I stumbled (a regular habit of mine) over this wonderful site authored by Diana Mehta called Creative Chaos. There are many posts and links of interest to me and I look forward to exploring this one. Here is her prejudice map of the world. As I am a “community mapper” with local and global perspectives, I wanted to capture it for further exploring.

Brent Uncategorized

This post is my response to a earlier posting by Will Richardson where he captures some of the perspectives around Learning vrs. education. Reading Will Richardson is like inhaling pure oxygen just when I need to clear my head. Wonderful stuff!!

I have followed you, Stephen, George and many others over the past year and your post on Learning vs. education really compelled me to respond. I have one daughter in University that breezed through school with super high grades and now in science/med school and a son who is totally out of the school world, loves the trades (carpentry) and trying hard to graduate this year.

I manage a community based non profit organization that operates 5 days a week in a larger mixed, old, rich in history, multi diverse, high school. My program is small, just me with support from student placements and youth volunteers within the high school and the local colleges and University field placements.

My program (Community Resource & Learning Room) is working hard to bring many of these ICT values and practices into the school as we have a dedicated room, suported by our Principal and the School Board. I also have IBM support (with promise of more) of 10 good pc’s, an non traditional learning atmosphere thanks to nice pc furniture donated by Bell Canada.

We are introducing a Youth Community Mapping Program in our programming and have established 4 teams of youth (about 45 youth with adult volunteers)to examine issues related to youth poverty and homelessness. Our youth mapping teams are doing community based research that is focused around health, adult-youth relations, recreation and how these factors relate/influence youth poverty and homelessness. Of course we are using a blog to keep ourselves connected, store our creative maps (metaphor for engaging youth around what youth think, feel, believe and see in their world/community) and to desiminate our outcomes and maps.

Your post really captured the moment for me. We are trying to do in our mapping work, those things that you, Stephen, George and others are expressing and working at making real and meaningful. It is a great boost for me, because many times, I’m not sure where we are going and as importantly, why we are doing what we are doing. I know we are entering such new territory and that it is the right way to go, but at times it feels quite lonely so your post resonated especially well for me. Learning together and making a mark outside the mainstream thinking is proving to be a great experience for all of us. Well, I think for now I will leave it there Will.

Thanks for capturing those key messages in your post.
All the best in your travels and challenges.

Brent

Brent Uncategorized

Via Stephen Downes and a Fast Company article, I resonated (as did Stephen) with these two summaries of what success means.

John Mackey

Founder And CEO, Whole Foods Market
Austin, Texas
www.wholefoods.com

A few years ago someone asked me to write down what success meant to me and the principles I followed to achieve it. My answer then is still how I feel. Here’s what I wrote:

I create my own reality through my thoughts and emotions.
I am never a victim of anyone else.
I follow my heart in all circumstances.
Life is an adventure. Seize the day!
When confronted with alternatives I always choose the one that creates the most excitement within me.
I do what I’m afraid to do until it doesn’t scare me anymore.
I would rather be happy than right.
Love is the only reality. Everything else is merely a dream or illusion.
Forgiveness is the key to healing all relationships, and leads to happiness.
Always tell the truth.
Giving and receiving are one and the same.
I choose to be healthy.

Whole Foods Market (1996 revenues: $900 million) is the country’s largest natural-foods grocer. It was founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas. It now has 74 stores in 17 states.

Helen Tworkov

Founding Editor, “Tricycle: The Buddhist”
Review, New York, New York
tricycle@echonyc.com

The most important ingredient for success is the willingness to fail, to be made a fool of, to fall on your face a hundred times a day. And to be dumb. What makes repeated failure endurable is being in love with the work you do and being convinced of its value. Then the process becomes self-rewarding.

Try not to make hard divisions between work and play. Figure out how to make your job fun, creative, and inspiring for you and for others. And don’t underestimate everyone’s need to be affirmed. That includes: coworkers, suppliers, the janitor, messengers, advertisers, saints, and sinners.

Helen Tworkov is the editor of “Zen in America” (Kodansha, 1994).

Brent Uncategorized

I finnaly bought a book. I am so hooked on the library system for my reading, I thought I would never purchase a book again. Fortunately some of my relatives thought a Chapters gift certificate would suit my holiday wishes. I’m glad they did this because I found a jewel of a book.

If you are going to buy a book about ICT, globalization, new economies, impact and changes on everyone etc. this is the book to buy. It’s being reviewed and spoken about all over the networked world and is a National Bestseller. The World is Flat – A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman is an amazing read. I haven’t finished it yet but suffice to say I am enjoying it immensly. If you would like to know more about his book there is a great presentation the author makes via the MIT World Video Centre.

Here is an excert from Thomas Friedman’s web site.

In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

Cheers 

Brent Uncategorized