Will · Less About Tools, More About Thinking/ Tellio – More About Sensing/Feeling in Balance
Will · Less About Tools, More About Thinking.
(If you read the post (it’s short so go ahead) you will have a context for some admittedly blue sky thinking I indulge in below.)
I don’t think you can separate tools from thinking. The tool brings the mind’s ‘hand’ into the world. Nor should we separate either of these words from sensing and feeling. I think that the larger goal of teaching is to help learners integrate thought, action, and feeling into a greater unity. I know…that’s a lot abstract nouns, but we do know it when we feel it.
For example, Kevin Hodgson tells the story of how a student created a video game about vegetarianism using the Gamestar platform (https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/4012). When some members of that gaming community criticized her for using vegetarianism as a game theme, her sixth grade class came to her defense. That is the unity of thought, action, and feeling that I am referring to. I don’t think you can design or manage that kind of complexity. I think you can give students a digital repertoire and then put them into relatively safe places where they can play out their own digital thinking, acting and feeling.
Mostly this is a call to make sure we put sensing/feeling on equal footing with thinking and acting. In a world where cooperation might just trump collaboration and competition, we had better get at the ‘thrust’ engine for will and passion–our own feelings and ways of sensing the world.
You can follow an interesting discussion between Kevin Hodgson and me here at Vialogue.
