also agree with you that there are a lot of things worth thinking about in the article. To emphasize an important point, my response was directed to what I believe are important assumptions being made about theory that do require critical examination. This is something different from the person or the products being presented. But the key point is, there are a lot of things worth thinking about. I'm not exactly sure what "over thinkin...
Hi Doug, "Most disconcerting to me was the amount of uncritical attention from teachers the "Crash Course" post received. " This is an important point. It seems to me that the ability to investigate and examine things we believe in, our assumptions, our conditioning, is critical to learning. When I write I don't think it is important to encourage agreement or disagreement with what is being said. As soon as we agree or disagree with something we create a roadblock to further examination. If we...
Hi Jeremy, "Is this not a valuable pursuit on her part?" Yes. While I am not familiar with the how-to books, I know there are times when I go out and seek a precise answer to a problem I am having. Often these problems are technical in nature, and getting a quick answer is helpful. My reaction was neither to the person nor the products. My reaction was to theory itself and what seem to me to be a number of unexamined assumptions. These are two very different points of view. I too have noticed...
I don't argue with anything Kathy Sierra had to say. As Chris points out, it was the title that grabbed my attention. If we assume that there is a learning theory, hers is adequate for bloggers and conference presenters. In fact, I liked the bit she included to deal with nitpickers like me: "This is not a comprehensive look at the state of learning theory today...And remember, this is a BLOG, so don't expect academic rigor." Kathy does a good job of translating cognitivist theory to a broad audi...
She also mentioned using all senses. The article went into how to help people engage by putting out as many means for learners to get a good grip on the material, for them to reach out in the way that best suited them. I constructed something entirely different from the text. It's a crash course. One could spent a lifetime looking at every aspect. Was there something useful? For me, yes. It covered a lot of useful ground on how to communicate well by gearing to your audience. I'm with Chris L on...
I think you (and Doug) are taking this article far too seriously and not in the light it was intended. The word theory is a trigger for many people, particularly people who have spent too much time overthinking pedagogy and reading too much in the literature... suddenly the whole world becomes filtered through a particular lens magnifying the particular connotations of a particular group. Imagine that the post in question had no title at all-- it would still be incredibly useful for a lot of peo...
I, too, paused when I read the term 'learning theory' in the Passionate Users post because the singular noun, theory, implies a monolithic subject. Theory is also a collective noun, but I don't know if people considered that in their readings of her "Crash Course" post. Although Kathy did say that "This is not a comprehensive look at the state of learning theory today," she didn't situate her theory within the larger body of social science research that learning theories draw from. I've come t...
Great post, Brian. I've been noticing a lot of attention in "the network" to questions of learning, and most are still stuck in the context of courses and institutional programs. I suppose most of the people who are most passionate about these issues are working in education systems, so that's the frame of reference for much of the dialogue...looking for ways to create/improve learning within the constraints of curriculum and institutional methods/standards. Even though Kathy at Passionate User...

Web 2.0: Is a Tag The Same Thing As A Word?

Hi Pearl, Thanks for the link. I have come across this before, but when I see the word "learning" combined with the word "theory" I tend to ignore it. Can the reality of "learning" be apprehended via the abstraction of "theory?" No. But I will have another look at it and maybe post something. Cheers, Brian...
I don't understand what a tag is beyond the verb to say, do the quiz too. It may be the cloudiness of the hour. But I wanted to drop off a link on learning/training in case you hadn't seen it. It coveres a lot of ground: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in_1.html...

Narrative: Dan Blogs - Death and the Beauty Within

Hi Colleen, Thank you for adding a comment. I have added your weblog to my reading list and look forward to following your writing. Best regards, Brian...
Thanks for this thoughtful look at death. A friend recommended I read it and I'm glad I did. After losing 2 siblings a month a part, I was compelled to write about the experience, first as a book and now on my blog. While my blog isn't just about death, it has a grief and loss thread and is one of my sidebar category. I have made quite a few strong connections due to this. I feel privledged that my writings on death have touched some readers and amazed that then they touch me back. ...
Hi Jeremy - The aching and feeling of terror are good and healthy feelings to have. Indeed, the "fear of facing..." can be extremely difficult. The problem is, unless we face death, especially our own, we always wear the mask of fear. As Castaneda says, death can be an advisor. But many people wait too long to consider the importance (and reality) of it....
Powerful stuff, Brian. I'm still aching from reading a dozen or so of Dan's posts...so raw, so real, so terrifying. Yes, these stories contain all kinds of lessons for living and really experiencing life, but there are times when the pain and fear of facing death (even just triggered by the stories of strangers') masks the insight and opportunity for engagement....

Transformation: Stephen Downes and Will Richardson

Hi Pearl - I'd be interested in knowing more about your change pattern. Have you written about it anywhere?...
Fabulous links to pursue. Change is constant, even attempting to stay the same is a change. Personally I feel every 5-7 years is the amplitude of my change pattern. Winning the Knowledge Transfer Race by Michael J. English and William H. Baker McGraw Hill, 2005 http://hbswk.hbs.edu/book-review.jhtml?t=strategy&id=5161 The competitive advantages of knowledge sharing. looks interesting preclick....

Mystery: Learning To Walk In The Unknown

Hi Amy, You're quite welcome. I decided to simplify the categories a while ago. Prior to that I had far too many of them. By keeping them to a minimum and then using the first word of each entry as a subtopic/keyword I found it helped me to better organize them. Keep up the great writing on your site! Brian...
Just a quick note to say thank you for commenting in my weblog. You are the first person I've ever received a comment from! What an impressive collection of posts / articles you have here! I really like your categories or "themes" - very nice archives of your material organized in a way that's easy to find an idea about that topic. Thanks again for taking time to comment. Amy Hendrickson...

Healing: Vital Energy and the Creation of Health

On the physical traits I was 3-5-3 and on the mental traits I was 3-3-3. So that's Pitta dominant, but an even split between Vata-Kapha. I've tried the test in Vital Energy four times in the last couple of years and noticed that the results have varied. ...
Interesting. Health and unhealth are certain a series of dynamic continuums. "I learned that health and illness were the consequence of the thoughts and choices people made." seems to be more and more inescapable as a premise. On another shorter quiz, I was closest to Vata (http://www.pagehalffull.com/humanyms/?p=303) although again I am fairly evenly split. Kapha is slightly higher this time. I'd be Kapha-Vata....

Improvisation: Keith Jarrett - The Koln Concert

Hi Pearl - I've got the documentary on my wish list. Thanks:-)...
I agree with the getting stuck. It's got a wierd framing as if watching people converse and keeping a clipboard of how many seconds pause someone talks between thoughts....
Keith Jarrett sounds interesting. If you enjoyed the music improv, you'd enjoy the documentary, Touch the Sound on perception, improv, learning. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424509/...
Nice connection Cyn:-)...
Right on Brian. reminds me of an earlier post: by S.S. Curry, "The Smile", 1915 "He must have his instrument rightly attuned and have command of the technique of his art. As has already been said the technique must not be despised...One of the great difficulties with art schools has been that they give merely to technique. They say that is all they can do for the student. If he has art in his soul he will succeed. They do nothing to awaken the artistic or the spiritual instincts, or a love of n...
Hi Jeremy, Although I didn't smoke pot, I can say that I was quite frequently a dazed and confused kid - a personality trait that is well in tact today. I was introduced to the album (yes- album) by one of my piano students. I was 18 or 19 years old at that time, so we're talking late seventies (oops - there's my age). My student was older, I would guess in his late 20's. We were talking about improvisation. The first thing he mentioned was The Köln Concert and was kind enough to bring it in ...
Right on -- it's working now. From the iTunes review: "Every pot-smoking and dazed and confusesd college kid -- and a few of the more sophisticated ones in high school -- owned this as one of the truly classic jazz records..." Was this you in 1975, or did you come to discover it later? Fascinating post, btw...your writing is on fire again. My brain can barely keep up with the intellectual onslaught....
Looks like the mp3 link is broken -- did you find it available online?...

Language: Why Should I Read?

Hi Pearl, You said it quite nicely, "It is a function of the choices of the reader, more than of what is read." This provides a nice summation of what I was getting at in the entry. The choice we make with reading isn't really about tools and how to use them, it is about our minds and hearts and the directions we choose to take them in. Reading if it is to be meaningful demands inner reflection and invites new kinds of action in our everyday life. There is a flow from the symbols on the page th...
There's quite a lot to absorb there.Index is tagging. I agree books and print are non-linear as online. Deep readers especially may read in a hyperlinked sort of way between various reference books. A quote I recently read comes to mind The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring - http://www.quotationsbook.com/authors/1448/Warren_Chappell And I tend to disagreee. On the face of it, a sort of romanticism says we have more to access in this world than...

Web 2.0: Tagging - The Numbstance of the Technological Idiot?

Hi Pearl - A delicious rant- who would have known. Info-finding games - sounds quite a bit better than clicking on tags....
lol. Yes, I find it a rabbit's warren to move though. And I can never remember where those periods go in delicious. Think I'll stay with teh random info-finding games I have for the time being....
Hi Jeremy, Agreed. Your comment reminded me of mind-mapping. I still think that paper has many advantages over the screen - it has more flexibility, but it is also much harder to share. I get completely lost in the all the findability. Perhaps we should introduce the idea of lostability? Cheers, Brian...
What? Someone coughing up the tagging kool-aid we've all been drinking? I've found that in Flickr, the tags are useful for casual browsing, following interesting rabbit trails of connections...but it's more like a game than a way of finding something you're looking for. It seems to me that one of the problems with the connections created by tags is that they tend to be somewhat one-dimensional -- that is, you "pivot" on one tag, when what you want to do is find the most applicable constellati...

Family: Delayed Life Transitions

Mid-life crisis. In my own life I can say that crisis has not been reserved for mid-life only. I'm in my mid-forties now and I can say that I have had a good deal of experience with crises of various kinds, and the transitions through those crises forced me to stand up and look directly into the unknown. Now that I'm in "mid-life" - assumming I have that much time left in life which is a dangerous assumption to make - crises seem to be a very natural and normal part of the flow. Even a necessary...
It is interesting, isn't it? I got an e-mail from an older gentleman in my small town who seems to be studying (as a hobby) the idea of the mid-life crisis, mostly motivated by the tumult of his own. I've been wondering whether the mid-life crisis has been delayed as well (due to having kids later, better health, etc.) or whether it's been sort of distributed across transition points at many different ages. We have a couple of friends right now going through what could only be characterized as ...
Two interesting scenarios. On one hand the delay results in the denial of having our own offspring. On the other hand the delay of parenting, or perhaps the extension of the teenage years, results in giving our own offspring away. The phrase, "the baby doesn't really fit into the picture" is the one the caught me the most. It's all quite hard for me to understand since my two kids are a very big part of my "picture." In fact, it would be hard to imagine a lifestyle without them. Bringing new l...
My wife sees the result of these delayed life transitions all the time. Most of the adopting couples she works with are in their early 40s and have all their ducks in a row -- dual careers, travelling experiences, paid-off mortgages (or nearly) on big houses and carefully designed lifestyles. At some point they realize that they want kids too, but it's been deferred. Many have fertility issues when they start trying, and although you can't guarantee that they're all age-related, it's certainly a...

Probe: Learning as Improvisation

Hi Cyn, Comments fixed . Thanks for letting me know. I ilke that phrase, "improvisation is truth-making." It forces us to let go of ourselves and live in the moment. I changed the phrase in the original article you mentioned to bold text above:-)...
Hi Brian, I think the key here is "improvisation as the pathway to authentic and open expression". By learning to trust ideas, sounds, movement we can unlock the cage where the artist lives. By taking risks we can challenge what we believe to be the truth. Improvisation is truth-making. You put your life on the line when you 'let go' and allow yourself to be naked before an audience. Without the ability to let go, to trust, to say YES, does the true-self emerge? What becomes of _expression, ...
Hey Sean - I know you are doing a lot of thinking about the connections between social networks and intelligence. I also know you're a musician too! I'm wondering if you have some ideas about how improvisation (in the broad non-musical sense of the word) plays out in social networks and intelligence. In my book I toyed with the idea of improvisation as it relates to communication and learning. Rather than the communication of knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) as the chords and rhythms of ...
"Jazz musicians are not unprepared to improvise. " This is a great point. Even master improv comedian Robin Williams admits that he has hundreds of rehearsed "bits" in the back of his mind that he pulls out based on what is happening in the moment. For me, a lot of the magic moments in comedy are when the rehearsed bits go in unexpected / "accidental" directions for the comedian. It seems that many people recognize the power of those mistakes but few want to practice the craft that leads to ...

Interaction Design: From Age Segregation to Age Connectedness

Hi Cyn, The experience you describe aounds all too familiar. Why am I hearing the distant echo of "Tear down the wall." ...
"The curriculum being a source of bullying." There it is in a nutshell. Right on Brian! It is so easy to point the finger, but much more difficult to look inward and admit that we may be the source of the problem. Brian, to follow up a bit with the project Rob and I were working on over the past few months with the ed system here on PEI: Some key people who are at the helm of the school boards have identified the system as part of the problem, but they too are bullied into looking outside f...
Hi Rob, Once again the three of us find ourselves in a very similar place. The synchronicity is unusual and quite enjoyable. Thought you would like this... The Ontario government announced a $23,000,000 anti-bullying plan today. They refer to it as a "Comprehensive Action Plan To Address Safety In All Ontario Schools." At first glance it looks like nothing more than an expensive policing program for schools that deals with the symptoms but ignores potential causes. I could find no reference in...
Hi Brian I not only agree with you but I think that we can go further. One of the current designs of school that mnakes no sense to me is the idea of Middle School. This puts 16 year olds at the top of the tree - how does anyone support this? Guarantees dysfunction. When I went to Harrow as a 13 year old - the school was run by 18 year olds - men!. Becuase the discipline was run by the 18 years olds as was the operational aspects of the school such as games etc there was no barrier between the ...
Hi Cyn, The Queen Street Commons sounds like quite an interesting place. I noticed in your weblog that you have a diverse age group. Rob's post Free At Last - Did You Take The Package? that references Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware's Business Community Centers as Third Places. It seems to me that your organizational design is more organic in nature: "where people gather for a variety of reasons and to do a variety of different things." There is no curriculum, or prerequisite, to be enforced ...
Interesting Brian. Anyone who has worked with me in the past few months is probably getting tired of me using the analogy of The Queen Street Commons for so many different scenarios. Whether we are talking about creative environments, collaboration, organic relationships and such, it seems something very special is happening here. There is learning from the 'olders', not on purpose, but because it is happening naturally. As is learning from the 'youngers'. At the Commons, the age ranges from 22...

Psychological Warfare: SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistence, Escape) - A School For Torture

Hi Harold, It's been a while since I paid a visit to the Coach House. Mark came into near the conclusion of my work with Derrick de Kerckhove. I'll have a look at his blog. Thanks, Brian...
It ranges from culturalisation in basic training to your cited torture school. The military knows how to conduct effective training and understands its ground, because getting someone to risk his/her life is an unnatural act. Schools, businessses and others are immersed in their ground. The amazing thing is that so few people realize it. Mark Federman's Role* is an attempt to help people see themselves outside of their ground: http://whatisthemessage.blogspot.com/2005/09/motivation-career-and-l...

Retirement: Plunging Into New Activities

Brian, I think you hit on just the right issue in your last paragraph. As we take on the challenge of rethinking our relationship to work, we need to also spend more time reflecting on what it means to retire. And as a Gen-Xer, I also wonder how my peers will be changing how we all view retirement. Many of those taking retirement now are the same folks who had lifetime employment where identity was so closely tied to work. My generation, with it's constant movement, will hopefully fulfill your...

Curriculum: The Design of the Prerequisite

Hi Stevan, Great questions. One of the things I thought over a great deal in the Connected Intelligence Project was whether or not to change the language used to describe. That is, should we use a new terminology, or try to update the old one (i.e. - curriculum, instruction, teaching, schooling, etc.). I decided to keep the same terminology but try to build new perspectives in. Part of this reaosn was the fact that I was working with Portuguese teachers so language issues were important. One ...
I find your critique of curriculum very useful, and I think it entirely consistent with a 21st century approach to learning. Sort of like chaos theory. But I wonder whether you are really proposing an end to curriculum; the two examples you cite (the Virtual Community Project and the Connected Intelligence Project) both involve curricula (albeit more "skills" oriented and mastered through more exploratory learning). Do you really propose that there is no set of foundational knowledge (whether kn...
Hi Harold - This is quite odd but as I was writing this entry I was thinking about including a quote from Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie that refers to magic. In the spirit of your comment I have added it under "Curriculum Design." It seems that curriculum can be thought of as an illusion that has the appearance of truth....
Thank you for this excellent synthesis of the issues around education vs learning and the key role that curriculum plays. A few years ago I was working on a project for a provincial Department of Education and I asked about their curriculum development process, particularly how they arrived at what subjects should be taught. After many more pointed questions (with the ADM in attendance) and very few clear answers, I came to my conclusion: Curriculum is developed in a dark arts fashion, where ...

Instructional Design: The Propagation of Curriculum

Useful for mulling. Creating a curriculum around a learner's needs may be comparable to preparing several courses of laborious French cuisine to feed the hungry. The needs can be basic and fickle. The needs are instrumental. They need, for example, to tell if a form from the government wants something of them but that form only lasts for a few days and the underlying skills are not wanted, only the result. How to keep someone in for the long haul connecting up the immediate needs with all the ...

Paranormal: Exorcism - Discerning Psychological Problems and Spiritual Possession

Feel brain...bending...creaking...pinging... Yes, it's broken now....

Narrative: Erik Weihenmayer - "I want to summit."

What a post Brian! Ive been transported to thoughts of my own spiritual connections made while on a long cycling trek. Also reminds me of the movie The Mission and the struggles along the way that captured the essence of the journey. It is the journey and not the destination. A hard thing to remember sometimes when you're feeling hopeless. Thanks again. ...

Narrative: Rainer Rilke - What Must I Do With My Life?

Hey it is the 4 Amigos - this is fabulous Brian. Rilke is my favourite poet. If you don't mind - I would like to drop tjhis into my class who are struggling with what is their responsibility for how business and they treat our world. We have just broken through to see that it is not all about water and tress but all about human society - most importantly it is about how we raise our kids...
Thank you for re-posting this Brian. Again, your timing is immpeccable. ...
Rob, Cynthia, Jeremy: And the mystery continues:-)...
Cyn and I have also been reading "Letters" How strange that we all have been doing this at the same time!...
This is uncanny Brian, but I have been reading Letters to a Young Poet and just finsihed writing my own letter to a young writer who was asking me about where I get my material. Rilke's 'go into yourself' quote you used was the same one I sent to this young writer. I'm shaking my head at this. Very bizarre. Great post. So much truth in Rilke's words and so much in yours. That 'dark place' where we go to find our selves, I think, is the only place to find it. Distractions that take us away from ...
Oh my. This post is truly outstanding. Still digesting it......

Class: The Educated Class vs. Real Life Experience

Hi Brian. Experienced educators from UPEI, Holland College, the PEI Eastern School Board as well as social workers, business people and researchers in our community gathered together to begin what is now known as the Learning Transitions Research Group (LTRG). The purpose of the group: to explore further the issue of student disengagement during the transitional years (grades 3,6 and 9). Rob Paterson and I were part of this group, but have since split off and have begun action toward the idea o...
Hi Cyn, Interesting idea - take the streets to the schools. Who is the group involved in this? I'd be very interested in knowing how it evolves....
The challenges we face to help undo this facade of learning through 'education' is one that weighs heavy. As a few of us here on PEI move forward with ways to re-engage, or in fact engage for the first time, young learners who have dropped out by grades 3, 6 or 9, we, ourselves, are learning too. We are learning that the numbers are high and that our children are in big trouble. Not only do they not have any 'common sense thinking' but they have created an impermeable culture centred around not...

Learning Styles: Whose styles are these and what are they for?

Learning has alot to do with stations in life. Workers have no voice in their destinies and seem to hold back reacting in a vocal or written manner. I worked in several factories while attending college and found out quickly there was a vast void between the factory floors and the classrooms in college. After many years in the business world knowing many top executives up to Presidents of companies, this void was always there. It was even more pronounced in the academic world and as I grew olde...
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the link. Is the idea of "learning styles" originally dreamt up by teachers to facilitate learning or to facilitate teaching? Are there any true stories out there about learners who discovered untapped potential after realizing they were forcing themselves (or had been forced) into an unnatural (for them) learning style? While I'm keeping an open mind on the subject, I now tend towards James Atherton's view as expressed in your quote above. "Pandering to", or, more ...

Learning Communities: Philia - A Dialogue On Caring Citizenship

Hi Pearl, Wonderful comments. You have raised a number of ideas and issues that I cannot hope to explore here in a single comment. Where IsThe Philia Learning Community?: The first thing to say is that the Philia learning community is in its nascent stages of development. It is not something we can literally see and have a look at right now, but something we can watch emerge over time. This is perhaps why you have the feeling of "not getting it" - there isn't a lot to get at the moment. This i...
It's like chautauqua right? Perhaps an answer to my own questions here. Q. Why dialogue? A. There are many complex problems facing our communities, workplaces and governance structures. To respond wisely to these problems requires the input of many, often diverse, voices. Dialogue approaches offer some hopeful ways to relate to one another and how we govern ourselves. We engage in dialogue because the quality of our actions will be better informed, because we care about the web of relationship...
You might also enjoy the collaborative effort that created the list - Joyful, Jubilant Learning: 64 ways and counting - http://www.sayleadershipcoaching.com/talkingstory/2005/09/joyful_jubilant.html I've read through what you've said of Phillia and a dozen pages there but I feel I'm not "getting it". How does it focus on destigmatizing physical or mental disability and diversity (in the thousands of ways people can be distinctive)? Is it seeking purely public education? Of difference or comm...

Evaluation: The End Of Performance Standards

Excellent article here as well as the Ode one. The key to learning is that it starts with individual moitivation and initiative. I found another good blog on learning: http://www.sayleadershipcoaching.com/talkingstory/...
Hi Pearl, I'm off to New Zealand so I'll be AWOL for a bit. I really like the connectedness of your thinking. There are many patterns of power and influence to explore and for me it leads to thinking about what equilibrium might be. It's interesting to see that the issues being discussed in the UK are quite similar to the issues here in Canada - especially Ontario. Articles like the one referred to above offer little, if any, help. This is a comment I will need to think a lot about - and wri...
This raises a lot of questions for me. Is respect being lost or redefined as societal lines become more permeable and the hierarchy flattens. Is it a matter of curriculum or of economics. Is the onus on the educational system to change? The curriculum or the society of indivduals to look carefully at what they want and expect and where the responsibility for getting it lies. If the learners are not gaining critical thought, where does the buck stop. The teachers can only teach. They offer. it is...

Attendance: School Dropouts, Pushouts, and Optouts

Sorry, one more thing. I don't believe it is required anywhere in Canada that students go to school. Homeschooling and unschooling are options that very few people are aware of, although the numbers are growing and school boards, like the New Westminster Board here in BC (who we work with) are beginning to see the writing on the wall and extend the invitation to non-traditional learning environments to be brought into public school. Grace's book is the Bible for teenagers who want to leave sc...
Read Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook. That's all for now....
Love this stuff, Brian. Thanks for digging deeper...I love the optout option. I wonder what percentage of traditional "dropouts" have proactively left school to do something more interesting and productive?...
More soon Rob...
More soon Rob...

Curriculum: The Double Cohort Effect

Too sadly true Brian. My son James left school at 14 to go full time to artrt school. He has no "credential" he earns 5 figures and is one of the most articlate people I know. He coulkd not stand the control system of school and he made an intelligent decision to getb out. I think that your idea of the sub curriculum of not thinking and obedience is a vital aspect of thinking about school and work. WE do not need non critcal thinkers in the modern workplace. I would say that if you are indo...

Narrative: Oscar Wilde - Suffering Is One Very Long Moment

Another reference for you, an alternative school system article, http://www.odemagazine.com/article.php?aID=4050 ...
Brian This is a wonderful post. It's so rare that people talk of or even write of the small failures that cause a ruin like Oscar Wilde did. Catholics speak of the transformational power of suffering to reveal what really matters and who we really are. For Christians who believe, suffering is a universal experience, the power of the cross is that Jesus suffered as do they, yet transformed death into life....
I agree with Wilde that we need a certain amount of suffering and that growth pains and change of person come in a moulting of old paradigmes we are attached to, which can be painful, or sometimes, natural as breathing. Who can predict which for which time? In the book, Cry, My Beloved Country, the pastor Mb... says that suffering is better than fear because fear is a journey and suffering at least is an arrival. When you are suffering, one part is complete and a pivot to a new direction is pos...

Creative Process: Jerry Wennstrom - Wandering

Wandering - this rings a bell for me. Allowing my own schedule to emerge rather than to meet a deadline either self imposed or from the outside. On the other hand - the paradox - having a deadline seems to help. The one "deadline" we know nothing of is of course the last day. My paradox about this is that as I become more conscious of its inevitability, the less I want to anything that I don't want to...

Narrative: Jerry Wennstrom - Interview

Congratulations to Brian Alger for yet another inciteful and thought-provoking piece. Your interview with Jerry Wennnstrom not only highlights some important ideas that your subject has considered, Brian, but it also showcases your talent for engaging in effective dialogue. Thanks for sharing your discussion with Jerry! It is clearly full of worthwhile ideas. Pat...
Thanks Cynthia and Rob. The idea of a "creative life" is one I find quite compelling as well. Purpose and creativity are inseparable, but more importantly, they are essential in exploring the question, "How do we learn the things we value most?" The things we value the most are learned during the process of living creatively? Learning is definitely not limited to the artificial processes we see occurring in education and training today. I'm going to take some time and revisit the people I hav...
Thank you too Brian Rob...
I am awe struck by this piece Brian. Absolutely facinating. I don't know that I've ever read or heard anyone who has been able to put into words as much about the creative life. I'm particularly struck by this wonderful explanation of purpose: "Fine-tuning the requirements of a creative life will inevitably make us better and more sensitive individuals with the capacity to contribute something unique to the collective. When we live creatively and begin to receive the subtle gifts that come, th...

Creative Process: Tension - Artists of the Living

Hi Rob, "I wonder if this "madness" - in my case depression - is the Garden of of the Passion of Christ where we are sometimes confronted with the terrible changes that face us if we are to develop? The old us has to die, often in public a messy and painful death. But we can and do rise again." It is interesting to consider that depression may in fact be a catalyst for change - a wake-up call that cannot be ignored - our call to the garden. If this is a possibility, then the steady increase of...
About 12 years ago - I thought that I was going mad and so did many around me. I felt so awful that I ended up in a psychaitrist's office for over a year. I wonder if this "madness" - in my case depression - is the Garden of of the Passsion of Christ where we are sometimes confronted with the terrible changes that face us if we are to develop? The old us has to die, often in public a messy and painful death. But we can and do rise again. I thought that I was alone in thi processs but Campbell...

Learning: A Global Phenomenon

Brian This is a great post. One that I bookmarked earlier so I could come back to reread it again. You have made a most subtle distinction between education and learning that I've never heard before, that makes perfect sense and that resonates deeply ...

Achievement: Education vs. Credentialing(2)

Thanks from me too....
Thank you Brian Rob...
Thank you Brian Rob...

Achievement: Education vs. Credentialing

Justin - thanks. What a pleasant surprise indeed:-) I'm going to take your comment and explore it in the next entry....
A very well written summary of our conversation this past weekend. My dad’s fourth paragraph sums up very well what I was previously feeling, and what I am now feeling in light of this revelation. For the past two and a half years I've been playing a game with myself. That game has been to try and free up as much time away from my 'career' as possible while still succeeding. It was going well, but the past few months spent working full time and researching 'careers' have led me to a conclusion ...
Hi Aaron, Thanks for that. The confusion our youth face is very significant and, unfortunately, is quite well crafted. You are one of the lucky ones it seems to me - to find your path so early in life. This is something I want for both of my kids - in fact, if I could only help them with one thing in life this would be it. Nice phrase: "Joy in the midst of hardship while following the call."...
Hi Rob, Hopefully your son, regardless of money, will never turn from his path. Undoubtedly there will be pressures to do so, but the subsequent pressures, and penalties, from the the turning away would be far more severe. "Never have I known such fear." I suspect that this is very good thing indeed. We all have a tendency to stay with the familiar, the known, since for some reason feear likes to delude us into thinking that it is somehow easier to stay with what we have rather than make a ch...
Hi Cyn, Very interesting parallels. One of the things my son mentioned was that he felt as if he had not made the best use of his time to this point, and that he should have made this kind of decision earlier. My response was, "We are all in exactly the place we need to be in, even if we don't want to be in it." However, how we attend to these moments in our lives is key. It has something to do with a kind of awakening I think - a realization, sudden or gradual, that there is a different path w...
Brian...thanks for sharing this. Reading Joseph Campbell as a confused 21-year-old was a pivotal moment in my decision to follow my bliss instead of someone else's path. I wish I had been exposed to more conversations with people on the path bliss at the time, which I think would have been both comforting and stimulating at the same time. Having experienced joy in the midst of hardship while following the call, I can totally agree with Campbell's claim that if you follow your bliss, whether y...
Dear Brian Synchronistic indeed! My son and I are going through this together right now. He has been very "successful" in being paid huge sums of money to be a commercial artist. His fear is that he will be turned off his path of being an artist. I cannot be consultant any more. I too have been distanced from my path as an actor in my own life - the doer rather than than the advisor. The individual rather than the role player. Never have I known such fear. For years I have used the story th...
Brian, You have once again, in a most synchronistic way, hit the nail on the head. This very topic has been the focus for our family as well, on so many different levels. Perhaps beginning with the fact the our province is revamping our Health Department, of which my husband, Wayne, is employed. He is now in the midst of dealing with the loss of his 'job'. Both he and our daughter, who graduated from university 2 weeks ago, are warding off the dreadful question, "so what are you going to do with...

School: Critical Studies of Schooling

Hi Brian So helpful Best wishes Rob...
Hi Brian So helpful Best wishes Rob...

Gaming: Pax Warrior - Decision-based Documentaries

This resource on education may be of interest http://www.strangechord.com/schooling/...

Diversity: The Experience of Language

Hi Pearl, Interesting thoughts here. I agree with you that many schools do encourage group work and and oral interaction. My son in his second year commerce program at university, for example, has done a number of group work projects this year. As a teacher myself, I often encouraged activities that were more oriented toward group dialogue and interaction. At the same time, I would not say that either my son's experiences or my own attempts had anything to do with encouraging or promoting an o...
Learning decontextualized material is like drinking chunky soup through a strainer. You still get some of the goodness but much is lost with the texture. > we can somehow better understand that music by applying our own methods to it. It is reductionist as well but we grasp knowledge with the handsize we have. There is value in looking full experientially and aspect by aspect. In Canada a lot of schools emphasize group work and oral interaction, projects, performances to ready students for...

Perception: Sensibility vs. Technique

Hi Pearl, I like the phrase, "the soul comes knocking in season and out of season." The idea of learning to move about while developing mechanics is appealing to. One activity I enjoyed doing, and also taught to my students, was to develop their own technical exercises to support they way in which they were trying to learn to perform. Some of these exercises took on an air of improvisation, and I found this approach to learning technique more helpful than endlessly running up and down scales, ...
Hi Brian, Interesting post and sparks some thoughts from the jumping off point of "much of our knowledge and skill painfully acquired over years of education have thankfully relented" It seems to me to be because it has become internalized the way a constant weight or scent does and the brain filters it out. And in part because the skill and the cognitive habits it imposes become such a familiar tool that our use of it is automatic; the awkward imposingness of it is no longer there, the mental ...
I think when we make connections to the souls of the artists we have cpatured art's intention. When I sit at the piano flipping through sheet music trying to decide what to play, my natural instint is to go to Beethoven. Even if I'm cranky or out of sorts, I am drawn to the raw emotion in his music and how it makes me feel when I'm playing and listening. When an artist shares as much as someone like Beethoven has, so many people are touched. So many people are changed by the power of simple bea...
Hi Cyn, How wonderful:-) There are many things I like about this. I like the idea of "awakening" in that it implies that there is a unique artist in each of us. Beethoven was in the habit of going for walks through nature and these walks were clearly an important part of his creative process. I would suspect that this, at least in part, had an important role to play in awakening and caring for his own inidividual power. Interesting you would mention Beethoven as I find myself having a close af...
If I may Brian... Elaborate with more from "The Smile": "A musician must have music in his soul. Poets, musicians, artists of all kinds, need one another. not that they may imitate but that they stimulate and inspire one another. The music in man must be awakened by music; the right awakening of the imagination by the study of literature, by a more sympathetic obsevation of Nature, by listening to the winds among the trees, the murmuring of the brooks and the singing of the birds. He must be a...
Thank you for your kind words:-)...
I just found your blog through another feed. Your writing and perspective is powerful. Thanks for sharing with us. I look forward to being a subscriber....

Psychology: The Emotional Point of View

Hi Cyn, Synchronicity again. It was during my "absence" from writing here that I wrote an entry about tears in one of my - I don't know what to call it - journal. Tears are a sign of strength, although many might have us believe otherwise. Those that feel crying is a sign of weakness are dreadfully insecure in themselves and attempt to project that inner insecurity as outer strength. Perhaps one day I'll have the nerve to write those thoughts about tears here. Your thoughts about risk are inte...
Hi Rob, Wonderful context here. I have sometimes closed my eyes in order to try to listen to tone and inflection more closely. It's an interesting experience and one that I think comes from my close invelvement with music early in life. I have found that, often not always, musicians have a much greater sensitivity to changes in the sound of a voice, its rhythm, pitch, and timbre. I like that you referred to this kind of sensibility as an innate ability. I would not characterize this ability a...
Hi Pearl, Nice to hear from you again. Your questions are interesting ones. In my own interaction with people, I find myself more in tune with body language, gesture, the rhythm of speech, tone, and so on. The words being used are of course important, but sometimes I watch and listen for other cues. For some reason, I'm more sensitive to these kinds of things than words alone. I've also found that often, not always, I get insight into a person's motivations and underlying meaning in this way. I...
Great 'I'm back' post Brian. Are we not socialized to hold back our emotions from an early age? We start out crying, it's our only way to communicate, through emotion. It's all our brains will allow us to do when we are babies. We start learning that crying is not the preferred way to express ourselves the first time we hear, "shhhh...it's okay.....shhhh". We have fallen and hurt ourselves or we are angry that we did not get our way. It's NOT okay, we want to show our emotions. I've often adm...
Dear Brian Welcome back. Emotion or innate wisdom? Can we "read" the meaning or the emotional context behind the words? Is this idea a new age weirdness or have we indeed lost something? I agree with you Brian that we are losing something. A recent project and my growing connection with my dogs has awoken in me an understanding that there is a an entire "old language" that rests beneath words. Jevon has just completed a community tool for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing at York. They insisted that...
oh, and glad to see you posting again. :-) Happy World Poetry Day...
>this ability to assume an emotional point of view is in sharp decline Why do you think it's changed? and where? globally? personally? to low ebb cyclically in media?...

Presentation: Educational Computing Organization of Ontario (ECOO)

And I, on the other hand, entertain by telling the truth. Good luck Brian....
Hi Rob and Jeremy, Why am I seeing Jack Nicholson in uniform right now ;-) BTW - I remember reading The Ecology Of Commerce - wonderful book....
Great advice. Paul Hawken told me the same thing - Your job is not to entertain but to tell the truth he told me...
Let 'em have it, Brian. : )...

Universities: Teaching the Textbook

HI Christycain (that will separate the two), I was looking at the description of project models (http://www.center.rpi.edu/PewGrant/Proj_Models.html). I then had a look at the more detailed description at: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0352.pdf. To be honest, I struggle with narrow conceptions of learning like these and the idea of linking "consistent content" to "the same kinds of learning experience" is baffling. It's a level of abstraction that seems quite removed. I read, "C...
Brian, Just to let you know, I am a her. I noticed you have another Chris on the list, so from now on I’ll be christycain. To answer two questions: Why do we place professors in bureaucratic cages that only serve to stunt everyone's experiences? And who, exactly, are the people creating these cages in the first place, and why should we pay so much attention to them? The practice of requiring service and research at the university started after the civil war. Service was added so that the...
Hi Chris, Many thanks for these insights. I appreciate your honesty in saying "because that is the way it has always been done." It is, of course, a positive thing that faculty are required to publish. In my own personal experience, I have read a number of my own professors books and articles and they always helped me to gain further insight. A graduate professor I had was once writing two books simultaneuously and he would share key questions and lines of thought he following in graduate sem...
I will try to answer your questions and speak to your concerns, but many of my replies will be because that is the way it has always been done. For instance, why do faculty lecture? Because that is the way it has always been done back to the time when books were only available to religious orders. They lectured on what the book said. Yes, there is a wide variety of requirements. One main requirement is for articles to be published in peer reviewed journals. Many times, faculty are not given cr...
Hi Chris, Thanks for adding these insights. They are appreciated. It seems unfortunate that professors are put in the position you describe. Much of it seems to center on achieving tenure, which is of course a desired goal, yet it seems too closely linked with the pursuit of knowledge. In a way, tenure serves to bias teaching. If I am reading your comments correctly, one of the main purposes of a professor writing is to secure his/her future. I suspect that the nature of this writing, then, mu...
I'd like to add some comments that, while not solving the problem, might explain some things. In North Carolina an author cannot receive royalties from books they have written and then require the student to purchase. The only royalties they receive are when the books are required by other faculty. So, then, why would a faculty member write a text book? The reason comes from the enormous pressure on faculty to publish in order to gain tenure, and then be successful in post tenure reviews. ...
Hi Rob, It seems, sadly, perfectly logical for students to wonder why the lecture isn't video streamed. Given the circumstances, yes, why not. Isn't it really odd that our institutions of higher learning, in the face of an ever growing higher technology, are in fact retrieving methods that should already be obsolete? And to your point, neither the profs or the students are getting what they need. This in fact was something mentioned to me by the student in the entry. He was actually wonderin...
Hi Jeremy, Agreed. So I wonder why they don't just admit it. If a university is a credential factory, then they should say so. It would save everyone a lot of time and money. I also wonder why there is absolutely no coverage of this in the media. I suspect a news story about cost vs. benefit in the university experience might be quite revealing. For example, I wonder how much of the tuition funds for a particular course of study actually go into it. What is a real shame is that I know there a...
Hi Chris, I nearly stopped myself from posting this message since, as you point out, the real question is what do we do about it. But I was plain annoyed. Unfortunately, this student, although he can see tremendous potential in these professors that does indeed respect, he has mostly resigned himself to using university as a means to get a job. But isn't the job market now significantly different? Job security is where? But worse I see the dreadful pattern setting in again: a) we go to public...
I was on a project at York last year. I regret that this trend is powerful One Dean told me that most of her classes were 200-300 students and that all she could do is to talk at them for 40 minutes. All the close in work, if there was any was done by the TA's. A student told me - Why don't they just video the lecture and stream it on the web? Neither the profs or the students are getting what they need. Now York with 55,000 students is an extreme but they are all going there. I have been s...
It's almost as if some universities have completely given up on learning, and simply acknowledging that they're in the business of offering students credentials. Christopher's point about most students getting degrees to land a good job is totally correct...if they aren't much interested in the learning, either, it's no wonder learning has fallen off the agenda in universities. ...
Brian, perhaps the student ought to consider transferring to another school. I had the good fortune to select a small liberal arts school and I don't believe I ever took a multiple choice exam at any point. As a matter of fact, when I sat for the GREs shortly after graduation, I almost forgot how to fill in the circles properly :) My college (Guilford College in North Carolina) placed an emphasis on classroom education rather than professorial research. But when I talked with a couple of my pro...

Identity: Genocide of the Mind

Great entry...thanks Brian....

Design: Natural Learning vs. Machine Learning

Hi Stephen, First of all let me thank you for your comment. I have great respect for your work. I find myself in complete agreement with your reference to the organic. It is a kindred spirit to Rob's reference to the natural. For me, they both reveal an underlying faith in humanity and the good in humankind, in full view of and in spite of all the atrocities that occur in our world. I have tried to embrace this ideal in much of my own work to varying degrees of success (and failure). When I s...
Hi Jeremy, "Experience design forces us to look deeper and question underlying motivations and values." I think you have captured an extremely important point with great clarity. This is one of the things I admire about your work - you are constantly searching and exploring the underlying assumptions that are often hidden and sometimes disguised. In "The Heart Aroused" (if you haven't read it, you'll love it!) David Whyte provides an opening quote from Irene Claremont de Castillejo (bold and ...
Hi Cyn, "There is a great design." Isn't it marvelous how this has emerged in recent weeks? It reminds me of a number of deeply moving conversations I had in the past with Derrick de Kerckhove about connectedness, and of life in general. Derrick has an unwavering belief in the underlying good that inevitably emerges when people connect in authentic ways in the full knowledge of the problems we create for ourselves. It is a belief that, through the fullness of time, I have come to embrace as a...
Hi Rob, As always, you raise profound thoughts and questions. I am going to say a heart felt YES to all of them and preserve hope. And we work together to build the wealth you speak of....
Good essay, and one with which I am largely in agreement. Worth noting is that a taxonomy of the 'four kinds of interaction' is an exercise of the mechanistic sort; when I think of interaction, I think of something more organic....
Compelling as usual, Brian. I'm fascinated by your interpretation of Rob's post, particularly the four kind of interaction in learning. Coming from a few years of interaction design work (in the narrowest web interface sense), I think I see exactly what you're saying here. Experience design forces us to look deeper and question underlying motivations and values. With the lifestylism project I'm trying to tie these ideas together holistically, using the idea of values as the basis for lifestyle d...
"In a natural approach to learning, our experiences, situations and circumstances become the source of design." There is so much power in going to the centre for that authenticity. In theatre we experience truth when something organic has occured. But most of us are starving for that experience, because even in art, the 'machine' becomes the centre, and so it goes...on and on. When all the planets are in synch, there is a great design. Anybody else feeling like a satellite?...
Dear Brian You have this wondeful ability to take an idea and illuminate it. Thank you Are we living at another Copernican Revolution when the foundation of relationships is overturned? Then it was to exchange the Earth for the Sun as the centre and hence open up the larger universe and also overhtrow the institutions such as the church, the monarchy and land as the power centres on earth. Now it is to overturn the machine, the separation and to return to wholeness and interdependence. Will we...

Myth: The Origins of Learning

Rob - I am without words - thank you....
Hi Cyn, There is a wonderful sense of energy and companionship here between all of us. Exactly - let's get back to something more authentic - something more natural. I'm reminded of Sting's wonderful song, "They Dance Alone." Do you know it? Once you realize what he is singing about, it will grab your soul. Thankfully, none of us need to dance alone:-)...
Hi Chris, Isn't that just an amazingly beautiful phrase - "I turned my head for a moment." Truly wonderful. For me, And David Whyte - a deeply inspiring person. His writing can never just be read - it has a tactile sense about it that demands felt meaning. Sometimes I find him utterly profound, and sometimes he truly terrifies me. I suppose it is a short walk between the two. This style of writing (maybe stream of consciousness or something like that) here is something I always have a great fe...
I am enjoying this dance....
Wordsworth as quoted by David Whyte in Crossing the Unknown Sea Is this what we are talking about? "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had else where its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison house begin to close Upon the growing boy But He beholds the light and ...
I'm with you Christopher. WOW. The connectors: "opening us to a mature appreciation of the hidden and often dangerous inner seas where our passions and our creativity lie waiting." to: "While reconnecting ourselves to the heart aroused, to the underlying energy of the mythic in humankind, perhaps we can provide some degree of respite and retrieve a sense of progress that is more distinctly humane." What better way of saying, "let's get back to Nature". Great stuff Brian....
WOW. WOW. WOW. I'm just catching up on your writing, enjoying my morning coffee, and I'm struck by this post. There is so much here that will take more than one reading. And the part that has left me in quiet contemplation is: "I turned my face for a moment..." The simplicity of that poem is the essence of beauty. Thanks for the great "wake-up" reading. ...

Consulting: Desulting the Consultants

Hi Chris, "We don't trust our own people" - I can relate to that quite well. Back in my educator days I helped to pioneer a new approach to schooling. The success and international presence of this school also alienated me within my own school region. Go to other parts of Canada, the U.S., or overseas and people were far more welcoming and receptive. I'll have a look at the references you mention - thanks....
Hi Rob, I like this thought a great deal - language from the heart. I forget what I was reading at the time that got me going, but I remember getting fed up and writing Victimization a while back. It was one of those getting it off my chest things. Why is it we struggle so much with authenticity and clarity? Has materialism become so profound that it is even shaping the spaces between the words? I can say that I have not practiced the kind of consulting described, yet have been surrounded by i...
Brian, your post put a smile on my face. It's just like the old joke: what's the definition of a consultant? Someone who will steal your watch just to tell you the time. And the sad fact is that it's not always the fault of the consultant. In my previous jobs, we would employ consultants to tell us pretty much what we already knew. Problem was that the organization leadership put more stock in the results of consultants than it did its own staff. If they are "impartial" they must have better i...
Morning Brian Yes so much of the site reminded me of my past. Frightening. Does this not get back to your insight about the power of language? Does not human langauge - that is from the heart - break out of jargon and hence is clear? Is not then a test of commitment, the clarity of the word?...

Instructional Technology: The Acceleration of Nonsense

Brian, Thanks goes to you for shaping this space for creative thought and discussion. This space of yours is partly responsible for me becoming more proactive in my community. I have recently been in contact with an 'alternative school' here in Charlottetown about the possibility of guiding the children into the world of improv. My idea is to play "yes" games with them and tie it into creative writing. We may even tie it into mountain biking (talk about trusting your mond and body). Once you ...
Chris, Jeremy, Cynthia, Rob, I just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful contributions you made here and will always look forward to more. The stories and insights you have shared stimulated a lot of thought and reflection in me and you have helped guide, clarify and expand my thinking. Greatly appreciated. These series of comments also remind me just how powerful our personal stories and narratives are. How we use them to shape much of our understanding and meaning-making. Because memo...
Hi Rob, Although your name does not appear at the head of this comment, I definitely know it's you:-) What a wonderful phrase - space shaper. Not too distant from experience designer I think. The idea of space is also closely connected to the word I tend to use - environment - learning environment - a space where we try to create and coordinate the various kinds of conditions we are trying to encourage. I like the insight about setting up the conditions for conversation. And since I have a v...
Hi Jeremy, Very interesting extensions indeed. I remember reading James Burke's ideas about the pinball effect and was intrigued in how one single point/idea, whatever, can quickly become the basis for an expanding web of associations and relationships. It leads to the possibility that anything can be connected to anything else in fundamentally important ways if we embrace a kind of pattern seeking and recognition in our thinking and experiences. I refer to Burke because three of your insights...
Hi Cynthia, It's always so nice to hear stories like yours and Chris'. I especially like the ways in which you were invited into designing the place(s) of learning. It brought to my a recent entry in which I briefly revisited the idea of the object vs. source of design. The idea that the learner (not necessarily the students) is ultimately the source of design for learning, I believe, is a fundamental and guiding design initiative that is often misunderstood and sometimes maligned. Too often ...
Hi Chris, I like your phrase "What happens is the facade is changed, but it's out of alignment..." A long time ago, I used to give a presentation on educational change that focused on the idea of redecorate vs. rennovate. Much of our time is spent redecorating, or to your point, changing the facade. What I described here that what was really being changed was the language we use to describe things, yet that language was clearly a distant relative of what was really happening. Administrators, e...
We are such creatures of habit. I am working with a corporate client - we have spent months talking with them about conversation and we have delivered a great tool for them to converse on. But they are so far incapable of going beyond a message board. I am now 4 years into teaching online at UPEI and by week 3, the class usually is on fire and can't stop going deeper. Same tool - different result. What's the difference? I think that in my class my roles as the space manager is to set up th...
Great learning stories, Chris and Cyn. Both reminded me of the best three courses I've taken in my life. Although we didn't get to help design them, the common thread for both was that they aimed for depth instead of breadth by covering very few topics. The first one was in my last year of high school -- it was considered a sort of throwaway socials course called World Issues 12. There was the usual crammed curriculum for it, covering dozens of topics in many countries throughout different time...
I like the last note about students choosing not to learn if they're given the choice. I agree with you that this is a credit to the students, at least if we're expecting them to seek out something resembling the curriculum they follow now. In reality, I think they'll probably choose to learn a fair bit, but most likely almost nothing from the old curriculum. Watch any kid grab onto one of their real interests like a pit bull -- they have no problem learning about something they care about. As...
Hi, I had a similar experience to Christopher 24 years ago when I was in my second year of university. I had enrolled in a new program and our little class of 12 became the course developers. Canadian Studies was new to the University of Prince Edward Island, and the profs were desperate to find out where we, the students, wanted to go with the program. We did the same thing as your group, and set things up in an authoritarian-style class structure, only to find out the profs had already gone ...
Hi Brian, glad you decided to offer the ability to post comments... You wrote: Really. In this truly moving will students have some control over what they are learning? Or is the what the express domain of the best seller? Why is there no mention that maybe, just maybe, students will come up with better material than the master teacher? The underlying implications here are all old school thought wrapped in the facade of truly moving. I've seen this happen in haphazardly managed change initiati...

Progress: Work as Occupation / Work as Vocation

I have experienced firt hand this idea of 'consciously and stragically working against the creative threat'. I know it too familiar. It funnels down to a resounding big fat "NO". In the world of Improv, we call that a 'block'. When blocks are constantly being thrown into the path of a free mind, the bruises are felt. The recovery is slow and sometimes too difficult to fix. Again, in the world of Improv, we call this 'bombing'. And it too has that cascading effect you speak of. Traditional curr...
Hi Cynthia, Your comments on "creative minorities" and how they might lead toward a new culture of the horizon are very interesting. What I find most difficult to deal with is not just the way that existing culture tends to maintain a death grip on existing practices, but also how they can very consciously and stragically work against the creative threat. I say "threat" because creative work will bring basic assumptions and presuppositions into question and if an assumption is changed then ther...
More thoughts Brian... It would seem that the cultural mainstream have become petrified by hanging on to old ideas and rigid patterns of behaviour. As it would seem that the creative minorities have always been in some kind of transformation, reconfiguring old and inventing new elements with a new rising culture in the horizon. That’s how it has worked with the theatre organizations I’ve been involved in anyway. The frustration in setting new patterns comes into play when the mainstream refuse...
Hi Rob, I'm looking forward to your post. To join in on your thought - stepping out of the patterns of the Cartesian mindset might just allow us to enter the dark forest. Without that, we may never find the forest itself. Without that forest, we deny our own life....
Hi Cynthia, I agree. Marshall McLuhan often talked about the importance of the artist's sensibility, or artistic acuity, as a means to opening our perception of the world. And by opening new ways of perceiving we begin to recognize new patterns. Yet much of our upbringing seems to be oriented toward submitting ourselves to a pre-defined way of perceiving. Artists are often, sadly, marginalized in society - creative people, but not pragmatic people so the fodder goes. This view, to support you...
I am reading Christopher Alexander's books - The Nature of Order (he rote the Pattern Language) They are about enabling us to "see" the patterns of life and nature again and by so doing rediscover our own nature and hence the nature of all things. I will post a bit on this But in short - seeing the patterns of life is surely to break the bonds of the Cartesian world and to find our place at last...
Maybe pattern recognition is best 'seen' in the arts because, by nature, the artist is more open. More open to making connections, more sensitive to his/her environment. Quite likely that the artist never loses what comes naturally as a child. As you mention, the transitional occurs in the junior high years, and it's also at this time where you see the artist emerge. This is where the trouble starts for the artist. No longer are they part of a crowd. They are the ones off drawing in the corner, ...

Myth: Bliss - The Experience of Myth

Looking forward to...
The 'safety of the stage'...HA!! We're talking naked. Need I say more. This is indeed good connection. Looking more exploring. Peace....
Rob - this connection we now have has definitely captured my attention. And you are of course precisely right - weblogging. This connection to PEI - I need to know more. Something quite wonderful is going on there. I'm thinking I know where my next vacation should be. -Brian...
Hi Cynthia, I can't tell you how nice it is to find someone that can relate to these ideas. We should think more about them together. I found improvisation relatively late in life. I was in my mid-teens and to that point had been "classically" trained as a musician. Then I started playing in rock bands and jazz ensembles and, aside from my ego being (thankfully) completely shattered, I soon realized how unprepared I was. This was not an pleasant experience initially at all, but proved to be on...
It is so wonderful to see my two new friends have met each other and are talking like this Brian - you know that PEI is calling you...
It may be an oxymoron to say that I am trained in improvisation, but I am. Trained as an actor and comedian to say "Yes"..."Yes, and", as opposed to "yes, but". And what that has given me is a valuable tool that I can choose to use in the other pursuits in my life, and in 'following my bliss'. So, yes, I agree improvisation and learning are tightly woven together. At the basis of 'learning improv' is the believe that your ideas are as good as your teammates. That by saying 'yes' to yourself you...
In Learning: The Need for Improvisation I made an attempt to etch out some ideas about the important relationship that exists between learning and improvisation. It occurs to me that Campbell, even though I can't for the moment find the use of the word "improvisation" in his work, is in fact speaking about the important role it plays in pursuing life and finding one's bliss. I thought of this entry when reading, "Imagine how different the transition into adulthood would be if young people never...
Freefalling and writing, exactly how I appraoch most of my work as a writer and performer. Not some much improvisation but more of a trust that the core idea will come across without a grand scheme ahead of time. Or that if it changes, it changes...so what. Imagine how different the transition into adulthood would be if young people never lost thier ability to trust their own creativity. I know so many adults trying to recapture what they have lost, or at least trying to find something they tho...
Hi Cynthia, For a writer, freefalling is sometimes a technique used to encourage more of a stream of consciousness style of writing. But, like you, it doesn't seem to me like a good idea when it comes to the future. My own teaching experience reveals a similar pattern. Students, as they get older, seemed to be filled with so many "can't do's" or "mustn't do's" that they spend most of their time doing just that - can't and mustn't. I remember saying to a group I was presenting to, "Why is it t...
Hi Brian, I think it's in PTB where Campbell speaks about free-falling into the future, without any adherence to any true story or path. I suspect the detachment occurs when we are very young, before the age of six perhaps. Back in my teaching art to children days, it was evident to me that when a 6 six yeard old tells me she can not draw, she has lost her connection to nature, to her natural world. That she says she 'can't' is the key to reaching back and to her world where she could. Luckily w...
Hi Cynthia, Thanks for the comment. Interesting, I just finished reading (again) Campbell's Pathways to Bliss and if he is even at least partly right, and I suspect he is more than that, the potential damage caused by losing the essence of myth is our lives is quite dramatic. There are sections in the book that link the absence of myth to the formation of neurosis and psychosis. Best regards, Brian...
"...sometimes wonder if, consciously or unconsciously, some social and cultural systems are not, in fact, an attempt to amputate the natural presence of myth in childhood. That is, we are often so busy telling children what they need to be instead of helping them discover what they already are." Exactly. And I think that we are 'consciously' amputating the natural presence of myth in childhood. If we are so out of touch with our own childhood and have resorted to unconsciousness in relation to ...

Narrative: Hope Paterson - "Opening My Eyes"

Hope - if you are rambling then please just keep on rambling:-) If there are criticisms about you style of writing, then ignore them. I will look forward to reading more about your experiences and I wish you the very best. You are undertaking a journey that is quite unique and vibrant and it is kind of you to share it with us. We can all learn from what you are doing. Best regards, Brian...
Rob - thank you for the kind words. The parallels in Hope's experiences and what Campbell is describes as pathways to bliss are dramatic, and her ability to share them with such clarity is unique. Best regards, Brian...
Brian, I was so touched by your article. I am so happy that my 'rambles' (I am often critisized for my ongoing stream-of-consciousness writing style) could give people an insight of how much more we can involve ourselves in our travel-life experiences. I feel like i am scratching the surface of so many more important discoveries; all of them are simple and natural. I will continue to keep watching, wandering, learning and sharing. The last week has given me even more energy to give back to th...
Brian What a gift to Hope's words interpretded by you Thank you Rob (Hope's dad)...

Curriculum: The Obliteration of Individuality

Hi Jeremy - Interesting entry you referred me to. I agree that there needs to be some "essentials" for people to know. At the same time, the "curriculum" is the medium through which these essentials attempt to pass. Whatever the content is, it is given form by curriculum. This is why history, math, science, etc. are all the same - the words may be different in each of these topics, but the presentation of them is identical. Not enough people understand curriculum for what it is - a technology. ...
Great thoughts, Brian. I've wrestled a bit with issues around curriculum as well. It's this weird circular loop in my head. At its core, curriculum is simply what society has decided that it wants everyone to understand. Many of those things are actually quite important (citizenship, the three Rs, etc) in leading a fulfilling life. It makes me believe that maybe there should be some "essentials". But would the essential learning for any one individual (to have a fulfilling life) be covered b...

Language: "New" Approaches to Learning

Wow, that's really excellent. I was a year old when that book came out and haven't read it, I'm afraid! But now I'm curious! ...
Nice quote. I pulled my copy of Future Shock off the shelf to have a look and found: "If learning is to be stretched over a lifetime, there is reduced justification for forcing kids to attend school full time. For many young people, part-time schooling and part-time work at low-skill, paid and unpaid community service tasks will prove more satisfying and educational." What's also interesting is that this was written in 1970, and it seems to me we are still wrestling with similar issues in a di...
I saw a really great quote today from Alvin Toffler's Future Shock... "The illiterate of the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but rather those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn" Ain't that the truth?...

Lifestyle: The Foundation for a Better Life

That's great! This is a powerful site - and I like the fact that there is a very clear "grassroots" feel to it, not to mention the focus on positive life stories....
This is really excellent! What a great idea, focusing on the positive! I love finding these tidbits in newspapers, but can't stand having to wade through all the awful stuff to find them... so, this is great. I added an ActiveWord for the site: 'goodnews'....

Gaming: Self-esteem, Games and Macromedia Flash

Hi Lisa, I can be convinced otherwise too:-) I completely agree with you about focusing on the positive aspects to be had. The "warning" side of things via McLuhan, Postman, Mumford, and many others is something I've always respected and paid close attention to, but as you can tell from my life's work it isn't something that drives me. There are people that spend to much time on the negative side of the equation just as there are people that fail to fully take the downside into account. Like so...
I agree that there are many violent images in the media regarding games, but I think a lot of this is the same thing that happens whenever a new technology is introduced. As Dmitri Williams aptly puts it, ' when a new medium shows up we worry about what it's going to take the place of, what's it's going to do to us, and whether it's going to make us unhealthy...'. Video games are no exception, but like the Internet, or books, or cities, there are good aspects and bad ones. I choose to focus o...

Networks: Mobile Learning - What's Moving?

Hi Brian, (Hope you don't mind me writing here. I'm quite new to blogging.) I'm very grateful for your answers in response to your questions about network learning environments. It is sad to hear that those projects are not flourishing as one would hope. And heartbreaking to realize that there are people in positions of power to oppose such initiatives. Yet I'm sure the ideas embodied by your projects will find - in due time - nourishing soil and climate in which to bloom. I think John Papwor...

Design: What is Experience Design?

Thanks Paula. I agree that the core principles of experience design are built on a broad view of human interactions, connections and relationships. ...
The beauty of Robin Good's post is not in the comments posted by the 'disciplinarians', but in his own observations and references made as he spoke of a "multidisciplinary culture" and "an emerging paradigm, a call for inclusion". This cross-disciplinary opportunity is the core premise for optimizing the potential of anything -- proven by the science of complexity (see references at http://www.iknovate.com/archives/000006.html). The opportunity to leverage the collective collaboration of cross-d...

Deception: Knowledge Isn't Power

Hi John: You're right. Sharing knowledge can have the power to move other people in postive and profound ways. The observation you've made is an important one and clearly I was moved by what Stephen Lewis had to say and there was very definitely a power in his story that moved me. And, in the end, it all comes back to me, the listener - the learner, to decide what to do. So maybe knowledge is power when I take personal responsibility for it in my own life, develop a sense of purpose from it, bu...
Brian: Good post; I share your sense of frustration when I hear this phrase used. I think what people sometimes mean by it is "Hoarding knowledge, keeping it tight, makes you powerful". I think it might create a fantasy of power; or a kind of control bought at a price. But sharing knowledge, that creates a different kind of power. Maybe by sharing his ideas, his passions, the speaker did create power; not power he controlled, but which has moved you - and I hope others - to some kind of acti...

Health: Nutrition vs. Corporate Obesity

Hi Pearl, Thanks for the reference re e-Learning - I'll definitely check it out. All is fine here, but I have been extremely busy at work lately. The writing I have done has been offline, but I'll soon get back to the weblog. Rick and I have also done some re-thinking about what we want to do with Inside Learning so that has been time well spent. It's a little ironic, but I was involved in a car accident a little while ago - thankfully not my fault and no one was seriously hurt. Being my first...
With your interest in E-learning thought this may be of interest as a data point, http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=40443&d=2&m=3&y=2004&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom All OK there Brian?...

Homework: Time Management or Time-Manglement?

Hi again Pearl, Devil's advocate is an important role to play, especially when presented in the way you have. After reading Frankl's experiences in a concentration camp, I can only agree with your comment that our time in life and what we choose to do with it is ultimately an individual choice. So having admitted that, let me see how I might try to disagree with our agreement. Your idea of "personhood" is quite interesting and I like the way you have blended the ideas of "childhood" and "adul...
Hi Pearl, First of all, let me thank-you again for taking the time to offer valuable insights and perspectives. I appreciate them very much. I really like your phrase "another series of taps on the neural path" with respect to fluency. From what I understand, and I am not an expert in this area, neural pathways are fostered through repetition. Edward de Bono, Candice Pert, Richard Restak and David Suzuki offer some penetrating views on this. I continue to try and learn more about this. I have...
I guess so far as time mangle-ment that comes down to individual choice. The institution may impose whatever rules it likes but the individual will take on as crucial only what the individual decides will advantage himself/herself. The child makes decisions on how much to comply, what to internalize and not. True, we've got some pretty young children now getting "adult" diseases like heart disease, ulcers, diabetes along with adult information such as how to resist media, questionable adults, en...
Interesting premise that I never thought about. I find learners request HW but few do it. Your 1-3 and 6 I can more or less agree with readily. 7 can be true but if the homework is reinforcing the ideas not introducing new ones, mustn't a slight amount more of fluency with the ideas be built up even as another series of taps on the neural path? 8 seems to depend on the immediate work peers. Some enlightened groups seem to come to a concensus that you can work smarter with focus and do fewer ho...

Teaching: Resilience - A Teachable Skill?

Hi Pearl, Thanks for the comment, it's appreciated. I have been thinking more and more about the differences teaching (education in general) and learning, especially in situations when the idea of teaching is used as a marketing tool to get people to "buy in" to something (i.e. - a product, a service, a diploma, a belief system). BTW - I really enjoy reading your Humanyms section. Best regards, Brian...
Brian, I really appreciate reading your thoughts on teachability of attitude and character. I keep coming back to your site. It's not light reading but it is always engaging....

Instructional Technology: The Psychology of a Psychology Course

Thank you for this detailed and thoughtful comment. It is because I value university education so much in our society that I raise this concern. Our government needs to provide a great deal more support. As I said in the original post - I do believe that universities are in a difficult position. They need better funding, and the difficulties they face have only been made more challenging by the double cohort. This has practical ramifications for what can and can't be done, so we all need to be ...
I was drawn to this discussion because so much of it revolves around the methodology of my Introductory Psychology course at McMaster University. I would like to add to this discussion in the hope that those who consider our approach as ‘stupid’ and ‘misguided’ will do so only after having been more fully informed. Brian’s description of how the course is conducted is fairly accurate: The course is taught via video lectures shown simultaneously in multiple classrooms, twice per week. The ...
Hi Bob, "“Why not live in place where I can have professors as friends? Why not live in a place with a network of support, advice, love, respect, melodrama, and laughter? Why not live in a place where you feel like a part of something bigger, something deeper, something more?” The collegiate landscape of the future will be a landscape that is filled with history and memory, where every student is part of something bigger, something deeper, something more." I hope you are right - this would be ...
A remarkable and disturbing account. I've made a link to it on the news page of my website The Collegiate Way: Residential Colleges and Higher Education Reform. You ask: "And on the other side of the coin, where are these stories or narratives that will provide guidance? Are these stories that we read and enjoy or actually take action on?" I offer one such narrative: my sketch of the collegiate landscape of the future. As one of the cleverest students I've ever known once asked, "Why are we ...
I read Ken's posting and added a comment - very interesting indeed. I had two long discussions with my son yesterday. He has dropped the Psychology course. This has nothing to do with Psychology - he remains interested, but in his words, "I can't stand the method." He's right to be fed up and angry at the way he has been abused. He found a new course - Introductory Anthropology. He found this course not by searching the course catalogue but by researching student feedback on professors and the...
The course taught by the most famous professor at my undergraduate institution lived on in a similar fashion even after his death: http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog_comments.php?id=P2390_0_13_0...
Pretty grim stuff. I recently read a nice piece by Stephen Downes called 2004: The Turning Point. In it there is a section called "Population In Serach Of A Community" where he says: "Despite blogrolls, comment forms, trackbacks and more (all of which are showing early signs of spam pollution), blogging is essentially an individual activity, not a participation in a group. This mass of people will be cast adrift once again, searching for a way to form a group. There won't be a single magic b...
Brian, I don't think I have heard of Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap!) but can attest that this also applies to our research on discussion group posting patterns. We found that approximately 90% of "participants" never post, 90% of the posts that do exist are "me too" replies to original posts ("Cool. I totally agree, dude.") and 90% of original posts never receive a reply. These are approximate numbers but they reflect Sturgeon's Law very closely....

Narrative: Dan Eldon - Safari As A Way Of Life

It is such a pleasure to see a comment here - my thanks to you. To live life with more courage and love - this is the energy that drives the narratives that matter the most. For me, a model of living such as the one Dan has given us matters the most. It is in a place like this that I believe we see and feel the real essence of learning (and so much more) start to emerge and it is only through the lives of exceptional people that we can begin to fully appreciate what learning can be for each and...
Well said. "Meeting" Dan through his journals, photographs, art, words, and through the stories shared by those who were fortunate to meet him, was an experience in itself for me. Dan's life was extraordinary, expanding beyond boudaries to connect, on a profound level, with others as well as mine. How does the narrative of Dan Eldon's life change what I might do in my own life? Perhaps to live it with more courage and love. ...

Health: Alcohol and the Brain

I might need to consider this over a glass of wine........

Networks: Global Attention Profiles & Witness

The discussion about mapping reminded me of a project called TerraVision. It's been a couple of years since I checked this out, but they have obviously come a long way: "The GeoWeb is a vision for making all geographically referenced, or georeferenced, data available over the Web. It is the open, hierarchical, and distributed infrastructure, that we use to rapidly index georeferenced data." "TerraVision is an Open Source distributed, interactive terrain visualization system developed by SRI In...

Psychology: Victimization - Puppet on a String

It is exciting and unnerving to read a post like this one and think that, down deep, the basis of much of the good and evil we commit is speech, and that our speech becomes woven into our social practices, our habits of mind, even the shaping of our bodies. I think of Foucault: "Every educational system is a political means of maintaining or modifying the appropriation of discourse, with the knowledge and power it carries with it." From "The Discourse on Language," page 22, quoted by David Ba...

Instructional Design: You Can't Learn Something When Somebody Else Does It For You

"She was learning new skills by doing them and having others help her when she needed help." In the educational psychology literature, when a learning experience like the previous is planned and orchestrated; that is, the assistance is gradually removed when a level of competence is ensured while a level of challenge remains, it is referred to as "scaffolding". This strategy is often used in the instruction of performance-based activities - which could include "critical thinking". However, the l...