Reminders

I planted bulbs last fall, as a personal refusal to go gentle into that season I enjoy least.  I distinctly remember planting tulips and I might have planted jonquils.  I had no recollection at all of planting what I found today.  I consider these lovelies to be the joys of a bad memory.

After reveling in the sheer delight of finding crocus in multiple places (who knew?), I wondered about the metaphors of planting...planting without expectation, planting with no guarantee of success, planting far removed from the joy of the harvest.  It's what educators, innovators, and parents (among others) do--we plant.  It may not be seeds or bulbs, but it most definitely is ideas, hopes, challenges, and, if we are lucky, a bit of knowledge.

I wonder whether education puts too much emphasis on the pretty and not enough on the gritty.  End-of-year test scores, grades, and student ratings of professors all seem to be missing the mark in a rather short-sighted way and they lack the intrinsic value of projects, portfolios, or prototypes.   The gritty part of working through a problem, developing a project, creating a design--and, equally, in failing to solve, develop, or create--is where the learning happens.  The interaction with an educator as coach, collaborator, or guide (rather than as lecturer) offers opportunities that are, at best, only hinted by numbers, rankings, and anonymous feedback.

If we focus on the shortest, though most visible, part of any process, we are missing most of it.

"Write like no one's reading."

Tonight was the last class of Comedy College.  And, as with the first night, the most important lessons weren't about comedy at all; they were about authenticity, listening, and letting go of the self-judgment that blocks spontaneity.  The more we assess and measure ourselves, the less we are able to listen to our improv partner.  Worrying about how we will be perceived by others causes us to stop, think, and lose the connection with the moment.

Before I went to class tonight, I was catching up on some reading (while eating pizza) and stumbled upon the phrase "Write like no one's reading," which means that, as a writer, I "write what someone like me would like to read" without concern about how others (who are not like me) might respond.

Being true to the moment in improv is very much like being true to a standard in writing. The audience observes--but the audience does not determine--the outcome. Paradoxically, authenticity on the stage and on the page require letting go of concern about the audience.  

Expert risk takers

Decisions not to pursue a course of action unless we are reasonably certain of success. Taking the safe path.  Calculating the odds.  Weighing the alternatives and choosing with care.  One really can't argue with any of these.  On the other hand, there would be no air travel, vaccines, tall buildings, or world records if everyone calculated, weighed, and chose safely.

Why is there not room for both in my workplace, my class, my family...and my life?  And what is the role of education?  What about the role of learning?

I recently watched Erin McKean talk about lexicography (that seems a safe enough topic) and was struck by her assertion that "paper is the enemy of words"...that the book-shaped repository for words is self-limiting.  What makes these statements powerful is that Erin McKean is a lexicographer who loves books and words with a passion I admire. Able to embrace both the historical paper dictionary and the limitless online dictionary, McKean provides both reassurance and challenge:

There will still be paper dictionaries.  When cars became the dominant mode of transportation, we didn't round up all the horses and shoot them.

Exploring alternatives does not necessarily eliminate the historical voice.  What if embracing both the limits and the limitless allows more people into the conversation?  If encouraging risk is important, perhaps the challenge is being open to the who, what, when, why, and how questions that all curious and creative people ask.  They just ask them differently...or refuse the accept the old answers.

I am not advocating foolish or ill-advised risk in the classroom or in life.  Rather, I am wondering why we ceased to provide the solid foundation of knowledge that allows room for experimentation, risk (failure?), discovery, and innovation. It's the experts who seem to make the best risk-takers.

Failing to learn

Failure is a recurring theme in much of my reading, of late.  Oddly enough, the reading I've been doing is about creativity and innovation.  About our education system.  And about the connection between learning and failing.

Though it may more accurately be the fear of failure, rather than failure itself, that is the antithesis of creativity, the technicality seems less important than the recognition that much effort is expended in the avoidance of failure.  This is odd to me, as the most important lessons are generally those that involve failure.

Failing to learn.  By refusing to fail?  Or by understanding the importance of failure?

One of the gifts of age is having enough failures to harvest.

You don't have to like it

There's a lot being written (and read) about education, technology, and change.   When you brush aside the details and posturing, most of what is being written is about how technology is changing education in ways that we won't be able to undo any time soon.  And when I think about the changes, I think about a Jerry Lewis movie from 1960.

Cinderfella is not a particularly good movie taken as whole cloth, but it has some delightful pieces.  One of those is Count Basie's music and Count Basie himself.  Another is Jerry Lewis' humor, including the physicality rarely seen in comedy today.  And the reason I think of this movie when I think about changes in education is where Basie's music and Lewis' comedy meet.

Near the end of the movie, Jerry Lewis dances with Anna Maria Alberghetti.  If you've never seen the movie (which is highly likely), it will suffice to say that the dance is that romantic moment in a romantic comedy when the magic happens. Dancing to The Count Basie Orchestra directed by Count Basie (you actually get to see the Count and his orchestra), there is a moment when Lewis brings Alberghetti to a standstill, carefully arranges a fold in her lovely gown just so, motions for her to stand where she is, then dances an exuberant and absurdly comic jig around her.  Twice.  And THAT is the moment that captures what is happening in education.

The force and magnitude of the changes being wrought in education are of the size and scale of both the printing press and the technology that has all but replaced the printing industry.  And, much as we may love the status quo, expecting it to stay the way it is while we dance our respective jigs around it is about as silly as the comedy for which Jerry Lewis is known.

The changes are already happening.  And whether we like them or not is less relevant than whether we will be active participants or passive resisters.  I'll let you in on a little secret here:  I'm not a big fan of sweeping change, especially when I like something just the way it is.  But I like even less having the change(s) decided and imposed by others.

I'm learning new dance steps and finding new partners.

At what cost humor?

I just searched the inbox of a rarely-used email address in the hope (faint though it was) that I might find an email from CD Baby.  I found it:  

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. 

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. 

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, October 24th. 

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh...
--
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music

Notice the date.  October 24.  That's October 24, 2007.

How often does a company send a "your product has shipped" email that customers remember?  For five years?  And what made me remember this one?  It warmed my heart...it felt personal...it made me laugh.  It made me want to teach my very own cd baby to laugh, to love, and to write well.

A perfect blend of information, humor, and quirkiness made such an impression that I have referenced this email in conversations and in classes for over five years.  I've been providing free marketing for an innovative small business.

The value of slowing down

We move at a pace that (too) often takes us right past the important things in life...without even realizing that we've missed them.  Technology has become both our access to anytime, anywhere connectivity and our figurative ball and chain.  I'd forgotten how important it is to disconnect with The World and reconnect with my world--the inner sanctum of who I am (or aspire to be) and who matters to me.

For the first time in years, I took a vacation that did not include checking email or staying connected via technology.  My daughter and I spent time enjoying London and one another, taking the time to focus on the things that matter.

One of my favorite photos from our trip is the doorway of the home of the resident physician at the Tower of London.  There are similar photographs available via an internet search, but this one is special because of who took it (my daughter), the conversation we were having when I asked her to take the photograph, and where we went right after the photograph was taken.

The Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula is located a few steps away from the blue doorway, an ironic juxtaposition of the preservation and destruction of human life.  The quiet moments spent inside the chapel touched me deeply as we listened to a Yeoman Warder who worships each Sunday in the chapel.  To Yeoman Warder Steve, the Chapel is hallowed ground both as a memorial to those who died nearby and as a place of personal worship.  Hallowed ground.  Only by slowing down...