Mentorship

I've spent my adult life in a circle of mentorship, seeking out others to guide me, and providing that same kind of mentorship to others.  I believe strongly in this kind of one-on-one long-term relationship, that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." As we move into a world where more and more nuts-and-bolts work of education is done through technological means, this kind of personal mentorship and curation of meaning will become increasingly important. How do we help people to find meaning? To do deep work?  How do we empower, motivate and galvanize people to make change in the world?To connect to a lineage that grounds them in a larger sense of time and community?

I've had the great good fortune to work closely and for long periods of time with people who are best in the world at what they do, in diverse fields.  Whether it's sea-kayaking, music, writing, spirituality, or permaculture, I've always sought out to find people who are not only the best at what they do, but who have codified that field of experience in ways that are expressible. These people are true teachers, who are invested in a particular path, and who use that path as a vehicle to help others.  While the topics that my teachers have taught range widely, they share many qualities: connection to a lineage that comes before them and that follows them, daily practice to the point where their instincts are hardwired and trained to see the world in a particular way and to participate in precise ways, a practice of reflection over a sustained period of time that allows them to fully embody concepts and to develop their own private methods, and an investment in others.

In the same way, I've served as a mentor for many students-and some adults- over the past twenty years.  Working intensively (for many hours a day for years on end) with individuals during their formative adolescent years.  I've often served as the crazy uncle who gives them a different, structured perspective after they start to question and test their given childhood values.  I continue to be in close relationship with many of those students for years, still serving as a mentor in some cases.  Many of my best friends are former students, who include a whitewater rafting guide, an opera singer in Paris, a filmmaker, the CEO of a Texas microbrewery, a PhD neuroscience candidate, a music teacher in Beijing, a professional banjo player, the COO of one of America's biggest music companies, a naval officer, a hip-hop filmmaker and producer, a published author, several engineers, architects, doctors, and lawyers, and many musicians and teachers, 

Creativity

Teaching and learning is a creative practice, a spiritual practice, an opportunity to dance with new information and feelings to arrive at unexpected places and ideas.  

Learning at the highest level does not follow a prescribed course, but follows self-willed (or wild) pathways and makes conceptual leaps.  As we move out of  the information age into the experience age, learning becomes less about internalizing and articulating information, and more about creating and embodying ideas. Less about creating cogs and more about galvanizing creators. Learning becomes more about seeking to inhabit complexity. Learning becomes Art.

In a world where information is easily accessible and free, and computers/robots/AI's are omnipresent, what is really valued is Human (and non-Human) creativity, empathy, connection, true experience. It's the emotional connection between two people, the call of a Raven, the ability to create something that a computer can't come up with. It asks us to become truly human, which also means being in relationship with other species.  It means exploring the full dimensions of our bodies, minds, emotions, and senses, including the non-rational. 

 Just as I seek to make unique connections between disparate disciplines and ideas, I hope to inspire others to do the same.  What can climate scientists learn from dubstep DJs?  What can GIS technology teach us about choreography?  What is the intersection between wildlife biology and modern dance?  

All of this takes daily practice, the willingness to stick with a discipline long enough to achieve enough mastery to be able to do something new. Like a jazz musician, you practice the scales and patterns until they're so integrated into you that you can express them effortlessly: then you're ready to make something completely new, to codify your own rules. In ancient China, you weren't considered educated until you knew the contents of "five cartloads of scrolls."  What comes out of your pen, your horn, your nonprofit, your classroom is a lifelong endeavor, the work of a lifetime.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Let's get learning out of the classroom and into the world, into the heart, into the emotions, into the wild. Let's learn in crashing surf and in nightclubs and urban alleys and on organic farms.  Let's call on the full range of the human experience in our learning: what it feels like when you're lost and hungry and it's getting dark. What happens to your brain when you are struggling to talk to someone in a language that you're just learning, and your stomach is upset from eating strange food.  What your interior feels like when you've been struggling to comprehend a complex creative problem for months, and you finally figure it out at 2AM, all alone on a quiet winter night.  

While I love the classroom as much as anyone, and it has an important purpose, I want to use the whole world as a classroom, and make learning a whole-being experience that incorporates emotions, spirit, and psyche, that pushes ethics and physical stamina to the edge in real time so that we learn as human beings, not just as academic students.