Paris and Learning With the Angels

There are angels, angels everywhere, in Paris. At least, that’s the impression I have while reading Rosemary Flannery’s charmingly engaging book Angels of Paris: An Architectural Tour Through the History of Paris and sinking into her numerous sensual photographs accompanying her text, long before arriving here a couple of weeks ago. But after walking around for several days looking for them in public spaces and on buildings, I realize how much time and effort Flannery spent seeking them out. Photographing them. Researching them in a variety of local libraries. Writing about them. And sharing them with locals as well as with readers all over the world through her book and through some of the interviews she has done. Because, as our second week in Paris begins, three of us (my wife, a friend, and I) meet her in the Place Saint-Michel to begin a private three-hour Angels of Paris walking tour with her as rain softens the already luminescent streets of Paris.

She is the consummate teacher/trainer/learner. She loves her subject and, more importantly, loves opening that subject up to others by immersing them in her world. It would be one thing for the three of to stand there in the Place Saint-Michel with a copy of her book, comparing the lovely photograph to the large-scale figure of Saint Michael standing before us on the vanquished, writhing Lucifer above the flowing water of the fountain which the bronze statue dominates. It’s quite another to realize nearly half an hour passes unnoticed with us standing there captivated, enraptured, and engaged as she sets the context for the tour by talking with us—not at us—about the angel, the history of that lovely work of art, the architectural setting that makes the experience of spending time with that particular angel something extending beyond awareness of the passage of time—all the while, word by wondrous word, drawing us into the world inhabited by this and other angels. This is interactive learning—learning at its best. A reminder of what we should attempt to create and recreate each we enter a sacred space of learning with those who are our co-conspirators in the learning process. Comprised of interplays of questions, comments. Exchanges as lovely and as conversational as a piece of chamber music in which each player uses a specific instrument to create something so tightly intertwined that, while it is happening, it seems without beginning and without end. As focused on us as on what we are exploring. And, ultimately, memorable. Transformative. Leaving us hungry for even more.

As we leave Place Saint-Michel and meander through the narrow streets of Paris’s Latin Quarter in search of other angels, Flannery employs the art of storytelling to further draw us in. Not just telling us about the beautiful cherubic angel carved into the architectural element above the door to a home once owned by someone who sent many to their deaths—the “Executioner’s Angel.” Or the angels encircling the spire above Sainte-Chapelle. Or those that are part of the oldest public clock in Paris, in the tower of the Conciergerie. She leavens this immersive learning experience with some of the stories behind how she researched and wrote the book. Carrying around a ladder so she could stand in just the right position to capture precisely the photograph she knew she had to capture. Wearing a dark coat that apparently made her so distinctive that one passerby asked her, as she was photographing yet another angel, whether she were a spy.

It doesn’t take me long to realize we are engaged in far more than an art and architecture tour. Flannery herself, acknowledging the sense she has of the angels in her life, rekindles in me a long-held belief that we are, nearly every day, surrounded by unnoticed angels. Those who seeing us about to step into the path of an oncoming automobile, gently pull us back, then vanish into a crowd as if they were never there. Those who see us struggling to find change while purchasing something in a local shop, reach into their own pockets, pull out a coin to make up for what we temporarily lack, nod demurely, and are gone so quickly we barely have a chance to thank them. Those who free us from an ersatz escape room. Or fix a lens that has popped out of the frame of our glasses. Or liberate trapped luggage from a locked, unmoving elevator. Or offer us sanctuary when we unexpectedly find ourself in the middle of a large-scale political demonstration. Those who attend the onsite and online classes that we facilitate, set aside their fears and trepidations, and engage so completely with what we are all doing that they make the learning experience far more deep, far richer, than it would have been without their presence. Those who come to us for mentoring, spend precious time with us ostensibly seeking guidance and support, and then return to what they were doing, having given us far more than we could ever give to them.

The tour, as planned, ends after three hours, but the conversation continues over lunch in a restaurant so full of life that I can’t help but suspect that angels are working in the kitchen. Flannery, the three of us who took the tour, and another friend who joins us for the meal linger as long as possible, overseen by whatever angels conspired to bring us all together. And when she finally has to leave to prepare for another tour late in the day, we trust our angels to continue to protect us and to guide as we wander aimlessly for another hour or two. Learning. Absorbing. Finding angelic inspiration all around us in and above the streets of Paris. And through continuing conversation cultivated on the wings of angels.     

NB: This is the eighth in a series of reflections on traveling and learning in Paris.

Paris, Friends, and Support Through Social Learning

There are clearly parallels between entering a new learning space onsite or online and stepping into an unfamiliar city. There is a sense of anticipation as well as one of fear of failure—particularly if the city into which we are stepping is one where the language is one in which we are nowhere close to being fluent, the subway and bus system is one we have not begun to master, and even the challenge of learning how to activate the systems that unlock doors or find someone to repair our glasses when one of the lenses chooses that moment to pop out of its frame.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

In learning spaces, friends help each other; prop each other up; and, in the best situations, celebrate the positive, transformative learning moments that came from their collaborations; in immersing ourselves in unfamiliar cities, we immediately begin to make those cities feel somewhat familiar through the presence of our friends—those who timed their visits here to at least partially overlap with ours as well as those who, living here, are welcoming us as warmly as we welcome them each time they visit San Francisco.

Both in those learning spaces and in those unfamiliar and enticing new places—“classrooms” in their own right—we quickly realize that all that comes naturally, all that is familiar, suddenly is not at all available. Buying a ticket to gain access to a subway platform becomes a struggle; it is as if a lifetime of experiences has suddenly been snatched away, and even finding the right words to ask for help becomes a challenge, an exercise in redefining how we interact with the world that now surrounds us—and how, in turn, it responds to us. It changes, at a basic level, how we see ourselves.

The presence of our friends and newly-found acquaintances, on the other hand, keeps us from completely feeling adrift and disconnected—something I realize and appreciate as I willingly dive into the challenges of exploring and continuing to learn about Paris while I am handicapped by woefully inadequate knowledge of the language the Parisians speak. There is, of course, that completely liberating moment of realizing and accepting that I, like everyone else I know, am never completely alone, and none of us needs to function without the support and assistance of others. Each of us brings some overlapping experiences to the situation. And each of us brings a separate strength. Some of us, having been born in France and lived here all their lives, are here to walk us through what baffles us but is as natural to them as inhaling and exhaling is. Some of us have spent months preparing for our immersion by reading everything we can find about Paris—its history, is geography, its art, its churches, its parks—while others have continued to augment their knowledge of and comfort with the all-important art of communicating in French and translating for those of us who struggle tremendously with the language.

The central concept here is the concept of developing, nurturing, and sustaining a sense of community. One where each person brings something unique to the community. Contributes something important as well as pleasurable. And, when absent even for a moment, leaves the rest of us feeling as if the community is incomplete. And whether it is the shared and cherished moment of finding a small, welcoming sandwich shop where we enjoy a meal and conversation with each other as well as with the people who created, own, and make that inviting space what it is—a safe space for social learning in every sense of that term—or whether it is that experience of making reservations to see a popular new art exhibition in a series of very uncomfortably crowded galleries and then finding out that the reservation process didn’t work as it was meant to work, which requires us to renavigate the process of successfully gaining entry to the world-changing set of painting with which we are about to engage.

Restaurnt, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Our friendships grounded in years of common experiences grow deeper. Richer. Because we share and meet that challenge, or share a meal provided by the most welcoming and accommodating of service staff in the lovely setting of a world-class museum. Because we create new memories that bind us together more tightly than before and, as we look at Monet’s paintings of water lilies, we are simultaneously anticipating our upcoming visit to the home and garden where those exquisite images were brought into the world. Our friendships become richer as we have coffee at a table outside a café we have never seen before this moment and may well never see again. They become more firmly intertwined as we interact, together, with someone kind enough to put us back on track when we have unexpectedly taken a wrong turn.

The presence of our friends in unfamiliar settings is like the presence of colleagues with whom we struggle while engaged in a particularly challenging workshop or webinar. We thrive in our willingness to throw ourselves into the unfamiliar. To expand the sense of who we are and how we fit into the places we have entered. And we realize—and relish—that the more we push ourselves into those unfamiliar places—cities as well as learning spaces—accompanied by friends, the more we find ourselves.

NB: This is the third in a series of reflections on traveling and learning in Paris.

The Lankes Corollaries: Librarians, Learning, Activism, and the Communities They Nurture

When my mother took me for my initial visit to a bookmobile, I met my first activist: Mel Turner, the librarian who brought that vehicle to our neighborhood once every two weeks. Mel probably would have laughed at the idea that he was an activist, but his job of connecting books with readers—and readers with books—to open worlds up to us was as revolutionary an act as any that a five-year-old child could have imagined. Mel brought that bookmobile and my own world to life. He helped my mother inspire in me a lifelong love of reading, learning, and exploring the world. And he became a cherished friend—one I continued to visit whenever I went back to my hometown during a college break or, years later, to be with my family in that mid-sized Central California Valley city during holidays.

I think of Mel, his role as a lifelong-learning advocate, and all he brought to me through a friendship that eventually extended far beyond the walls of that tiny, miraculous vehicle again as I read scholar-speaker-writer-educator-advocate R. David Lankes’s fabulous article “The Lankes Corollaries.” Not surprisingly, the depths and passion with which Dave consistently addresses the role of libraries, librarians, and the communities they serve in contemporary society—as in his decade-old presentation “The Faithful and the Radicals” and so much of what he offers through his presentations and publishes in his books and on his blog—are fully on display here and certainly go a long way in reminding us that a) to ignore libraries is to ignore a community resource we continue to need and cherish, and b) to ignore the people who work in them—and use them—to actually make them libraries leaves us (mistakenly) believing that libraries have little to do with advocacy and activism, community-building, and supporting the common good.

There is much to unpack, admire, savor, and act upon in the article, but one part that makes me think of Mel—and Dave, and so many others who work in libraries and help make them what they are—is Dave’s contention that “a room full of books is a closet, but an empty room with a librarian serving their community is a library” (the third of his five corollaries); the bookmobile without Mel would not have been a library in its broadest, richest sense, and libraries onsite and online without the people who help us navigate them would be something far less transformative than they are. It isn’t as radical a concept as it might at first appear to be, and it helps us understand the difference between those lovely, ubiquitous little free libraries that have become neighborhood gathering places for readers and those spectacular “real” libraries where people nurture, support, and influence communities in positive ways—just as any activist/advocate attempts to do.

If you haven’t spent much time talking to librarians about what they do and how they attempt, through their day to day work, to change the world, it might be helpful to you to be introduced to a simple set of precepts that continues to influence and guide their work, and see how the Lankes Corollaries build upon those precepts—S. R. Ranganathan’s five laws of library science (from 1931):

1. Books are for use.
2. Every person his or her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. A library is a growing organism.

To these precepts, Lankes adds his corollaries:

1. The  mission  of  librarians  is  to  improve  society  through  facilitating  knowledge  creation in their communities.
2. To be a librarian is to be a radical positive change agent with your community.
3. A room full of books is a closet, but an empty room with a librarian serving their community is a library.
4. Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities.
5. A library should be a safe space to explore dangerous ideas.

All of this goes far beyond the constraints of any particular political point of view. Libraries and librarians, in spite of all the conflict they are currently experiencing through book challenges and disruptions to public programming, remain incredibly committed to doing all they can to provide access to a variety of perspectives and resources—that is part of what members of library staff do as activists, and that’s part of what I do through my involvement in the California Library Association’s Ursula Meyer Library Advocacy training program (named after the librarian who for many years ran the public library system in the same town where Mel worked and where I grew up). As Dave notes in his Corollaries, this does not mean that libraries and librarians are neutral: “Picking what tools and services a community needs is not a neutral act and it never has been. Before the 1970s public libraries wouldn’t carry paperbacks. Before the 1910s many didn’t carry novels. Before that public libraries didn’t carry fiction at all. Libraries have always depended upon specialists to use limited resources to best meet both the needs and aspirations of the community. That is not a neutral act. Ranganathan  might  have  written EVERY book its reader, but in reality, no library can collect EVERY book (or DVD, or 8mm film, or database subscription, or large print edition, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera).That’s  obvious, but this corollary is more than recognition of the obvious, it is about action and activism. Librarians are people of action; actively seeking to make a better society one community at a time”—with the involvement of the community members who contribute to making a library a library.

So once again I think of Mel, of Dave, and all the other first-rate librarians I know or have known. I think about how through the work they do, they remain some of the most influential activists/advocates I have encountered. And I’m left with what Dave writes at the conclusion of his Corollaries: “In the United States library leaders often talk about libraries as more than books. I’ve never been a fan of this line. It implies that things the library does beyond books are still  build on the foundation of materials. Yet the foundation of libraries should be the community libraries are seeking to serve. Ranganathan’s words talked about books and readers, but the spirit of his work was in service and communities.” And that’s where we all need to be. As activists. As citizens. And as fully participating members of our onsite and online communities.

Communities, Quotations, and Inspiration: Learning With and From Our Colleagues

I wake up this morning to a “homework assignment” from a colleague (George Couros, via an email message to his list of contacts): read through a list of quotations he compiled during 2023, select one of the quotations, and compose a set of reflections “written, audio, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, blog, MySpace, or whatever, and tag me on it in any of those spaces (except for MySpace!).” So I read through that lovely collection of thoughts from a variety of sources—some familiar, some new to me. And a funny thing happens: while I enjoy reading them, none of them makes me want to spend time composing a set of reflections. None of them offers me the open door that could entice me to enter another world.

So I set them aside. Breeze through some of the other bits and pieces of reading I want to do before diving into all I hope to accomplish today. Then, seeing a Facebook post from Deborah Doyle, another cherished friend/colleague/source of inspiration, I pause. Because it contains a lovely quotation. One that completely pulls me in. And one that puts me back into virtual touch with a writer—Paulo Coelho—whose work I very much admire: “Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.”

I pause. I feel a door opening slightly. That door that insists I drop everything else and take the time to peek to see what hides behind it.

The skeptic in me kicks in, asking “Are those really words from Paulo Coelho, or is this another of those Internet moments like the one reminding us that Abraham Lincoln counseled against believing everything you read on the Internet?” So I do a few quick searches and find plenty of references to Coelho having said or written those words, but no site providing a precise, definitive annotation confirming where or when he wrote or said those words.

But the trainer-teacher-learner-writer in me swats the skeptic down. Reminds me that it does not really matter whether Coelho is the source. What is important is that the sentiment is appealing. Applies to so much of what my colleagues and I live and breathe and do. That a friend has given me a key to open and pass through that door. And that it is a wonderful reminder, at the beginning of what appears to be another year of wonderful possibilities, and exploration, and growth, that one must pass through open doors to see what’s on the other side.

It all comes down to how we choose to use the limited time we have. Those words remind us that we all are faced with far more doors than we will ever have the time to pass through. That for each door ignored, another beckons. And for each one chosen, other doors remain unopened, as do the experiences we might have had by choosing them over those we chose.

For those of us who want to do it all—open every door; try every dish on the menu at our favorite restaurant; read every book written by the authors we love or see every film made by those who consistently create enticing dreamy worlds into which we can escape; study and use the numerous languages we hear around us as we move through communities where English (or whatever mother tongue we speak) isn’t the only game in town—the choices can be overwhelming. And the decision to close a door so we can make space for a different is sometimes painful, sometimes filling us with dread or guilt for walking away from something or someone important to us. But setting aside the pain or guilt in recognition that the closing of the door might ultimately be better for us and what/who we leave behind, we find ourselves applying a different set of eyes and ears and desires leading us to something tremendously stimulating and rewarding.

Reading and absorbing books including Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence,  Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and James Hollis’s Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up over the past few months has provided an enormous sense of perspective and encouragement in terms of deciding which doors to open—and how many. Each writer takes me closer to the realization that we are going to be much happier and productive if we take the time to decide how many doors we are going to open, close, or leave closed before trying to determine what it might reveal. Which door is most important and potentially rewarding to us now. Each writer reminds us of the importance of choosing the most important door right now. And not wasting time or energy in this particular moment on worrying about what those other doors might have offered that would have been more appealing.

It’s a realization that is at the heart of all that we do as trainer-teacher-learners: we help ourselves and our learners to focus. To be mindful. To produce the most rewarding experiences possible by choosing that single door that most appeals to us now. Opening it completely so we can see what lurks behind it. Exploring what is there to our own satisfaction whether that set of explorations requires a few minutes, a few days, a few months, or a few years. Absorbing it in ways that allow us to more fully contribute to the communities in which we live and work and play. And, when we pass back through that door or through another we discover along the way, we carry with us what we have gained so we can share it with others. As George and Deborah and other beloved members of my various communities of learning share with me, today, the reminder that a small, well-connected set of words is sometimes all it takes to lead us through a door into the world of our dreams.

Strengthening Our Communities: Robert Fuller on the “Rankism” of Somebodies and Nobodies

We spend quite a bit of time trying to strengthen our communities by discussing and attempting to address diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. We also, in our better moments, pursue the concept of the common good, as I recently wrote in a set of reflections centered around Peter Block’s new book, Activating the Common Good: Retaining Control of Our Collective Well-Being. In the best of situations, we seek positive solutions, promote and provide training, and attempt to inspire inclusion by listening as much as speaking when identifying ways to foster the levels of transformation we recognize we need to achieve. But then we often look around and throw our hands up in despair over our apparent lack of significant progress.

Writer-physicist-educational reformer Robert Fuller, more than two decades ago, attempted to lead us beyond what he referred to as the “isms”—racism, sexism, ageism, and numerous others that by now we can easily rattle off in our sleep: “In the U.S., perhaps twenty percent of us have suffered directly from racism, and about fifty percent from sexism,” he suggested in Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (published in 2003 by New Society Publishers). “But virtually all of us suffer from rank-based abuse—which I shall be calling ‘rankism’—in one context or another, at one time or another. Sooner or later, everyone gets taken for a nobody. Sooner or later, most of us treat someone as a nobody.”

His writing in Somebodies and Nobodies and the sequel All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity remains clear, compelling, and inspirational, which suggests to me that perhaps its time to circle back to what he suggested and see how it might push us a few steps along in our efforts to change the world around us with small, steady doses of empathy and a desire to do more than talk—in essence tackling rankism as the overall element that encompasses all the other isms: “Attacking the familiar isms singly, one at a time, is like developing a different chemotherapy for each kind of cancer” he writes in Somebodies and Nobodies. “To go after rankism directly is to seek to eliminate a whole class of malignancies.”

In the early sections of that initial book, he links rankism to assaults on personal dignity, and he explores that theme more fully in All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity: “To be ‘nobodied’ carries the threat of being deprived of social and material resources critical to our well-being,” he writes in that sequel. “Such threats are tantamount to blackmail or extortion, forcing people to subordinate themselves so as to avoid the fateful consequences of ostracism. The need for dignity is more than a desire for courtesy. Dignity grounds us, nurtures us, protects us. It’s the social counterpart of interpersonal love.”

None of what I have written so far is in any way meant to denigrate the great work that so many colleagues are doing in the area of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Nor is it meant to detract from the work of the many writers whose work I continue to absorb and admire. But what I do find in Fuller’s work is an invitation to look at a larger, less commonly examined field of play to think about the underpinnings of so much of what challenges us and to quickly move it into a personal, story-based level that pushes theory into the background and invites us to feel the impact of what rankism produces.

It’s personal for Fuller, as it should be for us. When he tells us how he went from holding positions of authority (where respect was a given) to a position where, without a formal, impressive title, he found himself receiving short shrift from those around him, he calls up our own recollections of times when, because we were “outranked” by someone else, we were made to feel insignificant. It is not a large bridge to cross: by employing even a modicum of empathy and thinking about how those around us feel when subjected to the stings of rankism we ourselves have experienced, we take a small yet essential step toward understanding the terrible impacts rankism has on those whose age, race, gender, and other elements of who they are subjects them, in turn, to rankism.

He leads us further down this painful path of reflective inquiry by reminding us that one of the more pernicious effects of rankism is burnout—the absolute loss of all that a person might bring to our communities because, having been rankismed to death, that person no longer cares enough to attempt to share what they might otherwise have contributed to what Peter Block and John McKnight call our “abundant community.”  The implicit challenge here is to catch ourselves in those awful moments when we are subjecting someone to rankism (or any of the other isms) in our workplaces, our learning spaces, our social gathering places, and all the other onsite and online spaces we inhabit; stop ourselves; acknowledge what we have just done; and attempt to reverse the damage we are causing to ourselves, our colleagues, and other members of our precious, struggling communities that benefit from what a commitment to inclusiveness in all its forms is capable of producing.

It’s a lofty, difficult to achieve goal, and Fuller invites us to rise to the challenge through his own optimistic, soaring prose—an invitation to strive for a set of interconnecting communities capable of producing what we so far have not managed to produce: “As rankism, like racism, falls into disrepute, the partisan insults, put-downs, and smears we have become accustomed to will find less favor with the electorate,” he writes with tremendous hope in All Rise. “Sneering at opposing views, contempt for nonbelievers, and personal attacks will all backfire, discrediting the purveyors and not their targets. There is no reason to expect dignitarian politics to be less argumentative, but there’s every reason to believe it will be more civil.”

And that remains the challenge we must pursue if we are going to bring the best of ourselves to the Sisyphean task of creating the communities of our dreams.

Giving Thanks 2023: Learning Through Mentoring—The Two-way Street

Anyone who has ever been involved in mentoring knows that it is a fabulously rewarding two-way street and an essential part of our training-teaching-learning landscape. Protégés working with dedicated, well-trained mentors gain knowledge, wisdom, experience, and inspiration they would find in no other way, and mentors (often to their surprise) gain the same through the interactions they have with dedicated, hardworking protégés.

My recent post acknowledging the positive, priceless impact some of my best teachers and advisors have had on me—and, by extension, those I serve—hints at the value of mentorship. When I think about what my interactions with them produced and continues to produce, I realize that mentoring was often at the heart of all we did. They, through examples and storytelling rather than reliance on lecturing, inspired me. And I, much to my surprise at the time and in retrospect, apparently offered something of tremendous value to them: the knowledge that what they taught me would, in turn, eventually be shared with others.

That, to me, is the heart of mentoring: it is the act that reminds us we are not simply involved in a series of unconnected moments with little impact; it is an act of engagement that involves tremendous continuity, from person to person, generation to generation, that connects us with predecessors and successors we will never physically meet. In a substantial way, it makes us part of one wonderfully productive, unbroken line of community and collaboration that produces its own form of “immortality.” We, and they, live on as long as the seeds each of us plants are nourished and bear fruit that feeds others.

The topic is one that is tremendously deeply personal as I complete this post. I recently was surprised and overwhelming gratified to see a Facebook post from a long-time colleague who took the time to publicly reflect upon the “mentoring” he has received from me over a very long period of time—surprising because what he saw as mentoring was, from my point of view, an ongoing series of conversations where we each shared stories about what we were doing; responded with ideas that built upon what we had accomplished and were hoping to accomplish; and involved the camaraderie that is, for me, at the heart of the best of the friendships and collaborations that I am lucky enough to have.

A few examples of how symbiotically rewarding our relationship has been: whereas I was always very vocal about how much I learned from his incredibly incisive and instructional blog posts (I saw them as complete “lessons in a blog,” where I could absorb as little or as much as I wanted to by following links and reading background material on the training-teaching-learning topics he was exploring), he consistently recalls those conversations as encouragement from a published writer to someone who was exploring and developing his own (already formidable) writing skills; whereas I saw our conversations about consulting as a two-way exchange of ideas, he saw them as an informal training ground where he could explore his own interests in setting up what is now a very successful consultancy with clients across the United States; and whereas I saw our hallway and mealtime conversations at conferences as an extension of our personal and professional exchanges, he saw them as mentoring that influenced his own approach to the work he was pursuing.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I glanced at Facebook earlier this week and learned, from his most recent post, that he had attempted to commit suicide. The fact that he was not (thankfully) successful has obviously been another of those two-way-street mentoring experiences: he (I hope) is learning from the tremendous levels of support he is receiving from all of us who adore him that he is an important, cherished, vital part of our community, and we would be devastated to lose him any sooner than we absolutely have to lose him. And from my point of view, I’m reminded once again that to procrastinate about making the occasional effort to reach out to those who most matter to me might have tragically long-lasting impacts on all of us.

The act of mentoring remains something that goes far beyond the artificial time boundaries accompanying most mentoring programs I have helped organize or in which I have been a participant as a mentor or a protégé. It obviously formally begins when the program providing the structure formally begins. But it does not end when the formal program ends. It evolves as a protégé evolves into a friend/peer/colleague. And it produces some of its most rewarding moments when those former protégés advance beyond anything I have accomplished and, themselves, become cherished sources of inspiration. In the best of cases, former protégés become people with whom I have regularly-scheduled catch-up calls (by Zoom or any other technology that keeps those conversations personal and engaging); they sometimes become formal collaborators for projects including conference presentations.

Barb Potter

Mentoring also continually rewards me by expanding my own understanding of the value I can bring to a mentoring relationship. I remain deeply appreciative, for example, to Barb Potter (a former protégé through the fabulous ATD South Florida Chapter mentoring program where I have been a mentor for several years). When Barb—who already had significant experience in training-teaching-learning and clearly was consulting at a level parallel to what I was doing—first expressed interest in having me serve as her mentor, I was adamant in suggesting that she needed someone better than I was since she clearly could be mentoring me with her own successes serving as the foundations for that sort of relationship. She, fortunately, was not to be dissuaded, and those finalizing the mentor-protégé matching process that year were persistent enough to overcome my concerns and hesitation. The result was a lesson well-learned: I don’t need to know more than the person I am mentoring; my willingness to simply serve as someone willing to share ideas with a colleague could produce exactly what a protégé needs. So Barb and I continue to meet, friend-to-friend and peer-to-peer every other week, in what has become a personal and professional collaboration that leaves me feeling tremendous gratitude every time we finish a conversation.

I also am tremendously appreciative for all that recent UCLA graduate Naomi Lopez is bringing to the mentoring relationship that began early this year through the Daily Bruin Alumni Network mentoring program that I currently co-facilitate with Laureen Lazarovici. Naomi and I initially explored a variety of topics, including the writing she was already doing outside of the Daily Bruin and her interest in exploring travel writing as a career option after she graduated in June. Not having much experience in travel writing but adoring the writing that I read in that genre, I’ve helped put Naomi in touch with those far more experience than I have, and Naomi has diligently pursued those leads and added to her published writing by posting a lovely piece (on Medium) about her travel experiences in Japan this summer along with other stories she has posted there. When the mentor-protégé relationship formally ended in June, we made the transition to having peer-to-peer conversations via Zoom once a month. And, as happens with the best of these ongoing peer-to-peer calls, I always walk away at least as inspired as she appears to be and deeply grateful for all she brings to my own ongoing professional development.

If you have never served as a mentor, this might be a great time to think about what you could bring to that sort of relationship. And if you’ve never had a mentor, this might be a good time for you to look around for someone from whom you might learn something worthwhile and, at the same time, help by simply being in mentor-protégé relationship. It’s another step in a crucial part of training-teaching-learning: the essential realization that we are all part of something much larger than any of us represent, something that provides meaning to all we do and to all we touch.  

N.B.: This is the fifteenth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.

Giving Thanks 2023: Maurice Coleman and T is for Training at 350

Maurice Coleman

There are few more engaging online meeting places for trainer-teacher-learners working in or with libraries, library associations, and library consortia than Maurice Coleman’s fabulous T is for Training podcast, as I have noted numerous times on my blog, in conversations with friends and colleagues, and in workshops about building community and fostering positive, effective collaboration. It’s the sort of virtual meeting place where, like clockwork, you can drop in (currently every other Thursday evening at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT on TalkShoe, unless we take a break for holidays or to allow Maurice to watch a sports event he can’t bear to miss) to be with colleagues, explore topics of interest to all of us, learn with and from each other, and walk away much happier than you were before you arrived.

George Needham and Joan Frye Williams

It’s also a comforting place where community members and guests gather when we are in emotional upheaval, as was the case yesterday. Waking up to a Facebook post from R. David Lankes sharing the devastating news that the much admired library advocate George Needham had passed away earlier this week, I called Dave early that morning to see whether he would join us for that latest recording of the podcast—already scheduled for that evening—so we could explore what George had meant to so many of us. Then, having received an immediate confirmation that he was interested and available, and dreaming in a way that T is for Training inspires so many of us to dream, I reached out mid-morning to Joan Frye Williams, whose collaborations with George when they were both affiliated with the library training organization Infopeople taught me more about training-teaching-learning and presenting than I will ever be able to fully describe.

I wasn’t at all hopeful that I would be able to reach her; the only contact information I had for her was her Facebook account, and I wasn’t sure, given the level of grief she must have been feeling at that moment, that she would even be checking her Facebook account yesterday. But in a way that seems to be an integral part of the T is for Training experience and the sort of miracle that George would have fully supported, Joan responded 15 minutes before the recording began yesterday evening, which set us up for a timely, unique, intimate opportunity to capture at a very personal level what George had meant to so many of us (through the eyes of people who knew him extremely well).

The T is for Training magic continued as we logged onto TalkShoe and began the recording. Responding to the hastily-distributed email message notifying T is for Training regulars who knew George that he would be the topic of discussion that evening, two other long-time friends of the show (Peter Bromberg and Janie Hermann) joined us after having been away for quite a while. Rounding out the conversation were a few of us who are part of the recording sessions as often as we can be there—all of which produced a wonderful combination of capturing bits and pieces of George for those who would appreciate hearing the stories we shared; a reunion of sorts that reminded all of us how valuable the T is for Training community is for us in pleasurable as well as difficult times; an example of how online communities of practice continue to be a valuable part of our onsite-online lives; and how podcasts like this create moments that, when shared, ripple out with positive effects into the extended community of teacher-trainer-learners we serve. You simply won’t find conversations like this accessible at exactly the moment you need them.

Looking back over the sessions we have recorded this year produces a list of wonderfully diverse topics and a review of the opportunities we had to spend virtual time with cherished colleagues. We began the year with a discussion of things that had changed our approach to training-teaching-learning in 2022; among the usual suspects in attendance were Widerstand Consulting Executive Director Jill Hurst-Wahl, whose work on diversity-inclusion-equity-justice always brings a stimulating perspective to T, and Tom Haymes, a writer-educator-technologist whose work continually inspires me. The themes covered included our increasing use of storytelling in learning; mind-mapping in learning; and (inspired by Priya Parker’s work, documented in her book The Art of Gathering) finding ways to make our gatherings compelling, engaging, and productive.

February 2023 recordings included one with UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network colleague Glenn Seki at the center of a spirited discussion about what trainer-teacher-learners can absorb from his book How to Become the Best at Anything—the quick answer being “they can absorb quite a bit!” That was followed later in the month with an exploration of how, in the best of circumstances, a long-lasting (10-years-and-still-thriving) learning community can form out of the shared experience of being part of a highly engaging massive open online course (in this case #etmooc, the Educational Technology & Media MOOC that initially was offered in winter/spring 2013 and was in early 2023, reconvening to design and offer a new massive open online course exploring artificial intelligence in learning).

A session-by-session recap would, of course, quickly become tedious. It’s enough to know that the discussions throughout the year ranged from what trainer-teacher-learners need to know about copyright (drawing from usual suspect Jill Hurst-Wahl’s expertise) and how reversing our assumptions produces magnificent results for us and our co-conspirators in learning (aka, our learners) to “top challenges facing trainers in 2023,” featuring usual suspect Sardek Love, who will be rejoining us on Thursday, December 14, 2023 for a discussion about transferring learning from one format (e.g., onsite) to another (e.g., online).

It’s hard to believe that Maurice, as founder and host, has been nurturing this particular community of learning for more than 15 years now (the pilot episode was recorded in August 2008), but the ample show notes (often prepared by Jill Hurst-Wahl) on the podcast website/blog and numerous recordings prove that we are about to celebrate the longevity and continuing value of T is for Training with the recording of Episode 350, when Sardek  rejoins us. And I, for one, am hoping to be around for at least another 350, grateful for all that Maurice fosters through this magnificent labor of love.

N.B.: This is the twelfth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.

CLA Conference 2022: Thanks for the Gifts

For three hours yesterday, I was shoulder to shoulder with a wonderful group of colleagues facilitating a highly-interactive advocacy workshop for people working with libraries and the communities they serve throughout California. These are people—Crystal Miles from the Sacramento Public Library, Mark Fink from  the Yolo County Library, Deborah Doyle from the Sonoma County Library Commission, and Derek Wolfgram from the Redwood City Public Library—with whom I interact on a regular basis via Zoom. We have—up to that moment yesterday morning when we were onsite for the preconference workshop here in Sacramento on the first day of the California Library Association (CLA) 2022 Annual Conference—been designing and delivering online advocacy training sessions through the CLA Ursula Meyer Advocacy Training Fund program I manage, and we will continue to be nurturing the online series that continues next week with a free two-hour workshop on presentation skills for library advocates.

But this was that wonderful moment when, for the first time since the COVID pandemic radically altered the way we all work, we were shoulder to shoulder in an onsite setting with a group of dynamic learners who were also relishing the opportunity to be off camera and physically (rather than virtually) together. There were plenty of tongue-in-cheek comments about how strange it was to be seeing each other’s faces without having those faces framed by the all-too-familiar Zoom boxes that provide us with (cherished) opportunities to interact online. And there was also the not-unexpected attention we continue to give to safety protocols—including those ubiquitous N95 masks so many of us continue to wear in a dual effort to avoid unintentionally spreading COVID or to contract it from unsuspecting carriers of the virus.

But when all was said and done, an underlying cause for gratitude and celebration was that all of us in that particular room were acknowledging that the gift of gathering offered by CLA was another step toward our collective commitment to creating “a new and better normal” rather than sitting passively while waiting for a chance to return to a (pre-COVID) “normal” that, in many ways, was not all that great for many of our colleagues and, frankly, many of us.

As we explored the basics of advocacy and how it is evolving in a world that, two years ago, was forced to switch quickly and (sometimes) adeptly to a world where online interactions needed to be a seamless part of our interactions and collaborations, we noted and celebrated some of the positive opportunities that have come out of the tremendous tragedies and losses COVID has brought to each of us. We even, at one point, held a brief, lively, tongue-in-cheek debate about the advantages and disadvantages of onsite vs. online advocacy. (Taking the side of arguing for the benefits of online advocacy, I was gleeful when Crystal, assuming the playful role of the judge awarding points to Derek and me as we went back and forth, ultimately and very generously called it a draw and observed that our new and better normal might be one in which we recognize the importance of incorporating onsite and online efforts into our advocacy toolkits.) And as the session came to an end, we were gratified to hear participants—our co-conspirators in learning—note the ways in which their time with us was inspiring them to seek new ways to become even better advocates for libraries and the communities they serve than they already were.

It doesn’t, however, end there. The shoulder-to-shoulder interactions extended into conversations on the conference exhibits-hall floor, moved outdoors as some of us took our lunches into the plaza outside the conference center so we could unmask and enjoy lunch and extended conversations. And, as always happens in these conference settings where friends and colleagues are unexpectedly waiting for us right around the corner, the conversations became richer and deeper as friends stumbled upon long-unseen friends and picked up right where they/we had left off.

Which is exactly what happened toward the end of the lunchtime conversation Crystal and I were having in that plaza on a warm, pleasant Sacramento afternoon. As Crystal and I were discussing another session we might soon be doing together, I felt the (reassuring) embrace, from behind me, of someone whose voice I could hear but couldn’t quite place. Relishing that unexpected embrace and the sound of a somewhat familiar voice I couldn’t immediately place, I just sat there and admitted “I have no idea who is hugging me, and I’m not even inclined to want to turn around and immediately find out who it is because it feels so good.” And when I turned around and saw familiar eyes peering out from above the mask that was covering the rest of that lovely face, it still took me several seconds to realize that the embrace and the voice belonged to one of my favorite up-and-coming librarians—someone I’ve known since the point in her life when she was still a student in a Master of Library Science program and I had an opportunity to introduce her to people who have helped shape her career.

You can see it coming: she joined the conversation for a few minutes before having to race off for an appointment she had previously set—but not before we agreed to reconvene later that afternoon to sit together outdoors over hors d’oeuvres and beverages that carried us through a lovely chunk of unplanned time we both had. And our leisurely conversation that led us from afternoon into the early evening hours before another colleague joined us briefly before each of us stepped away to join other equally lovely interactions and conversations which will, no doubt, continue today when all of us are back onsite for another day of learning, scheming, dreaming, and working with cherished colleagues to collaborate toward shaping the world of our dreams.

So again, CLA, thanks for the gift of regathering our community in ways that continue the work we have managed to do in online settings over the past couple of years—and will continue to do onsite and online for the foreseeable future. And thanks for the opportunity to carry us one step further down a road that is still very much in a state of development as we grow accustomed to, open to, and grateful for a world in which we no longer carry on, with any level of seriousness, silly arguments about whether onsite interactions are inherently better than online interactions, or vice versa. We are, step by step, embracing possibilities and relishing where those opportunities may take us—if we actively, positively are active participants in shaping the results those opportunities provide.

Fostering Creative Collaborations: CoSN and ShapingEDU

Participating in two recent highly-interactive and engaging CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) online summits woke me up a bit to the latest fruit coming off the tree of creative collaboration between organizations I very much adore.

But what intrigued me as much as the content under review was what came out of watching colleagues from the Arizona State University ShapingEDU community as they put on their CoSN hats and created/facilitated those wonderfully engaging summit experiences. This was far from a dry lecture/presentation of newly-released reports; it was a two-part invitation to explore the content within the context of playing within an engaging learning sandbox that made audience members “co-conspirators” in the learning process—in ways that encouraged all of us to explore and absorb the information from the report so we could and would immediately begin applying what we learned to our own settings. In K-12. In higher education. In workplace learning. And, to be frank, in every imaginable corner of our overall lifelong-learning landscape.

At the center of the summit action, with strong support from and collaboration with several other CoSN members, were Laura Geringer and Karina Branson—longtime ShapingEDU colleagues I very much admire and from whom I draw tremendous inspiration in my own training-teaching-learning efforts. Laura, who as project manager was at the  heart of facilitating the process of producing those reports with Writer/Communications Manager Stephanie King, specializes in helping create tremendously engaging “immersive” experiences online and onsite through ShapingEDU; Karina, as a tremendously respected graphic facilitator, is in many ways the visual face of ShapingEDU through the imagery she produces and which is heavily integrated into much of what I encounter whenever I look at the ShapingEDU website, participate in ShapingEDU onsite and online conferences, and contribute to the ShapingEDU Reshaping Learning blog.  

Image by Karina Branson/ConverSketch

And that’s where the across-the-organizations collaboration struck me immediately. Seeing Laura’s engaging approach to facilitating each of the summit sessions and seeing Karina’s create-them-as-they-happen visual renditions of what was happening during each of those sessions, made me feel as if I were a longtime member of the CoSN community rather than a relative newcomer. It was as if, in essential and engaging ways, any separation between CoSN and ShapingEDU melted away. Because the style and approach each brings to the ShapingEDU community was strongly evident in their work with CoSN and felt completely natural.

This is not to say that ShapingEDU had absorbed CoSN or that CoSN was absorbing key elements of what to me is a still-evolving ShapingEDU approach—captured wonderfully in the online publication ShapingED-YOU Toolkit—to onsite, online, and blended gatherings. It was, to be direct, an example of how the right people, collaborating the multiple organizations they serve, respond to each organization’s needs with a consistent and adaptable creative approach that produces magnificent results.

Those results, in this case, were playfully interactive exercises that encouraged summit participants to explore the material highlighted in the first and second summits. Become familiar with each other at a personal level. Begin forming connections that can and probably will extend far beyond the constraints of those brief summit sessions. And look for opportunities to dream, do, and drive together in ways that have the potential to produce positive measurable results for the summit participants and those they serve.

To take this one step further: It’s not at all surprising that the level of collaboration on display within those CoSN sessions and between CoSN and ShapingEDU should be so strong and consistent in its approach. Some members of CoSN and ShapingEDU—particularly among the sometimes overlapping leadership of those communities and the projects they undertake—have a shared lineage connected to the NMC (New Media Consortium), which served as a global learning community for educators in K-12, higher education, community colleges, libraries, and other segments of our lifelong learning environments. The spirit of community that NMC colleagues achieved continues to grow and evolve within CoSN, ShapingEDU, EDUCAUSE, and other communities that have members in common.

What it all means to me at a highly personal level and might be inspiring to you is the reminder that we all have magnificent opportunities to gather—often briefly—at the “intersections” so effectively described by Frans Johansson in his book The Medici Effect. To work together. To then return to our other communities to foster positive change by telling the stories of what we encountered during those intersection gatherings. And to relish the thought that our efforts might have ripples of impacts far beyond what any of us see in the relatively small ponds in which we swim.

Giving Thanks 2021: ShapingEDU, Saying “Yes,” and Documenting Pandemic Lessons Learned

One of the words that leaves me feeling happiest is “yes.” The power of the word “yes” first became obvious to me when I was listening to a (horrible) guest speaker in a graduate-level management class proudly describe the sign hanging over her desk: “What part of no do you not understand?” “Yes” continually exerts a restorative power over me. It encourages me. It tells me that there is a bridge to be crossed successfully. A collaborative effort to be pursued. An acquaintance who is about to become a colleague/partner/collaborator and, with any luck, a friend.

Graphic by Karina Branson/ConverSketch

“Yes” is a word I consistently hear from members of the ShapingEDU community (operating under the auspices of—and with tremendous support and numerous “yeses” from—the members of the University Technology Office at Arizona State University) as part of their collective commitment as “dreamer-doer-drivers” committed to doing whatever they can to help reshape the future of learning in the digital age, One of the most recent (and significant) yeses I heard was from community members participating in the fourth annual ShapingEDU Unconference (July 20-23, 2021) as we were exploring a set of 10 wicked challenges in contemporary learning—with an eye toward framing them within a newly-created structure of five calls to action that would guide our work over the next 12 months.

Graphic by Karina Branson/ConverSketch

At the end of a series of discussions I helped facilitate on the challenge of identifying, documenting, and disseminating stories about how we are rethinking our approach to learning as a result of the teaching-training-learning experiences we and others have had since the pandemic began in early 2020, I posed a simple question to participants in that set of discussions: Are you interested in continuing this discussion after the unconference so we can find ways to implement what we have been talking about here?

The resounding “yes” from several of the participants led us to begin engaging in biweekly one-hour online meetings a few weeks after the conference ended, and those results-oriented conversations are continuing with the involvement of anyone who wants to join us. Our original unconference-session discussions, under the title “365+ Days Later: Post-Pandemic Best Practices,” are continuing under the newly-established, much more playful project name “Are We There Yet? (Capturing the Evolving New Now in Learning).”

Our newly-adopted name covers a lot of ground. It recognizes that we are stepping away from the idea that we are somehow savvy enough to have identified “best practices” when what we are really doing is documenting what seems to be working for now among our brightest, most creative colleagues; the approach here is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It recognizes that we are far from having reached an end-point in our explorations; this really is a situation and a challenge that is continually evolving in the way that all wicked problems continually evolve (which is part of what makes them so wicked). And, most importantly, by asking “are we there yet?”, we are tacitly admitting that we don’t ever completely expect to “get there” in terms of having definitively established a “new now” in learning; the evolving nature of what we face in pandemic-era conditions and beyond suggests that we will be working together for a good long time. And should we ever actually “get there” and recognize that our work in response to this challenge is finished, we probably, in the best traditions of ShapingEDU, will identify a new challenge in teaching-training-learning to pursue together.

There’s much more to this than having established a new name; our biweekly meetings have produced a (still-evolving) planning document that begins with a summary of the steps we plan to take through Are We There Yet?:

• Each of us will reach out to members of our communities to draw them into this conversation and this project; the potential here is to quickly begin building a global coalition that engages in research through studies, with real-time support in how to respond to challenges.

• We will draw upon our colleagues and resources at Arizona State University to build this coalition/project.
  
• To get the word out that we are seeking collaborators, we will: 

• Create an introductory video that is posted on the ShapingEDU site to disseminate this story of how we are telling the stories of others

• Determine where we will house the stories so that they can be shared

• Look for opportunities (synchronous and asynchronous; online and onsite; through webinars and workshops) to pair stories with lessons learned and facilitate discussions to broadly disseminate what we are observing and documenting; an example of this is initiative created by Are We There Yet? team member Tula Dlamini’s to have members of his community in South Africa come together in ways mirroring how ShapingEDU community members come together during annual unconferences) to explore and document what they are seeing
  
• Work at a global level to find ways to integrate the various stories we have with those we find through our efforts.

the earliest activities we are pursuing are creating an online site, before the end of December 2021, for teacher-trainer-learners to submit stories about how they have successfully adapted their work to pandemic conditions; a highly-interactive online workshop to help participants create their stories about pandemic-era learning successes (possibly in January or February 2022); and an online mini-conference (in March or April) to bring teacher-trainer-learners together to find ways to document and share our learning-success stories. We are also working to call attention to first-rate resources, including the recently-published book Learn at Your Own Risk: 9 Strategies for Thriving in a Pandemic and Beyond, by ShapingEDU Storyteller in Residence and Are We There Yet? team member Tom Haymes.

There is plenty to do. There are lots of opportunities to be developed. And all we need now is a “yes” from you indicating your interest in being part of the project—which you can do by contacting those of us listed as team leaders on the project page.

N.B.: This is the eighth in a series of year-end reflections inspired by the people, organizations, and events that are helping to change the world in positive ways and the thirty-second in a series of reflections inspired by colleagues’ reactions to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place experiences.