This month’s Utne Reader has an article featuring yours truly; the subtitle includes a term that I used, somewhat spontaneously during an interview: “radical self-educators challenge the ‘tyranny of credentials.’” I’ll explain what I meant by “tyranny of credentials.” (Regular readers may remember the original article which appeared in full at Rabble.ca and TheTyee.ca, written [...]
mastery
Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED talk is up titled, “Bring on the learning revolution!“ (via @hjarche) Of course it is full of moving sentiments and wonderful ideas, presented with great wit, and I’ll recommend it to everyone (not that I have to, as it recommends itself)… but I think it falls short on substance: Criticizing schools is [...]
As part of my initiative to keep posts here under 800 words, I posted a longer piece over at openconceptual.com — an idea I had for nine stages of learning. I also wanted to try publishing something through Scribd. I’ve been thinking of publishing my longer posts this way for over a year now. Thing [...]
When we talk about learning we tend to focus on the middle three stages: comprehension, articulation, and utilization — aka, rudiments & fundamentals, theory, and practice (usually all at once). That kind of education is fine if you’re just looking for a mediocre, good-enough degree of mastery. People who truly excel at something start learning well before their formal lessons, and continue long afterwards.
Some of the most creative thinkers allow themselves moments of disorderly discovery, allowing new influences and sources to, in a sense, ‘find them.’ That’s from my early post about “disorderly discovery” (a poor attempt to invent a catchy term), or the importance of randomness in the creative process. It might be one of the most [...]
