HARVEST MOON

is astronomically speaking not here yet, but exams are, and for the teacher it means harvest of feedback - about teaching and learning. In the twilight silver shine of the moon the teacher meets him or herself in a personal experience of the shortcomings of reason: so much for planning, so much for benchmarking and careful selection of literature, and yet: the joy of seeing students grow and take charge is such a gift! Being able to manage oneself in new and challenging situations is after all the testbed of theoretical accomplishments.

And afterwards, I will read to the moon about patterns, which connects the items of learning, and mirror neurons as a possible way of grounding this otherwise ephemeral notion.

MEANWHILE ...

I re-read Gregory Bateson's paper 'Social planning and the concept of deutero-learning (Steps pp 159-176), especially the concluding paragraph: " All we need to be sure of is that, at any moment, achievement may be just around the corner, and, true or false, this can never be tested. We have got to be like those few artists and scientists who work with this urgent sort of inspiration, the urgency that comes from feeling that great discovery, the answer to all our problems, or great creation, the perfect sonnet, is always only just beyond our reach, or like the mother of a child who feels that, provided she pay constant enough attention, there is real hope that her child may be that infinately rare phenomenon, a great and happy person'

- Nordahl Grieg's poem' Kringsatt av fiender' comes to mind 'som om du bar et barn, varsomt på armen'

CRADLE TO ......

Cradle to cradle is a design concept coined by Michel Braungart- see http://www.epea.com/index.php - and highly relevant to the idea of design being everything from God's creation to the forming of garbage bins.

Just like with the concepts of Access2Innovation (http://www.access2innovation.com/) and base of the pyramide (http://www.bop-protocol.org/ ), cradle-to-cradle has sustainability written all over, with the noble goal of saving humanity from the monumental catastrophies of human behavior as its mission.

Does Gaia care about design? Is Gaia a concept designers can work with? How about love and design? Hate and design? What is it about design anyway? Deep questions, and no answers. Chris Heape suggests I read Noel G. Charlton's 2008 attemtpt to link Bateson's concept of 'mind' to the Gaia concept of sustainability "Understanding Gregory Bateson - mind, beauty and the sacred earth'.