It’s About Time: Speeding Up By Slowing Down

It’s About Time: Speeding Up By Slowing Down

Every day at work, at home, at leisure, hardly an hour goes by without a comment or two about time: “I don’t have time to get everything done” or “I’d love to do that but I am busy then” – or less frequently, “I was so absorbed that time just flew by.” Time has become the ultimate scarce resource; and we use financial words to describe it. We budget time, invest time, allocate time and waste time. And like money, we always seem to wish we had more of it.

So what happens when we take time out of the work day to slow down, read and share ideas with colleagues?

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The Art of Critical Thinking: Now More Than Ever

The Art of Critical Thinking: Now More Than Ever

In the maelstrom of New Year’s media activity, the pervasive hand wringing about the past year and angst about the future seem unavoidable. At a recent holiday gathering, a family member suggested that as an antidote, we might each try to think of a word or two – a mantra of sorts – that might guide each of us in the coming year. After playing with that idea for the past week, I keep coming back to the art of critical thinking as my mantra for 2017.

“Critical thinking” is one of those phrases that gets used often, but that seems to defy definition. Why do we struggle to both define and implement critical thinking in our daily lives?

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Shared Reading as a Foundation for Inclusive Democracy

Shared Reading as a Foundation for Inclusive Democracy

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of John Dewey’s classic book, Democracy and Education. While much has changed in the last century, much has not: his voice continues to inspire us today as we think about the role that adult learning can play in shaping democracy. Dewey’s lesser-known friend and colleague, Jane Addams, provides important practical perspectives as she combined theory and practice in work that shaped the lives of individual people in Chicago and far beyond for many decades.

Dewey and Addams believed that democracy depends on providing opportunities and resources for every person to build his/her own capacity to contribute to the work at hand in their families, in the workplace and in the larger community.

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How Literature is a Catalyst for Creative Thinking

How Literature is a Catalyst for Creative Thinking

Noted Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner died this year in June at 100 years of age, in the same year that the world commemorates the centennial of the publication of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education. These two great educational thinkers have provided bookends for the vast change – and disturbing lack of change – that marks a century of thought on how people learn and develop. In Bruner’s obituary in the New York Times, Howard Gardner said, “He was the most important contributor to educational thinking since John Dewey – and there is no one like him today.”

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On War, Dancing and Light: Why Metaphors Matter

On War, Dancing and Light: Why Metaphors Matter

Metaphors matter. They are not simply the stuff of Shakespearean drama or poetry or the SAT. We all use metaphors every day in an endless variety of ways. Metaphors are an essential element of how we think and engage with others at home, in our work and in all of our social interactions. But too often, we are unconscious of the metaphors we choose and the impact they may have on the quality of our life.

As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson observe, one powerful example is the way that many people describe argument as war and embellish that metaphor in extended metaphors.

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Learning From Our Participants: Books@Work at the Veterans Domiciliary

Learning From Our Participants: Books@Work at the Veterans Domiciliary

For most of my life I have believed in the power of literature to affect the human heart, but sometimes, a discussion of good literature provides an unexpected flash of understanding into the profound impact that stories can have. This week I had such an experience as each person in a room became a teacher and each person became a learner.

This flash occurred at the Veterans Domiciliary, a residential program that is jointly run by the Veteran’s Administration and the Volunteers of America, and that serves Veterans facing a variety of serious issues, including homelessness, trauma, addiction and other life-challenging hurdles.

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Recognizing Others and Ourselves Through Literature

Recognizing Others and Ourselves Through Literature

In everyday conversation about the state of the world, we often hear folks lament that some people want to learn while lots of people are just not interested in growing or advancing their education. Books@Work believes that this assumption is faulty and that a spark of learning exists in most people. Now that hundreds of workers have participated in Books@Work seminars, it has become increasingly clear that the spark of learning becomes a flame (or even a fire!) when individuals of all backgrounds and job categories come together to discuss important ideas through literature. And the results have helped illuminate the importance of recognition as an element not only of personal growth, but also of positive outcomes in the workplace.

Often we think that recognition comes from rewards or pats on the back, but research has shown us that real recognition comes when people engage in experiences that promote self-confidence and self-respect as well as mutual respect for others.

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From Terabithia to Dark Materials: Karen Nestor’s 10 Children’s Books for a Desert Island

From Terabithia to Dark Materials: Karen Nestor’s 10 Children’s Books for a Desert Island

Katherine Paterson, winner of two Newbery Awards and two National Book Awards, wrote, “When I read . . . John Fowles’ Daniel Martin, I hear a symphony orchestra. When I read my own Bridge to Terabithia, I hear a flute solo unaccompanied.” These flute solos are valuable material–entertaining, inspiring, uplifting and thought provoking–in and of themselves. This week, board member Karen Nestor writes about the 10 children’s books she would bring to a desert island.

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Explosions: When Personal Experience Meets Social Interaction

Explosions: When Personal Experience Meets Social Interaction

Inspired by Ann Kowal Smith’s previous reflection on the power of experience, Books@Work Board member Karen Nestor reflects on the ways in which that experience is compounded through social interaction of the sort provided in Books@Work seminars. She writes, “In Books@Work we have seen the exponential power that is unleashed when people share their life experience with others in new ways and begin to challenge their assumptions about the world and each other.”

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Toward a Theory of True Workplace Learning

Toward a Theory of True Workplace Learning

As I have read these early blog posts from Books@Work, the notion of lifelong learning comes to mind. It’s a phrase that is used in so many different ways that it has lost any genuine shared meaning for those interested in learning outcomes for adults of all ages. This is particularly true for learning in the workplace, which sometimes uses lofty language about learning, but often is targeted at imparting skills that will contribute directly to the bottom line. Felix, in an earlier blog post, suggested that Books@Work has hit on an approach that serves the individual’s needs and desires for personal growth and learning AND the needs of the workplace for engaged and competent employees.

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