My Learning Manifesto

I first wrote this series of statements as graduate student in 1999 as a way to articulate my values, motivations and strategies. It continues to guide my teaching and learning practice

Act like learning matters (because it does)

1. Let events and people influence you. There is a lot of power in being a learner; only you can choose to be open to experiences.
2. Take time to wonder. A relaxed mind, briefly untethered from an otherwise full schedule, is open to serendipitous experiences and serendipitous learning.
3. Make learning personal. You will only learn if you believe that a new insight, a new idea, or a new form has significance for you. (This is a no-brainer; but a lot of effort can go into doing otherwise).
4. Ask questions. Of yourself, or even better, someone else. Active discussion and debate improves critical thinking, and helps you grasp the significance about what you are learning.
5. Listen carefully to alternative points of view. Resist consuming opinion after opinion when they merely reaffirm your own. (This is very difficult to do consistently).
6. Think like a researcher. Effective research attitudes also characterize effective learning strategies: be curious, be skeptical, be project oriented, sustain open-endedness, and continually experiment.
7. Become comfortable with confusion. Confusion precedes learning. This principle comes from Margaret Wheatley who recommends that we trust life’s self-organizing processes. “I’m learning to participate with things as they unfold, to expect to be surprised, to enjoy the mystery of it, and to surrender to how much I don’t know and can never know.”
8. Take responsibility for other learners. Create a safe place for discussion, encourage fortuitous encounters, and discover what they find meaningful. This is how you begin to recognize that you have sufficient, significant shared interests that trigger change.
9. Be vigilant to context. Figure out what matters, what works, what endures. Again, to quote Margaret Wheatley who writes about the value of participating in the moment, “The present moment overflows with information about ourselves and our environment. But so many of those learnings fly by unobserved because we’re preoccupied with our images of how we want the world to be.”