Sunday July 1, 2007

Today's session had one of the most powerful effects on myself as a person versus an educator. The session started off with Bob Kegan who concentrated the session on transforming our thinking so that we were more open to change. The picture you see above is the metaphor he made about learning. He said that there's a type of learning that is to only inform your mind, but there's the other type that makes learning transformative. So the idea of his session was not to fill our minds with more information, but to expand our minds so that there was the "possibility of the growth of capacity".

The session that we took part in is too long to explain here, but it was an interactive, brainstorm session about our problems as professionals and what to do to help combat our problems. He asked questions like, "what would happen if you actually tried to change your outlook? Would it be as bad as you thought? Or would be better? Or worse? Etc."

At the end of the session, he told a great Russian folk tale that I have to let everyone else know:

There was an old wood chopper going out to chop wood on a chilly, snowy morning. As he goes through the forest looking for the perfect tree to chop, he finds a bird who is cold and freezing. His conscience getting the best of him, he feels the need to pick up the bird and put it inside his coat. So as he keeps trudging along the forest, he finds a tree to chop, but realizes that he would have to put the bird back into the snow in order to chop the tree. So he has a dilemma. Again, his conscience gets the best of him and he now starts looking for a warm place to put the bird. As he looks into the horizon, he sees a herd of cows under the rising sun. So he walks towards the cows and finds a big, warm, steaming piece of cow pie. So he places the bird in it and goes off to chop wood. The bird is so thrilled, that it begins to sing. As the bird sings, a wolf comes by and eats it.

That was the end of the folk tale, but there are three morals to learn:

1) When you are knee-deep in "stuff," it doesn't mean the stuff is your enemy.

2) Someone who plucks you out of the "stuff" isn't necessarily your friend.

3) If you're knee-deep in stuff, don't sing so loudly.

I'll leave it at that.