Category Archives: Learning

How will you learn to adapt to the tremendous changes ahead? This category explores how our institutions and habits of mind will need to change in the years ahead.

Time to Reflect: Fall 1918 Revisited

Exactly a century ago, the modernist poet Amy Lowell wrote a poem about walking down the street on a beautiful fall afternoon that was “the colour of water falling through sunlight.” Lowell says that all she can do with this beautiful day in September 1918 is put it in her lunchbox and save it for another day when there is no war.

“I have time for nothing,” says her last line, “but the endeavour to balance myself upon a broken world.”

I’ve always loved the imagery of that poem, as well as the little glimpse of the world into which my grandparents were born. Now, as I look at our politics, all the breakdowns in our society, all the violence and racism, the constant state of war,  I feel the poignancy of that last line so much more deeply.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42990/september-1918

Mentoring for a New World

Mentoring relationships can change lives. But does mentoring always have to follow the same pattern? What we need to learn and how we can best learn it changes throughout our lives, and often we find ourselves challenged in very different ways at the same time.

Although there is much to be said for the lifelong bonds that can form when a seasoned professional takes a young person under his or her wing, the younger generations also can mentor their elders. I believe everyone has something to offer and something to learn. Moreover, some people might benefit more from a series of mentors. At one age, we might need a mentor to build our confidence and help with how we present ourselves while later it might be a good thinker who can help us consider all the angles as we make big decisions. At various times, we may need one mentor to help us master a discipline or profession, another who has connections that will help us identify and get selected for opportunities, and another who helps us see the big picture. Some of us may need mentors to help us with relatively small and peripheral but still important area of our careers.

Imagine an engineer, She works in casual clothes every day but may need someone with good fashion sense to help her look good for a professional presentation and someone else to give her tips for presenting. She may also need a mentor who helps her step out of her comfort zone in an area like writing for publication. She may need a mentor who helps her make her way when she is the only young person or the only female on a project team and another who helps her when the time comes to become a team leader—or to make the transition into upper management. She may need a mentor when she has her first child—someone who is an expert at balancing work and mothering or someone who is the kind of mother she wants to be.

No single individual could provide all those mentoring relationships.

Life-Embedded Learning: Essential Questions

  1. What is one area of your practice that would benefit from a period of learning?
  2. What material items would you need?
  3. What books would you read?
  4. What other learning resources would you use (e.g., workshops, online courses, tutorials, manuals)?
  5. Whom do you know with the most expertise in this skill area? Who else could advise you?
  6. How much time will it take to: a) Acquire the basic knowledge needed to ask good questions and make a plan for using the skill? b) Acquire enough competency to do a small, simple project for yourself or for free for someone else? c) Become capable of doing a bigger project with some guidance? d) Become skilled enough to incorporate the skill into your practice in a minor way? e) Become skilled enough to complete projects that require the skill in order to be successful?

Making Meaning

By Deborah Vrabel

Think Ponds can be invaluable for those who want to explore career alternatives, but even those who are uninterested in making a major change can get value from exploring the enterprises and designing or participating in a project. I call these “Meaning Projects.” See what you think of these four models for creative response to different stages of life and different crossroads.

These are the themes each model will explore:

  • Finding and Holding on to What’s Precious
  • Reinventing Your Future
  • Building a Legacy
  • Feasting on Your Life