Millarville’s Cool News - Be A Life-Long Learner

Looking at 2012 with optimism...

Principal Notes
If you are a doomsayer then this is not going to be a good year for you – I believe 2012 is yet another date predicted to see end times. If you are an optimist then each day, no matter the year, will be a good day. There are always positives to be found and as a teacher we are fortunate to be surrounded by those bright sparks of energy and hope – our children. We are eternally optimistic!
The Christmas and New Year's break are now behind us as we look forward to coming events through to the end of June. Looking into the future at this time of year, one must wonder what new changes to how we learn and work and spend our leisure time will unfold. I have appreciated the work of Howard Gardner (Frames of Mind. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences) and in a recent book (5 Minds for the Future), he emphasizes the needed skills to work in the twenty-first century:
The ability to knit together information from disparate sources into a coherent whole is vital today. The amount of accumulated knowledge is reportedly doubling every two or three years. Sources of information are vastly disparate and individuals crave coherence and integration. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann has asserted that the mind most at premium in the twenty-first century will be the mind that can synthesize well.
In developing the ability to become good at synthesis, Frank Lloyd Wright states: “Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.”
We are exposed to so much information and from so many sources; some credible, many not so. As such, we may tend to shut down and no longer process what is relevant to our needs and instead fall back on old learning. This can be harmful as situations and new initiatives replace what was. Our students (and we as adults) must be discriminating and discerning as we process what we are presented with. The ability to effectively synthesize information demands that we be current and informed so as to be effective in being a meaningful contributor to society. We must be “life-long learners!”
In meeting the learning demands of our children, it is imperative as teachers (and parents) we be informed and take into view the many perspectives of what society is asking of us and our future citizenry. From that, through analysis and synthesis (all be it, very subtle at times) we set a course that is always being adjusted and refined – we grow as we learn. Remember, that first furrow sets the pattern for all that follow.
~ Ted Thorne