Category: learning
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Ink Drawing and a Note on Effortless Effort
The titanic effort that we sometimes suspect is required for what we want–whether to calm our restless inner chatter, to attain peace, happiness, or motivation–is what prevents us from attaining it. Over the last couple of days, I have not been able to shake this image of a mother putting her infant to bed. An…
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Show, Don’t Tell: Using Biomimicry to Instill a Growth Mindset
“Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.” – Ernest Hemingway “In my view, nothing’s ever given away. I believe to advance that you must pay.” – Young Fathers Translating literally to “expedient” and roughly to “skill in means,” the Buddhist concept of upaya offers a space to think through the dilemmas of engagement in education. …
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Some Things Only Come Together In The End
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZAbvOkkF4E&w=560&h=315]
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Bridges of Play in Art, Philosophy, and Childhood
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glWjG7_Sv0E&w=853&h=480] The nature of the will is one of the major problematics of life. Philosophers and artists have long labored to clarify the position we are in concerning the will. How much power does one person have? How much responsibility does one have in achieving for oneself the good life, and how can this…
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Annie Dillard and Thomas Merton on Pushing Passed “Good Enough”
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Born into a system of norms set strategically before us, it’s always surprising to be reminded that we are still ultimately at the helm of this process of what we accomplish and what we choose to bring into being.
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The Disembodiment of Knowledge
Thinking about Media with Socrates and McLuhan “Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior.” – Marshall McLuhan A gradual externalization of human knowledge began with the advent of written language, the first alphabets arising around the 3rd millennium BC, and the old Latin alphabet…
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Showing Promise
A student puts off his final essay till the night before it’s due. The stakes are high. Four pages and 10% of his final grade for the course are on the line. The deadline looms guillotine-like above his head, and this motivates him. He gets his grade back soon and proclaims to his peers, “I…
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Trusting the Ground of Learning
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/75106381″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] In order to access that “world in a grain of sand” which William Blake wrote about, physically, nothing more is required than to walk the beach, sit and comb the sand. In the end, physically, there is probably nothing required. What he meant was a psychological alignment. Only…