What are the questions you should be asking?
I have always been fascinated with education. From both sides: how do we educate and also how do we learn.
There is a much larger post in the making, hopefully being written in conjunction with Alex de Carvalho (@alexdc), but that will have to wait until I have a little more time.
In the Passover Haggadah (the book containing the text for the ritual of the Passover Seder) we encounter the four sons.
We aren't in the right season, granted, but it is relevant.
(The yearly ritual in my family is to quietly chuckle about which one of the four brothers is which son.)
But what makes each son who they are is not their actions. It is what they ask and how they ask it.
Lately, I have been describing social media with the following scenario:
In life, we don't always know what to ask, what is important, what is pressing. Twitter, blogs and facebook are on everyone's lips now, but say that you never heard of them - Would you know what to ask?
The ambient stream of information educates us subconsciously. It tells us what is important, who someone is, how they think and a million more bits of data that we automatically filter.
I use Wikipedia the same way. I know that I want to learn about something, and then due to tags and links, I learn what other people found relevant. It teaches me what questions I should be asking.
Even if we don't click, we learn what to ask.
Just a thought.
There is a much larger post in the making, hopefully being written in conjunction with Alex de Carvalho (@alexdc), but that will have to wait until I have a little more time.
In the Passover Haggadah (the book containing the text for the ritual of the Passover Seder) we encounter the four sons.
We aren't in the right season, granted, but it is relevant.
There four archetypal sons are:
The Wise son.
The Wicked son.
The Naive son.
And the son who doesn't know how to ask.
(The yearly ritual in my family is to quietly chuckle about which one of the four brothers is which son.)
But what makes each son who they are is not their actions. It is what they ask and how they ask it.
Lately, I have been describing social media with the following scenario:
Imagine 50 artists who don't know each other in a white room together.
Each one has questions that they think important that they are going to begin asking each other artist. What is your style, where did you study, etc.
It will take a long time to "iterate" through all 50 in order to find the individuals that the artist really wants to talk to.
This is also because the questions are flawed. You think that those are the most important questions.
Now imagine if each artist would take one of their creations and stand next to it.
Immediately, it would be simple to ascertain with a single glance, "Is this someone who i want to talk to? Do we have anything in common?"
In life, we don't always know what to ask, what is important, what is pressing. Twitter, blogs and facebook are on everyone's lips now, but say that you never heard of them - Would you know what to ask?
The ambient stream of information educates us subconsciously. It tells us what is important, who someone is, how they think and a million more bits of data that we automatically filter.
I use Wikipedia the same way. I know that I want to learn about something, and then due to tags and links, I learn what other people found relevant. It teaches me what questions I should be asking.
Even if we don't click, we learn what to ask.
Just a thought.
