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Growing Toward the Light In the northern half of our world, at this time of year we approach maximum darkness. Although the worst bone-chilling cold is still ahead, the ever earlier arrival of sunset clues us somehow to what's in store. Perhaps this is why, across cultures and continents we mark this time for celebration. To do so in the face of approaching challenges is a wonderful and paradoxically human trait, transforming oncoming cold, with its murmurs of oblivion, into a season of lights. In northern New Mexico, people set out farolitos (hundreds of paper sacks, anchored with sand, with a small lit candle inside), and the result, when multiplied over thousands of rooftops and adobe walls is breathtaking, viewed valley wide through the thin, crisp air of winter. Each small candle plays its part, is renewed each evening, and makes a visual statement of community as an artform. Later at night, looking up, this earthly act is reflected above. I'm sure I'm not the first to have been puzzled, feeling the wind but watching an enormous, motionless cloud for quite some time, until realizing it is the Milky Way. This is the only way I know to experience what it would be like if millions of us kindled and shared our own inner gifts at once. Looking skyward, we're given a window in the present moment to events which took place thousands of years ago. Today's cultural celebrations of light also reach back thousands of years, to Hebrews marking their religious freedom with the burning of sacred oil, to the candles of advent and the birth of Jesus, to Diwali (the Hindu New Year, a festival of light celebrating of the return of King Rama and the triumph of good over evil), and even those farolitos...far from cursing the darkness, these traditions show that we can choose to use darkness as a good background for sharing lights not so easily seen in the harsh magnitude of everyday life. The Internet and other electronic media have made our world smaller, but also proved that there's no shortage of turmoil or terror, for anyone who's paying attention to events both near and far. It sometimes
seems that some power of darkness has taken over far too many hearts, and that the
resulting actions impart on any gesture of improvement for the human condition a sense of futility akin to Jack London's "To Build a Fire." Those of us who have set our life course toward strengthening learning in the particular culture in which we participate have our own host of demons to face, which seems to grow along with the darkness and cold that approaches: the waning of resources, understanding, vision afflicts our world as much as anyone else's. The pewter skies encourage us to seek the shelter of each other, as what light remains
However in the calm stillness, a quiet yet profound message awaits. How surprising, when on a December afternoon the blinding brilliance of the setting sun reminds me of just how vulnerable we are, especially when the intervening shelter of leaves and clouds is removed. The sun's ritual of departure, earlier each day, seems only a prelude to those winter evenings, when the depth of space reminds us that *we are all we have* on this wobbly world, once the clouds depart to reveal the cold, clear cosmos we reside inside. From the study of cycles (which led the Chinese to understand the world and our place within it as the alternation of yin and yang) we realize that from the first day of winter, each day is getting longer. Although it takes our hemisphere nearly a quarter year to catch up with this shift, the lengthening light encourages us that we can make it through the times ahead. Against this ceaseless cycle of nature's processes, what about change in the human domain? Sometimes it seems that we are swimming upstream, that inertia carries the same inevitability and chill on innovation that winter portends. I wonder how we will make the shift from teacher centered to learner centered schools, places where learning how to learn and apply that learning to improving "real life" will become a viable option for anyone. This afternoon I see the last leaf on the highest branch of a tall tree proclaiming its defiant refusal to change. Withered and faded, it hasn't got the news that the action is no longer on the limbs...it has receded to the roots, where the work of reawakening will take all winter. In a similarly brittle victory, I see many of our peers, unwilling to let go of what they have known, fearful perhaps of the unknown that is to come, and in equal denial that the first storm of winter will strip their resistance of meaning. Even though such storms are sure to come, we need to turn from our fear of winter's cold reality to our hopes for spring's reawakening by focusing inward, where the powers of reflection and incubation continue unseen. Just as the cool clarity of winter lets us see stars to guide us, there are people in our field whose work becomes a beacon for our own voyages toward knowing. Some of these "stars" have names of renown, others are known only to their students...but all are the people who've learned that it is easier to create change than to predict it. Thanks to their light, I have learned three things: 1) there is always someone who has already started down a path of inquiry which you are considering When I examine the work of David Thornburg (http://www.tcpd.org/tcpd/), Mike Eisenberg (http://www.bigsix.com), Bernie Dodge (http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest/webquest.html ), Al Rogers and Yvonne Andres (http://www.gsn.org), Andy Carvin (http://edweb.gsn.org/ ), Tom March (http://www.ozline.com), and Al Weis (http://www.thinkquest.org/), I emerge with a deeper understanding of the power of project based learning, and how technology can support the development of critical thinking in powerful ways. Dropping by each of their online "homes" leads to conversations with my friends and colleagues across the Internet (via phone, email and old fashioned snail mail packages) that lead to quantum growth in our concepts and skills, because of the modeling they've inspired. 2) there is always someone who needs to know what you already know , and vice versa No matter how tough the problem, no matter how hard I try to solve it, help always comes from someone else sharing their experience in solving it. I've been helped so many times by "complete strangers" (most recently by David Gatwood on a linux challenge that had me stumped for two weeks!) that I jump at the chance to help anyone who's stuck on something I've already solved. This is an easy way for us to share what light we've gathered. 3) there is always a potential partner who can lighten the load of even the most difficult task My new work as editor of MultiMedia Schools magazine has confirmed for me what I'd already known intuitively: there is stellar work going on, quietly in isolated classrooms. By attending conferences in areas that are new to me, and being on the receiving end of stories of educators seeking to publish their insights, I know that even though we may seem light years apart, from the right perspective our collective efforts become as inspiring as the Milky Way. Even if we can't travel to all the wonderful conference opportunities we read about on the Internet, we can meet many of these wonderful educators online. I've been spending very rewarding time at EDsOasis (http://www.edsoasis.org), TappedIn (http://www.tappedin.org), and The Well Connected Educator (http://www.gsh.org/wce), and sharing these experiences with my colleagues as we work to further develop the Online Internet Institute (http://oii.org). When we turn ourselves toward the light, we can grow year round. It doesn't matter whether the light is from the sun, the stars, a candle or a computer screen...the source resonates with an inner light that leads us to what we may become, following the best of our hopes and dreams. These are beacons that beckon us to realize that each of us has already received incredible gifts that we have only to claim, and make our own through their sharing. |
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© 2006 Online Internet Institute. |