What is held
in the curl of new growth
is the lens through which
we see the peripheral light
streaming into the open eyeAnd a tension holds it there
meniscus rapt
membranes meeting and gently resting
in one another’s curves.
…and…
We don’ susbscribe to a lot of magazines around here, but one that gets read the moment it arrives is Life Learning Magazine. There is always something interesting or inspirational in almost every article, a level of quality that is amazing – but not surprising – for a small circulation publication.
From an article in the July/August issue on mindful learning comes this great gem from John Holt:
Since we can’t know what knowledge will be needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.
Great advice to carry around, especially for designers of learning programs. The difference between training and learning is captured in that quote; those who confuse the two will find themselves heading down one path while the othe heads away in the opposite direction.
[tags]training, john holt, life learning[/tags]
Kevin Harris, at Neighbourhoods has a nice rant about capacity building today:
As far as I can recall, capacity building the community sector has not been the problem anywhere I’ve worked. The problem is relationships. Too many people in positions of power are behaving in disempowering ways towards residents and towards those who experience exclusion, and then using the notion of capacity-building as a smokescreen. If there’s any capacity building to be done, it’s in terms of getting these people to behave in a civilised and grown-up manner towards those they are supposed to be supporting, or just get out of the way. If we get these people out of the way, IMHO, the capacity of the community sector will always reassert itself.
I tend to agree with him. In the world of First Nations community development, “capacity building” became a buzzword in the early nineties, around the time of the Royal Commission. I think it started out innocently enough as a term meaning to build up the ability of communities to self-govern and self-manage. It was always talked about without context however, and I have met few people working in indigenous communities here who understand capacity building in terms of asset-based community development, appreciative inquiry or other similar bodies of thought and practice.
The problem now with the term is that is has become completely degraded. When people talk about “capacity building” now I have to ask them what they mean. In its worst connotations, government uses the term to mean “Aboriginal communities taking more responsibility for their own futures” which is often code for “we want out of this.” Likewise on the community side, I hear the word “capacity” used in place of “funding” so that capacity building becomes about getting more funding to do new things. (Of course there are many examples that are counter to what I am saying, but this is a general trend).
I think we would do well to forget the term “capacity building” as Kevin suggests and just focus on what the real need is. By engaging in collaborative work around these well articulated needs, we create the relationships necessary to sustain the work over time. That creates a learning community, and only through self-organization, self-education and self-empowerment, can a community understand, harness and realize its own capacities.
[tags]capacity building[/tags]
For the past two years, I have been active in the Art of Hosting fellowship. This is a global community of practitioners dedicated to uncovering the new and emerging forms of meaningful conversation and organizational shape. Together we have been conducting trainings, working together on projects and deeply learning our patterns.
Several of our mates in this fellowship have been working hard to bring about an online presence for our work, and today it went live. So I introduce to you the brand new Art of Hosting site, a place that describes what we are doing, how we are doing it and invites you to join us. Please take some time to poke around there and draw some inspiration from the amazing resources and content that has been assembled.
And if you are interested in exploring this pattern more deeply, there are several opportunities to do so in upcoming trainings, including one here on Bowen Island BC in a couple of weeks.
[tags]art of hosting[/tags]
10 cool reads that crossed my path recently:
1. The Plastic Sea: “The simple fact is that when you drop a Styrofoam cup onto the street, you’re causing more damage than you would by dropping a stick of dynamite into the ocean. You set in motion an invasion of thousands of killer plastibots that will cause death and destruction for centuries to come.” See also A Primeval Tide of Toxins.
2. How Bush Makes Enemies: “Today, more from the muddled strategic thinking of the Bush administration than the actual threat from Al Qaeda, the “war on terror” has become an Orwellian nightmare: an ill-defined war without prospect of end. We are now nearly five years into a war against a group that was said to contain no more then 500 to 1,000 terrorists at the start (in case anyone’s counting, 1,776 days have now passed since 9/11; that is more than a full year longer than the time between Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Japan, which was 1,347 days). The war just grows and grows. And now Lebanon, too, is part of it.” I was just plain struck by these stats. Fundamentally, I want the killing to stop.
3. The New Organization: “Organisation man did bump into people in corridors, but he was cautious about networking. In his world, knowledge was power, and he needed to be careful about sharing out his particular store of it. He found comfort in hierarchy, which obviated the need to be self-motivating and take risks. He lived in a highly structured world where lines of authority were clearly drawn on charts, decisions were made on high, and knowledge resided in manuals.
Networked person, by contrast, takes decisions all the time, guided by the knowledge base she has access to, the corporate culture she has embraced, and the colleagues with whom she is constantly communicating. She interacts with a far greater number of people than her father did.” via
4. The Ecotone Archives 2003-2006: The archives of a placeblogging project I helped start three years ago.
5. Ten Essential Canadian books of fiction: “Imaginative works, our panel decided after vigorous debate, dive deeper into the national psyche than non-fiction. Here are 10 novels and books of poetry you need to read to understand the inner lives of Canadians, our fears and frictions, our cultural history.” The ten were derived from this list. In BC, The Tyee has a different opinion.
6. Hawaiian Folk Tales Index: “This is an anthology of Hawaiian folklore, including pieces by Thomas Thrum and other writers. This includes many articles which were originally published in difficult to obtain journals and now-rare books. All were written in the late 19th or early 20th century, and are mostly based on first-hand oral traditions. Chapters cover topics such as resemblances to Biblical stories, myths of the gods and goddesses such as Maui and Pele, historical legends, topographical folklore, and the folklore of fishing.”
7. Starry Night in Beirut: An improvisation for bass clarinet (I think) and bombs.
8. Playing the Right Thing – Chris Corrigan: “I think Chris Corrigan is one of the best guitar players in Canada. The integrity and good taste he brings to every note knocks me dead. But I’m almost reluctant to make this disclosure, lest the Wide World catches on, and he gets snatched away from the East Coast.” Nice, but this is NOT about me. For years people have been asking me if I was this Chris Corrigan. We both play Celtic music, we’re both on the radio from time to time, we both live on islands. About time we recorded something together, eh? (I sound like this, by the way).
9. Answers for Young People. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the world wide web, has a lovely page explaing the web, and his life, for young folks.
10. Kati Sarinnen on unschooling and uniqueness. My new friend, a lovely writer and a reflective thinkiner on gardening and life learning:
“I know from experience what it is like to be the parent of a child that does not fit the mold, cannot meet the expectations at the exact time and in the exact way educators at a certain time and in a certain place require. This is to teach that a child with unique talents and wisdom is a failure. And that is so wrong.
The world is deprived of that child if the parents and child give up and don’t realize that that child has so much to contribute, in a different point of view, in creativity, in skill sets, that a narrow approach shuts off, if we allow it. What the world needs, what industry and business need, (what they say they need but behave in opposition to, far too often in actuality) is a person with a fresh perspective, creative insight, skill in independent problem solving! The child whose spark is not extinguished in most school experiences, will go on to do great things in this world — and maybe not in the way we expect.”