Edinburgh -- Dinner
That Wednesday evening, a piper led us to a marvelous dinner party hosted by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Wild rabbit terrine. Angus beef. Chocolate tart. Between Eilif Trondsen and me sat a community organizer from Barra.
Barra? It’s an island north of Inverness with 1,000 inhabitants. Most of the male residents fish for a living. Young people leave the island to complete their educations. Most do not come back. The organizer was exploring whether eLearning could prepare people for productive work on Barra, in order to save the island from depopulation.
Castle on Isle of Barra
Etienne Wenger and Jane Massy
After the meal, John Simonet provided the evening’s entertainment. He said people sometimes remarked on his strange name. John. He asked a teacher he was speaking with, “What do you teach?” “Bastards,” came the reply. He found this a bit strong, coming from a nun. Later… Know how to remember your anniversary? Forget it once. To the founder of NewMindsets, “Are you Welsh, Gareth, or did your parents just have a sense of humor?”
My guess would be that dinner table conversation was the richest source of learning for our community the first day.
Posted by Jay Cross at February 21, 2004 12:42 PM | TrackBack
