I have succumbed to Twitter.
Last week, Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons passed away. When I was a kid, in the early eighties, you either played D&D and or you didn’t, and I did. I went through a few years of playing a little, not as intensely as some, but a fair amount nonetheless. In D&D I found an outlet for my imagination, and in an era when computer games got no more interesting than Pac-Man, it was a blessing to be engaged in play like that. My seven year old son is a gamer. I taught …
So I’m a map maker. I am a cartographer of my own learning, and I love making maps to help me understand where I am, where I have been, and where I might go. Since being an active participant in the community of learners working with what we call the Art of Hosting, I have been fascinated with the maps we use that represent our ways of making sense of the world. I have been trying various ways to draw a grand map of all of these things, and here is my latest effort, a sketch I did today based …
I was listening to The Current on CBC Radio this morning and I caught an interview with Marlene Brant-Castellano on the newly announced Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools (hear the interview here). Back in the mid 1980s when I was at Trent University, Marlene was a professor in the Native Studies Department. She was a beautiful teacher – quiet and inviting and embodying tremendous dignity and powerful conviction all at the same time. I connected with her quite deeply as I began to explore questions of culture and community. It was in her classes …
This is refreshing. Michael Bryant, the Ontario Mininster of ABoriginal Affairs was up in Caledonia last week talking to non-native people about what is going on with the dispute there. He sort of live blogged his learning on YouTube, a nice candid set of relfections, although he stammers a fair bit. Would be good too if he spoke to some Haudonasaunee people as well, BUT kudos for him putting his thoughts out there like this. I think that makes for good accountability, especially if some of the folks he talked to weigh in in the comments section if they need …