ROSS A. LAIRD

I spend a great deal of time with two kinds of people: teachers and students. In some ways, these two groups are at opposite ends of the continuum of learning. Sure, teachers and students co-create and share the environment of learning; but what I hear from each group is different. Students (of all ages) talk about the many ways in which the learning environment fails to meet their needs. Teachers, on the other hand, tend to talk more about how to preserve and nurture that learning environment. In this sense, both groups are working toward the same goal: to make the learning environment useful and purposeful. But I find that they have radically different notions about how to accomplish this goal.…›

In January I will once again be offering several courses in creativity at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. These courses, which are all interconnected around the theme of purposeful play, are designed to help learners discover, or rediscover, the authentic joy of intentional, self-directed learning. The courses are developed as collaborative spaces, as environments of exploration, as opportunities for each of us to claim the fundamental right of creative action. …›

The oldest and greatest poems, epics, and songs – the original roots and branches of all literature – are articulated visions. They are dreams, glimpses of other worlds (real or imagined), archetypes of clear seeing. This clarity of vision defines good literature, and is therefore the ultimate aim of practicing writers. Yet various impediments arise to obscure our sight, the way a bank of low-lying cloud hides a shoreline glistening with pebbles. As writers, sometimes we become disoriented by the many conflicting tools of our craft, by contrary examples and advice, by the spinning compasses of style and voice. Our path becomes uncertain, the shore distant, vision muddied.

And yet the shore is not far, and reaching it requires only a steadfast purpose; and, of course, awareness of the fog. To dispel that fog we must avoid its common traps, which are our own habits in disguise. Below are the most common. Find them in your work, excise them, clear your vision. …›

The oldest extant works of human creativity are close to 100,000 years old (yes, I know, not everyone agrees about this — but just go with it). The artifacts of creativity can be remarkably persistent. Yet the past is littered with silent evidence, fragments and snatches of the stuff that was destroyed or misplaced: lost books, paintings, sculptures, cities. (Cities? Yes: the ancient city of Akhetaten was deconstructed brick by brick, during a religious squabble, and scattered across the desert.) Today we know a vanishingly small amount about what has been lost. Sure, we have some texts that describe or refer to lost items (say, Plato describing Atlantis); but we will never know anything about almost all of the creative artifacts of human culture. They are gone.

The landscape of education has changed more rapidly in the past decade than in the previous hundred years. New technologies challenge established norms. Emerging practices promise new modes and methods. Cultural, economic, and social changes encourage (and perhaps even demand) a comprehensive review of what education is, and what it’s for. We are — to put it mildly — living through an age of educational destruction and renewal.

Some popular views: the primary school system stifles creativity; high school is a minefield of bullying and conformity; university is a treadmill for earning increasingly irrelevant acronyms. The education system done be broke.

Social media, online technologies, mobile devices, and many other recent developments have transformed our social and educational landscape. Laptops and handhelds have replaced pads and pencils. The utility of digital text has surpassed that of the written word. Attention spans have shortened while cognitive plasticity has increased. In the midst of this sea-change, educators have tended to hunker down, freak out, and yearn for the good old days.

Teaching (in its various forms) is one of the most influential roles in society. After parenting, it is perhaps the most crucial, for all ages. And yet, teaching — whether to children or adults — is a profession in which few practitioners have any substantial training. Some instructors have certificates or degrees in teaching, but there’s so much to know about the subject that most good instructors pick up their best skills after training, in the field, thinking on their feet and trying to keep learners awake.

The landscape of what we have chosen to call disability changes rapidly, and for many reasons. Parents, educators, social service providers and others who work with the disabled (especially children) should be familiar with the scope of these changes and how they might affect the individuals with whom they work. Here are a few core principles that derive from our current understanding of disability:

The quality of an instructor’s presence has more impact on the learning environment than any other single factor. Love what you do, acknowledge the potentially profound role you play in a learner’s life. Get past the politics and the drudgery and the unpaid hours. Develop and bring into the classroom your sense of the sacred trust of learning. It does change the world.

There is a crossroads, and a gate, in all the old tales. On one side lies the known, the practiced, the familiar. And on the far side, unseen and unimagined, lies the Other: the one we left behind, who has been waiting all this time. That threshold is a holy place; it does not decay, nor can it be thwarted, nor can it be lost within the tangle of grooved and meandering ways. The crossroads remains, and is protected. The air is still, and warm. Drops of morning moisture lie upon the tips of slender grasses. A sound comes from the far side of the gate; the soft warbling, perhaps, of a stream in the near distance. You reach for that gate -- we all do. It might be opened with a small and gentle push.