REALITY CHECK FOR TEACHERS, LOVERS, WRITERS, AND LOVERS OF LANGUAGE.
 A thoughtful and provocative quote from educator John Holt (1923-1985) from How Children Learn:
We teachers - perhaps all human beings - are in the grip of an astonishing delusion. We think that we can take a picture, a structure, a working knowledge of something, constructed in our minds out of long experience and familiarity, and by turning that model into a string of words, transplant it whole into the mind of someone else.
Perhaps once in a thousand times, when the explanation is extraordinarily good, and the listener extraordinarily experienced and skillful at turning word-strings into non-verbal reality, and when the explainer and listener share in common many of the experiences being talked about, the process may work, and some real meaning may be communicated.
Most of the time, explaining does not increase understanding, and may even lessen it.
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[How to Save the World]
As an educator? teacher? I am increasingly disturbed by our idea that learning is about shoving models and words into children's heads. But then here I am using an online course where we are restricted to words. I tell myself that this is OK because the course is set up as a conversation. However, I am still not sure. I spoke yesterday to a colleague who teaches environmental studies. Don Mazer asks his students to spend up to an hour a day in nature reflecting.
His experience is that this is best done in the same place so as to deepen the connection and to see how, in just a small place, things constantly change. I find this when I mow - it takes me about 3 hours twice a week - we have a lot of grass (another project) - I see all the weeds cycle though, the leaves bud bloom, mature wither and die. I feel every bump and see every twig and branch that has fallen onto the ground. Mowing even exposes me to the seasons and the larger system. The Zen of the Ride On?
This brings me to how we learn about blogging and all the recent great posts about what it is. Dave is an exemplar in this field.
So what about blogging? For me the issue is my experience.
No matter how much I attempt to explain it - see all the posts from you all on my site that help me see it in words - nothing beats doing it. Not merely the technical aspects but the growing social aspects. How can I explain how it feels to become Known - even only as fringe player? How can I explain my excitement when I see that Dave, or someone else like Richard, Chris or Stephen that I follow, has posted another gem? How can I explain the feeling that I have when a, then stranger, such as Critt Jarvis offers technical help out of the blue? How can I explain how it feels to be talking to someone who then tells you that she regularly reads your blog?
It is this experience that deepens my own sense of connection. Blogging is changing my life in a way that no other technology has. Email allowed me access to my existing friends but blogging offers me a chance of extending my community to many that I never would have met. It constantly enriches my life and hence is addictive.
I wonder if being known to a community - where you have earned your place - is not the greatest desire that we as humans have. It is surely the feeling that Tribal people have and why expulsion fro the tribe is its most terrible punishment.
8:47:15 AM 
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