Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Remembering why I started down this road

Tonight, as part of our thinking skills lecture, we watched a segment of a video of Feuerstein teaching thinking skills to disaffected children in Israel. I watched him stimulate the kids' minds to think creatively, to solve problems using material that meant it didn't matter if they had missed out on learning the content most kids would have learned by this age. And I remembered why I became a learning professional in the first place. I wanted to empower people, to enable, to give people a leg up, to give them access to something they needed help to reach.

Okay, I'm in a bad place right now, and tomorrow I might feel very differently, but tonight, at 11:38pm, I feel as if I've lost my way. Anybody got a map? Where are those people whose lives will be better because someone like me came across their path? I've lost sight of them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Karyn, this is my first visit to your blog, I found it via Jay Cross's Community. I loved your phrase "to give them access to something they needed help to reach", that captures so well why I love my career change into the training field, and why I perservere when I get bogged down in bureaucracy, unwilling students, etc.

We don't have to reach everyone, but if we can play a small role in someone else's quest to change the world, than that is success, right? At the very least, you have helped me with a great metaphor as I try to capture why I do this, in my own quest to change the world!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the encouragement, Geof - you have no idea how sorely I needed that today!