From 1972 to 2002 I spent a good deal of my professional energies on bringing new digital technologies into workplaces of various kinds from the U.S. Department of Transportation and Fortune 100 companies to mom and pop businesses. The learners I always had in mind during that time, as I developed new tools and strategies for accomplishing work and doing business, were adults, not children. What I know about learning by youngsters is as a lifelong amateur–especially as father of three wondrous learners, from whom I learned the essentials of the personal developments of mind and heart.
I love reading and writing, stories and poetry, ancient and today’s. Although my acoustic piano is fifteen-hundred miles away from where I live, in the safe keeping of my eighty-nine year old Mum who learned to play twenty years ago, I play piano jazz and classical pieces on a recently acquired electronic keyboard–everyday, or it hurts.
I hope to live vigorously for several more decades so I’m resurrecting the body of the athlete I once was. I don’t expect to be able to run four and a half, under five-minute miles every other day as I did two decades ago, but I’ll get back within a year’s time or so to a respectable level of running for my age (64).
I have worked closely with a variety of professionals over forty years but have found none whose work humbles me more than that of a great teacher. If I had but one wish, it would be that the learning spark of the child in each of us and among us has been enflamed by a great teacher.
