Happy Christmas!

As the year closes...

I have these questions in mind....

How will ELQ funding cuts affect the Open University?

How will adopting a roadmap help in dealing with issues of climate change?

How can I work smarter next year?

Will systems thinking and practice be more in evidence next year.....and the word systemic be used to describe more than failure or sleaze?

How can I make the most of what Etienne Wenger calls the 'unique trajectory' each of us has among the communities we're part of - both in terms of renegotiating my own identity and in terms of my responsibilities to those communities?

....I have a lot of less profound questions in mind also about just managing in my daily life. Time for a break I think.

Two sides of winter

The first is today - freezing fog in middle England. Pretty hoar frost and it felt timeless and closed-in and never really got light. The other is a cold but bright north-eastern UK beach where we were this time last year. I loved the blue sky and the way the wind blew the incoming waves back....and those oyster catchers!

Etienne Wenger and Yrjo Engestrom

Last Tuesday - 11th December I was lucky to be able to attend an event of the OU's Practice-based professial learning Centre in memory of the OU's Peter Knight who died earlier this year.

Etienne Wenger and Yrjo Engestrom whose learning theories I've engaged with quite a lot both made presentations. The morning in particular was very rich in ideas.

Two things among those I took away to think on....

1. Etienne's comments on identities as systems of expressability and accountability. In passing he commented that if you are not engaged in something you don't feel accountable. Although at one level it's an obvious comment his phrasing of it in the way he did got me thinking about how it helps to explain many people's lack of accountability regarding environmental practices regarding climate change....how can people feel accountable if not engaged in a particular way?
   
2. Yrjo's focus on climate change as an example of a 'runaway object' (borrowing from Giddens' 'runaway world') and his use of the metaphor of mycorrhizae....what's going on beneath the ground, invisible and huge.

Crisp winter morning

Winter at it's best. Cold, frosty and bright.

Can do?

Seen on a friend's shelves. He'd bought them at a Design exhibition in Denmark. If only such attributes were this accessible!