May 18, 2004
May 01, 2004
Personal Informal Learning
It's Saturday morning, and I'm on the web, letting free association guide me along. The complexity/unpredictability meme swam through my head. I flashed on hearing Hazel Henderson last year and having an ah-ha experience in recognizing the simplistic fraud that is economics. Googling Hazel Henderson led me to this marvellous quotation.
- "The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage." Hazel Henderson
As long as I'm here, I thought, why not see what Quotable Quotes has on learning.
Soon I was tweaking my beliefs about learning by plucking out quotations that resonated -- and bypassing those I considered off the mark or obsolete. Come learn with me. This is informal learning at work, seeking serendipity by entering unfamiliar places and simply looking around. As Franklin Adams said, "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."
- "Learning is not attained by chance,
it must be sought for with ardor
and attended to with diligence." Abigail Adams
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
There are in fact four very significant stumblingblocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge. Roger Bacon
There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. Jacob Bronowski
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. Albert Camus
The only way to learn is by changing your mind. Orson Scott Card
We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are. Max DePree
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. Malcolm Forbes
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau
Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it... Rise for the flag salute. Frank Zappa