so welcome to a journey to the lands of
new that’s what you might call this
particular painting of mine and I wanted
to start today because I am a painter
and I’m a writer and I’m a poet but I’m
also an educator who spent most of my
life wondering about what it was that
made learning possible the title I chose
today conserving a disposition for
wonder learning as the perception of
newness is grounded in work I’ve done
over many years always coming spiralling
back to the same question where does
newness come from and what is it that
makes us wonder if we think about it the
next moment is new it just happened
you had utterly no idea what I was going
to do or say and yet we all act as if we
know that the future exists even though
we live in a changing present now so how
does this work and what is the role of
the imagination which I believe is
absolutely fun though
fundamental to our capacity as human
beings to learn so before we go on our
journey I’ll start with just a way of
asking the question where does newness
come from the painting you see behind
you is a painting I did this past year
I went to pick my partner up at work
last year and I happened to see all of
this lovely looking metal in the
recycling bin and took a photograph
later it turned into this Guernica like
painting on my iPad which transformed
the game into this painting which won an
award last year how did that happen
where did it come from what is newness
and how did I learn to do this given
that I never actually painted on her
iPad before so where does newness come
from I’ll take you on another little
story about a father and his daughter
on the beach possibly a beach around our
area and he’s introducing her to a small
creature that he is found on the shore
look at her face is this wonder is this
yuck which is it and what is going to
happen in the next moment ah she has let
him put the creature on her hand that
must have taken courage because I happen
to know that this little girl is a
little bit squeamish about things that
don’t feel exactly the way she thinks
they should so to remain courage curious
around that requires courage and yeah
it’s curiosity our disposition for
wonder that’s often compromised by our
learning experiences what if she had
said yuck I’m not touching that and the
parent said okay you don’t have to
would she have discovered that this
little creature hits
kurz it adheres to her hand and she has
a look of wonder and delight on her face
it’s our imagination that lets us
conceive of all that we know and learn
from what we perceive her perceptions
her sensory experiences of the world
have been transformed into a wonder
about this which is where are the
beginnings of conceptualization arise
will this affect her future will she
become a budding biologist will she
learn to love the natural world its
imagination that lets us imagine what
the other must also think and feel and
so bring forth a world together in our
interactions here is the same child
offering her experience to the other on
her way to becoming that ecologist that
biologist it is imagination that is the
most valuable aspect of our human
development and I claim it is absolutely
fundamental and determines our capacity
for learning so what do I mean by
learning and what can learn look like
over the many years I’ve worked in
education
I’ve asked educators what does learning
look like sometimes I ask them what do
you do every day as a teacher and some
teachers say I teach grade three some
teachers say when I teach grade 10 now
some teachers say I
I teach eight-year-olds some people say
I help people learn i I really excited
about children learning and some people
say
oh I just can’t wait to see the lights
come on every day so what can learn look
like learners arise in all the
dimensions of their being moment by
moment just like I just did what does
learning look like what are you learning
in this moment sometimes learning looks
like loving sometimes wonder looks like
thinking sometimes playing looks like
working sometimes wonder looks like
science and sometimes learning looks
like wonder so what does learning look
like if any ways as a learner can
imagine who decides what learning looks
like who decides isn’t learning
something we as the individual who’s
learning have a say in is it the learner
is it the observer the educator who’s
observing the the children and saying
whether they’re learning or not because
isn’t that what your job is or is it the
Ministry of Education who determines for
the civil society what learning looks
like in the form of learning outcomes
learning standards core competencies
that’s what learning looks like so what
does learning look like and who decides
and more importantly how do we know over
the last I guess 25 years because it
began when I did original work around
the year 2000 and that gives you a clue
how old I really am about observing for
learning because I claimed that until we
are able to observe the
learning of the other we don’t know what
to do next so how do we think we can
teach because when we observe learning
in the moment of it arising we are
seeing the perception of a newness so
what do we mean by that perception of
newness learning is our perception of
the moment this moment we’re in right
now and you know what it is always new
we live in the new but we act as if we
already knew that we act as if we’re in
the future and are seeing the past when
we’re actually in the moment as it
arises and when we become aware of that
together and we understand that this is
how we bring forth worlds together that
we share this is what languaging is all
about conserving the disposition for
wonder conserves the imagination of the
next moment it conserves that journey to
the lands of new and this is why our
imagination to conceive there is a next
moment it’s fundamental to learning
especially if we are to learn from each
other so another little array over to
the side from I use one of my paintings
as a transition imagine my delight who
miss person passionate about the
imagination I was invited to a
conference in Poland last year called
schools for imagination and one of the
presenters who was on the stage with me
was a man called dr. Andrew Kubb and he
is an expert in neurodegenerative
diseases and he’d written a book on
astrocytes which are the star cells that
make up 90% of our brain and central
nervous system well being a poet I
obviously have to prepare a poem around
stars of mind we are what the stars
aspire to be when closing on themselves
they become the conscious light we are
we are what the Stars aspire to be when
closing on themselves they become the
conscious light we are so why did the
Stars inspire me this way
well Andrew spoke about astrocytes which
are the star cells the glial cells which
we saw as the glue glia or glue in
between the neurons and in the 19th and
20th century doctrines of the neuron the
whole idea of neurobiology dominated and
we thought that neurons and synapses
were the source of our intellect and our
thinking ah but when we saw what
happened to the other 90% looked at
calcium puffs and ways as they highlight
our whole central nervous system and
Andrew posed could this be our
imagination you can imagine how excited
I was with those ideas so I don’t want
to go directly into that I just want to
point to the fact that these are the
current wavefront of ideas around what
we think about our human nervous system
and it works extremely well in some of
the work I actually specialize in
working with children on the autistic
spectrum who aren’t most challenged with
languaging and this works extremely well
in helping to understand that they’re
fully present and aware just unable to
communicate to us in the way we would
like so for the astrocyte to be the
route of thought it must be able to
process sensory information coming from
neurons it must also be able to
communicate to motor neurons to
stimulate action so when I showed you
this question and I said what is
learning look like does she
imagine there’s going to be a floor that
she’s gonna land on when she threw
herself into the air astrocytes modulate
neuron behavior this could mean that
calcium waves and astrocytes are our
thinking mind humans have the most
abundant and largest astrocytes of any
animal and were capable of creativity
and imagination which lends credence to
this speculation and it is speculation
it’s not proven science it’s the
frontier of the originality of our
pursuit of the lands of new such a
biology and an epistemology of
imagination is needed in this century as
we deepen our understanding of who we
are and lest you think I’m accepting an
mechanical model of who we are I’m not
I’m talking about the deep systemic of
being a living system in the living
system of Gaia and understanding what
that means our civil society is seeking
to understand what education in the 21st
century needs to accomplish to prepare
children for what the future holds
unfortunately everything I’m seeing is
based on the schooling model of the 19th
century is this going to help the little
ones who will inherit the world that is
coming will this child when she’s my age
what world will she have
we must not mistake
schooling for education in my mind
education is not about consuming
knowledge but about making it we are not
information processors like the machines
we’ve invented our gift the gift of
being human is the capacity to imagine
and to add to the knowledge of the world
and to invent the new to be original
children compose their knowledge
architecture of the world they designed
their understanding from how they
encounter their experiences and to
understand the world that arises around
us to understand the experiences of
those we encounter in our lives we need
to imagine what the other thinks and
feels if we don’t have that capacity how
can we have compassion how can we love
our world how can we respect each other
if we cannot imagine the other
imagination helps us to see the other to
love the other to care and in the words
of my teacher and mentor dr. Humberto
Maturana love is the only emotion that
expands intelligence and in this he
doesn’t mean love as a sentiment he
means love as the acceptance of the
other is legitimate in the face of the
uncertainty and complexity of our world
how can we conserve this gift with which
we are born it takes courage to remain
curious when we perceive the new to say
I wonder rather than what’s that it
takes courage to grade each new
experience each person who is different
from us not with fear but with curiosity
it takes courage to open into the
unknown of the next moment of our life
like now imagination is our one
infinitely renewable resource
it’s Rives on curiosity and courage the
heart of our disposition for wonder to
see each other to wonder what you think
this is the journey to the lands of new
that we must help our children to
continue if we are to survive and
prosper as the loving animal the loving
species that we are so I will end
returning us to an image of that journey
to the lands of new that pursuit of
understanding what is the imagination how do we conserve wonder