Verbatim

For centuries, a common habit among learning theorists has been to characterize cognitive processes in terms of prevailing technologies. Among the tools and machines that have been used to describe thinking are catapults, hydraulics, telegraphs, telephone switchboards, and, most recently, computers.
The further one goes back into history, the more inappropriate such comparisons seem. And, conversely, [...]

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Learning cannot be designed. Ultimately, it belongs to the realm of experience and practice. It follows the negotiation of meaning; it moves on its own terms. It slips through the cracks; it creates its own cracks. Learning happens, design or no design. And yet there are few more urgent tasks than to design social infrastructures [...]

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A farmer at the turn of the century saw that the horseless carriage could get him to market and back more quickly, but had no inkling that the same vehicle would send an interstate highway through his pasture and change his way of life forever. It takes a generation or three to get past the [...]

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Whether you wish to model a flower in wax; to study the rules of etiquette; to serve relish for breakfast or supper; to plan a dinner for a large party or a small one; to cure a headache; to make a will; to get married; to bury a relative; whatever you may wish to do, [...]

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[Learning] is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of [...]

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Some part of the system (…an organization, a community, a team, a nation) notices something. It might be in a memo, a chance comment, a news report. It chooses to be disturbed by this. Chooses is the operative word here–the freedom to be disturbed belongs to the system. No one ever tells a living system [...]

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…when something is important to us, there is no distance between thinking and acting. We are engaged with the issue (thinking), and we take action (doing). In group after group, I’ve watched people look thoughtfully at a situation and gain some understanding of its dynamics or its potential. After that experience, they can’t help themeslves. [...]

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A young black South African woman taught some of my friends a profound lesson about listening. She was sitting in a circle of women from many nations, and each woman had the chance to tell a story from her life. When her turn came, she began quietly to tell a story of true horror–of how [...]

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