The following summary is intended to capture the essence of our various conversations we have had with our fellow practitioners in the field. Web 2.0 Technology is our focus, and so we must look to see how we are all engaging our classrooms here and far through technology and practice. Read on to see what ties us all together: Rena’s conversation in Thailand, Rachel’s guest’s focus in community college, Torri’s trek into the wild, and my discourse with Justin on best practices.
Web 2.0 Tech & Teaching
What did you do with your Tuesday night? As you can see from this shot above, I did the post-production on the below short episode. My coworker and I produce a monthly video podcast titled What Would Will and Justin Do? that we use as a venue to maintain conversation with and present training to our faculty at Lancaster Bible College. Catch up with our conversation below!
Justin Harbin is my coworker at Lancaster Bible College. As noted in the video, he is both an Instructional Designer and an Assistant Professor at our college. Aside from that, he helps facilitate faculty training, he’s currently in his doctoral work, and he taught K-12 for a number of years. He really is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to educational practices and technology integration.
The professional accolades aside, he is a personal friend whom I have come to know over nearly three years of work together. His methods and attitude are always service oriented and he works tirelessly to improve anything he touches, especially through best use of our LMS or other third party tools.
Honestly, the interview went quite well. I am always pleased by the products that Justin and I put together and this case was no exception. We aim to present authentic conversations in our media production in our office; we’re not looking to eliminate “ums” and reduce guffaws. We know that we’re human and our videos need to represent that so that our viewers can relate to us. Of course, cuts and trims are helpful to move the pace along and to provide visual interest, but I am satisfied with this product.
What makes Justin’s insights enriching is that he looks to take inhuman, detached products and systems and make them relatable for our learners. Whether it’s Twitter, Schoology, PollEverywhere, or just video lectures, Justin aims to be relational, to reduce unnecessary time commitments, to close the physical distance between learner and educator, and to prioritize teaching and learning over technifying the classroom.
Catch up with Justin on Twitter @JustinHarbin and on LinkedIn.
Cheers!
WVHI
Pokémon! WOAH
Pokémon has changed my life three times.
Why do I say that? Well, my child-like imagination, adult social life, and professional endeavors have all been impacted because of one story. I cannot recall when I first heard about Pokémon, got my first trading card, or played my first game – I was too young. However, I do recall the hours upon hours of time that I have committed in my life to this cultural phenomenon. Come with me on a journey as we look to see how Pokémon has educated me through and through.
Glarming
Definition:
The gerund form of “glarn” from the infinitive “to glarn.” To glarn is to learn by gaming. Characterized by abnormal digital environments, problem-based learning, and imaginative preponderances of atraditionalism.
Example: Did you see that new summer camp where kids glarn? Yeah, you can’t stop them from learning.
See, gaming. See, learning. See, the 21st century.
All jovial expressions aside, my point and my lead should be evident. Learning is an age-old experience; to whatever extent you believe mankind goes back in history, so too does the effort to learn. Play is likely just as old if not older. Let’s take a look at two philosophies that are inherent to gaming that prove its relevance in education today.
No other era has experienced play in the same way as the late 20th century into the 21st century. From 8-bit visual depictions of aliens and spaceships to the stunning landscape that is Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, games have been bringing to life the most extravagant dreams of our imagination for forty or more years. While not everyone is a “gamer”, even many parents who just “don’t get it” cannot themselves resist the temptation to pull out Candy Crush or Words with Friends for a little mental floss. And who’s to blame them? I can honestly say I’ve likely spent days in front of the tube myself.
So, what? Listen to James Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University: “After I played a number of hours [of video games] poorly, I really was fascinated by this cultural phenomena [sic] that, people are paying for a long and hard and difficult thing that has to be successful in teaching them to play it because it will go broke if it doesn’t.” What a stunning indictment. Gee is identifying that video games fail if they do not teach. That they lose money when the student is not successfully taught the subject area of the virtual world. No wonder the industry is failing and is billions of dollars in the hole.
I expect it will be the next industry to be bailed out for the fact that there has been such a large investment of time and people into it that it mustn’t fail. Seriously, with the Global Games Market Report of 2016 showing a meager 23.5 billion earned in the US alone, we’re in for a real shocker: games aren’t going anywhere.
Satire and poor writing gags aside, the Global Games Market Report also states that mobile gaming made up nearly 37% of the global market in 2016. How can we ignore such a juggernaut? Clearly, these teachers (game designers) are doing something right with their learners (video gamers).
What we have to ask, as educators, is how can we appropriate this practice to ensure that its greatest skills are assumed into our field and its greatest weaknesses left behind? Before that even, how do we decide what is a strength or a weakness of an industry that is not our own? I believe, as the proof is in the pudding, that gaming has clearly identified an addictingly persuasive way to teach learners. It is not behaviorism, it is not cognitivism, and it is not even constructivism. I think it is a natural blend of all of the above that represents each epistemology’s best components.
When I log into a game I’m familiar with, I do not need the built-in map. I’ve memorized the layout.
When I get into a fighting game and use my favorite character, I don’t need a moves list. I know the sixteen-button move combo that will one-hit K.O.
When a dozen or more enemies burst out of the door beside me, I do not need time to think about my strategy. I call out to my comrades online for help, back up from the enemies, and keep shooting.
Each of these examples is an experience I have had that shows mastery of a skill that some game taught me. Imagine this learning objective: “The student will differentiate between the typical, unclimbable rock surface and the orange-textured rock surface that the game engine will allow them to climb.” Trust me, I’ve mastered that. If it looks different, it is different, and there’s a reason. To that effect, I believe that gaming is epistemologically sound and instructionally designed.
While Gee himself is a good example of a non-gamer identifying the fundamental learning principles in gaming, my wife is an even better case study. I have had the privilege of watching her experience gaming as learning. In one sense, watching my wife play video games has become a socio-metacognitive experiment for me. While she plays, I am critically analyzing her strategies, her skills, her efforts, and wondering to myself “how would I do it?” In many cases, it’s helped me identify what skills I have assumed as natural to me (like the ability to remain calm, survive, get headshots, and communicate with teammates in the midst of a screaming horde of non-humanoid combatants who are simultaneously clawing for my digital flesh and screaming to rend my digital soul- imagine that). I do not have to think about reacting to a game environment anymore, but as I work to coach her through it I have to suggest things to her that seem obvious to me. “Look for the orange-textured wall. See if you can climb it.” And, even better, as she begins to identify the patterns in one game, she is learning to employ them in other games. Eureka, it can be done! Learning can transfer; skills honed over hours of repetition can stick; memory can be used! All of these hard-fought ideals of teaching are present in my life because of a simple recreational hobby.
This to me is the benefit of glarming.
WVHI
Class Prompts
- What are the ways in which the learner role is being conceptualized within the context of connected learning? Is it different from how it has been conceptualized in the past, and why?
- Connected learning is characterized through two different experiences. In one way, connected learning is the idea that the learner does not stop being a part of their learning experience: they are members of their learning community and so they are always accountable to that community’s deadlines, updates, and rearrangements. In another way, connected learning is the idea that the learner can integrate into the learning community when and where they want to. These two ideas clash in essence, but practically we see that they truly support one another. When a learner knows that they are a part of a community, they hold themselves accountable to that community. Yet, the learner still retains the autonomy to decide not to participate when they need to. Connected learning is the representation of proper agency in the learner. I believe that this is different from the past experience because agency in most learning ecologies is shared by the teacher and learner. While I am not supposing that connected learning removes the teacher’s role, I think it properly raises the significance of agency in the learner. In a traditional sense, though, the teacher is just as responsible as the learner for ensuring that the practice field is created and sustained for the learners.
- Especially, how do you see the role of teacher as learner and what challenges and opportunities are possible?
- What my above statements affirm is that the teacher role is changing as much as the learner role. And so, the teacher must naturally adapt to meet this metamorphosis head on. What that means is that teachers have to humbly admit that while they are trained in their subject area, they are not the end-all resource for the topic. Therefore, they can commit to participating in the community of practice that they are establishing in their classroom and not suppose that they are in some way a demi-god of learning that is above the mere plebeians that they are teaching. This process reflects the importance of the teacher continuing their education, participating in socio-metacognition as a teaching tool instead of relying on didactic methods. In this way, they are essentially considering themselves the lead learner in the classroom. “Come, follow me as I learn this subject which I will teach you.” In many ways, this might reflect the Christian discipline of discipling acolytes.
- What do you see as challenges to implementing this view of the learner in formal and informal contexts?
- In many ways, I see this as the staple of learners in informal contexts. It is rare that I see a conference attendee, a book club member, or even a churchgoer without their phone being a co-participant in their learning experience. Apparently, we have readily accepted connectedness into our daily living experience. The perceived danger in allowing the same connectedness in formal education ecologies is that the learners may not follow the standard learning path or they may be unruly according to educational norms. However, if we are willing to rethink standards and reestablish social norms, I think we can rise above the way things were to accomplish the greatest learning yet.
References:
James Gee. “Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNfPdaKYOPI.
Newzoo. “Global Games Market Report for 2016.” https://newzoo.com/resources/.
Conversations Between Two Ferns
What do you do with the title of your blog post when you wanted to keep a theme behind the names of the posts, but you suddenly have too many author names to fit in one title? You get cheeky. Yes, my friends, I’m a cheeky one. Former President Obama and Mr. Galifinakinakinakanis aside, today we’re going on an adventure that follows two paths to their point of convergence: digital learning.
Before we get into the thick of it, listen to this clip from one of our authors, Douglas Thomas, as he sets the stage for our question of the day:
My colleague, Torri Withrow, and I were just discussing this component of education: each of us wondering why in the Martial Arts and why in Outdoor Recreation do we happily, even naturally, experience education without a gripe? Yet, you stick twenty kids behind desks, with four walls, a teacher, a PowerPoint and you’re likely to experience mutiny faster than Captain Jack Sparrow. Altogether, there is a vast question here: what is the best way to educate? I don’t know. However, I think the authors of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, John Seely Brown & Douglas Thomas, and the author of “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age”, George Siemens, can guide us to the next best question: what can we do right now to educate learners better?
Siemens leads our conversation off with the idea that “The capacity to form connections between sources of information, and thereby create useful information patterns, is required to learn in our knowledge economy.” His insights caution us against assuming epistemologies that were created before the Digital Age and instead invite us to engage his idea of Connectivism. As much as his quote challenges us to reconsider how we learn today, it challenges us to consider how we think today. His ideal epistemology is one in which learning takes place through choreographed chaos: learning happens as result of our connectedness to our virtual environment which is outside of our control. Before, I thought learning was the result of hardened study and collaborative production. By capitalizing on our tech-saturated world, we can learn better by bringing all of the information together like hunter-gatherers and curating it to fit our needs. What Siemens is calling for makes sense – we are a connected species, so why not take that to the next level?
My opinion is not so set, though. What about hyperconnectivity? What about digital addiction? Brown & Thomas continue the conversation and continue to fill in a few of the blanks that Siemens’ proposal has left behind.
The consolations I have as I consider my fear of allowing the Digital Age to rule my corporeal experience are the two elements that Brown & Thomas suggest as the foundation of their ideal epistemology. The “massive information network” that undergirds our daily experience is not going away: we cannot begin to say we will abolish the internet and return to older traditions. No, we will move forward with digital information, and so we must look to commandeer it, capture it even, for all that it is worth. However, their second element focuses on the agency we can have to capture the “massive information network.” It will always be up to you and me just how much we actually use technology, the internet, and virtual worlds. That, I believe, is the answer to how we can teach and learn better.
We must learn to teach agency, to build agents, to motivate the learner. Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism have all succeeded one another because they are simply tools, ends to the means. What does not change? The fact that we have learners and that those learners need to learn. The what will change, such that the target is always moving, but the who will not.
Knock your next arrow.
WVHI
Class Prompts
- In what ways do the texts envision a new framework or ecology of learning? I.e., what are the basic tenets or requirements of new learning environments?
- I think that our texts envision taking social constructivism, working together to collaborate in finding, identifying, reconciling knowlege, and evolving it into a digital constructivism. The idea behind this seems to be that technology and the internet are never off, and therefore the stream of information never quells. So, their postulation is that we should train our learners to use that stream. Since information is ubiquitous, then, we must learn how to navigate it, curate it, investigate it, create it, share it, and understand it. The fundaments of this new framework are only so new as they relate to technology and digitality; the idea of structuring learning and guiding it are age-old. We do not need to forget traditional means to assume new theories.
- What aspects of the theories and perspectives put forward by the authors most resonates with your own view of learning; and conversely, which aspects do you find more challenging in reconciling with your view?
- I believe that learners need to learn with what they have in their environment. Occasionally, they must be sent out to find a new tool or component to integrate into their environment, but this philosophy of mine is mainly informed by Krashen’s i+1 theory. In this way, I think that our authors are rightly pointing us towards using the technology that saturates our daily experience. By doing so, we are using resources that we already have and understand to transfer our skill with them to new areas of practice. This process is the ultimate representation of learning. However, my greatest challenge (and fear) with technology is that it will rule us. We are incarnate beings. We are breathing, living, moving beings who demand a certain natural way of life. To alter that in any extreme makes me cautious, and begs me ask the question “how far will we go?”
References:
Photo taken from Wikipedia page of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis.
Clip presented from Douglas Thomas’ TEDx Talk on A New Culture of Learning.
Thomas, D. and J. S. Brown. A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. 2011.
Siemens, G. “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age”. 2005.
Personal learning philosophy V1
February 18th, 2006: I tested in the martial art Taekwon-Do for my first-degree of black belt. I had been training for five years to get to that point, and upon reaching it, I thought to myself, “now what?” In good fashion, I took on the opportunity to begin teaching the martial art, thinking that that would take my learning to the next level. In those first months, and years, of teaching the art, I realized that a lot of what we did was based on tradition and not necessarily on evidence of efficacy. I often wondered to myself, is there a better way to learn?
May 9th, 2014: I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. After doing an internship in an open enrollment ESL class for two years, spending a summer in Beijing teaching English for a practicum, and generally going through the necessary rigors to learn what it is to teach English as a language, I walked across that stage and again wondered “what have I learned?”
Personally, I struggled after both of these events to understand how I learn, what I have learned, and what it is therefore to teach. My current studies are my pursuit of the answer to those questions. In a digital age, learning is changing. I believe that learning takes place through both situated practice and earnest studying. With my martial arts as a prime example, telling me how to form a first and execute a punch only ever gets so far: at some point you just have to show me and let me do it, expecting corrections to follow. The trial and error component of learning is often forgotten in the wake of standardized tests and meeting performance objectives. I know fourth-degree black belts that still cannot execute certain kicks correctly, but they at the least comprehend the reasons behind that. Compare that to students in twelfth grade who still do not understand algebra or why it is important. Learning is made perfect when it has just the right blend of the invested teacher, the collaborative classroom, the situated practices, the necessary standards to meet, and a little bit of elbow grease. Learning does not necessitate ease, though I do believe we need to adjust to using better methods that allow for more learning overall.
If I were to claim a specific epistemology, I’d say that I am a pseudo-cognitive, behavioral, social constructivist with a bent towards active learning and lecture. Tongue in cheek aside, I do recognize value in techniques that have been used over the ages. Frankly, how are we to say that the lecture fails to teach if there were learners over the centuries who must have suffered lecture after lecture and yet came out all right? Now, while we see an evolution of learning techniques and tools, I think we must also acknowledge an ontological change in learners. Our society has changed from an industrial one to a technological one. You can go from your first teenage job to your retirement only ever holding a computer-based job in this century. Never before has that been possible. Most of us started out at 13 with our lawn mower and rake or a snow shovel in the winter, walking from house to house trying to get any dollars we could. Today, young people are coding in elementary school, vlogging reviews about tech products, and building multimillion dollar products out of college projects.
Therefore, I think that we are in the midst of a shift in roles of teacher and learner. Teachers must learn to be adaptive to learners’ needs, while learners must healthily accept the skill of being information gathers and still maintain a regard for the value of information. If there’s something that teachers can continue to do for learners, it is to help guard learners from going too far. Oftentimes, I think we might try to swing the pendulum in reaction to new research or methodologies, but teachers are those who have had more years of practice behind them. Allow and encourage teachers to maintain a hedge of guidance that will keep students from forsaking history, become consumed by art, or fail to learn about STEM. Learning is a dynamic art-science, and so I am not sure if we can yet appropriately and accurately measure how someone learns. I have taught in a system that allowed me to track my learning objectives as best as I possibly could, and I still do not believe that at the end of the semester it reflected my students’ understanding of course content. So, what then must we do to quantify learning? Research is making headway in that area, and the fact that we do not live in a cognitive, educational environment anymore is a reflection of that effort. However, I think that we need to capitalize on the technologies that are available to push education into its next era.
What technology does for us while we go through this change is it keeps us locked into systems that can be evaluated, upgraded, and redirected. If we become married to a technology that eventually fails current research, then we can either abandon or redefine the technology. The benefit there is that all people using the technology must fall in line or jump ship: and I think both reactions are healthy and necessary. Growth is painful, and we must accept that as we continue to push the boundaries and find out whether learning will someday be like the Matrix.
Excelsior!
WVHI
Conversation with John Seely Brown
When you think back, 1999 was a year of significant changes in the world: Y2K, the great Hotmail debacle, and Star Wars: Episode I. There was no Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter. In 2008, President Barack Obama was elected, Facebook was just below Blogger for the most unique visits¹, and gas was over $4/gallon. And yet, John Seely Brown brought encouraging words to us across that decade about how we as educators can capitalize on the benefits of Web 2.0. Brown’s ideas guide us in the 21st century towards new ideas as he crafts insights into what was and how that will shape what will be.
The two articles in question this week are Brown’s 2008 “Minds on Fire” treatise on learning and his transcription of the 1999 talk “Learning, Working & Playing in the Digital Age.” For the sake of brief review, I found that both articles had me nodding in agreement, wondering how he could have been so prophetic in ’99, and sharing thoughts with my co-worker who shares my cubicle. Brown’s insights may as well be Orwellian in the fact that though his words were written in the past two decades, they resound with truth today. He makes the statement that we have “shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people” (Brown, 2008), and I see this idea to be true in my daily experience.
I say experience because that encompasses the breadth of my day: when I wake up and check my phone, I am looking for what has happened to my people overnight; when I get to work and boot up Outlook, I am looking to see what my people require of me; when I get home from work and jump on my Wifi, I am looking for what my people have done all day. Most importantly, in each of these situations, I’m not just looking to look: I am looking to respond and react. In fact, when I get home and check Facebook or Twitter, something that my people have done that day may directly guide the itinerary for my evening.
“Have you seen Luke Cage on Netflix?! It’s amazing!”
“Hudson introduced the National Concealed Carry bill to the floor today.”
“Check out this DIY I just did in my living room – your entertainment center will never be the same.”
Three very different statements can impact my life decisions for the next night or week! Suddenly, I’m saddled in with popcorn, reading up on Concealed Carry laws, or preparing my shopping list for Home Depot. In this way, Brown is highlighting in both of his articles that the features of Web 2.0 are creating Learning 2.0. The information that I consume directly impacts the information I produce and therefore correlates to the information I retain. Consumption and production, in healthy balance, guide every Web 2.0 user to new levels of knowledge and learning.
If we were to leave mankind alone, outside of education, with naught but Web 2.0 and time, we would still learn. While Brown takes the time to analyze and critique this process as it has changed over the years, I think we are led to a specific question: what is the role of the teacher-student relationship in a Learning 2.0 world? With tools like Terra Incognita, Second Life, and OERs, what will we do to save the teacher from extinction?
I think the answer lies somewhere in the relationship of time and distance to education. A colleague of mine, Bradley Kemp, spoke at an event at my institution about the future of digital learning. At the event, he highlighted the relationship of time and distance as the crux of educational technology.
@willingworthy a pleasure!
— Brad Kemp (@brdkmp) November 2, 2016
In Kemp’s prediction, what we will do to transform the classroom will focus on how much time it takes to learn and how much space we can reduce between the learner and their target environment. If “We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis” (Brown, 2008), then I think Kemp is onto the right idea.
To VR and beyond!
WVHI
Class Prompts
- How is learning presumed to occur within the context of Web 2.0?
- The presumption about learning in the 21st century is that it will be social. As is everything we experience in Web 2.0, interacting online necessitates social interaction. While some may prefer to be consumers and others will overproduce, all participants in Web 2.0 technology are actively engaged in the give-and-take of technology. The below Storify is an example of my personal participation in a Professional Learning Community that desires to live out Learning 2.0.
- What are the differences in the role of the learner and the facilitator as compared to ‘traditional’ learning environments? (Do you consider these roles and processes viable/valid given your philosophy of learning?)
- As noted in the heart of my blog content, I think that Learning 2.0 could negatively impact the role of the teacher. While I utilized hyperbole to emphasize my point in the blog, I do not believe that teachers will become extinct as a result of the democratization of information. However, I do believe that teachers need to rethink their tactics. Teaching for a Learning 2.0 community requires technology, software, and innovation. It requires budgets, commitment, and a lot of PD. The traditional learner may have been contented with following prescribed curricula, but the 2.0 learner is even more willing to question the status quo. We must sensitively work together, student and teacher, towards a codified Learning 2.0 structure. Right now we are simply exploring the differences between traditional learning and 2.0 Learning, but soon we will need to realize the distinction.
- What implications do these shifts have for how we think about designing learning environments?
- Ironically, I’m taking LDT527 Designing Constructivist Learning Environments right now, so I expect that my input on this matter will mature by the end of the semester. However, in the meantime, I believe that we need to eradicate tech-less teaching. While I think there are some subject areas that demand less tech than others, I do not believe that it is efficient or appropriate to have educational experiences that are not influenced by technology. Whether it’s as simple as ensuring that all districts have a learning management system or as complex as mandating the presence of 1:1 programs, we must take the steps to technify education. As a result of that process, I think that we will see a rise in distanced and digital collaboration, which is already a staple of the workforce.
References:
Brown, John Seeley. 2008. Minds on Fire:
Brown, John Seeley. 1999. Learning, Working & Playing in the Digital Age. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/
¹https://techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/top-social-media-sites-of-2008-facebook-still-rising/
Starting at the end
Hello, all of you whoever you may be,
My name is William Illingworth, and I mostly go by Will. Typically, I introduce myself as William in type font because of all of the i’s and l’s in my full name – it can start to blend together depending on the font. However, I do not mind being called Will or William just not Bill.
I work at a private religious higher ed institution that services undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in several states and in Uganda. My job titles are Digital Learning Systems Administrator and Instructional Technologist. Frankly, when I talk with someone outside of Education, I tell them that I teach teachers how to teach with tech. And, in most cases, that proves to be true. While I run our learning management system, our lecture capture system, and our course evaluation system, I spend a majority of my time working with faculty members to improve their physical and virtual classroom experiences. As an institution, we provide face-to-face, blended, and fully online educational experiences, and so I work with faculty across all of those media. Even this morning, I helped an adjunct faculty member prepare his traditional undergraduate course material in our LMS, and then went immediately to a meeting with a department chair to work on a pilot program that will track his department’s learning objectives. This samples a day in the life of Will.
For the sake of the internet, I have been using it since I was seven years old. I grew up on dial-up, waiting for Encyclopedia Britannica, and thinking that Microsoft’s Pinball game was the best thing since sliced bread (or Betty White, but I wouldn’t come to understand that joke until much later). Nonetheless, by 13 I had started working with some friends on a fandom website, experiencing Dreamweaver and .php for the first (and last) time. After the 4th grade, I participated in cyber charter schools for the remainder of my K-12 education. So, in that capacity, the internet and technology have been integral to my daily life since my youth. I use it in my work life, and I use it just as much once I get home. While I try to avoid tech fads, I’m always excited by new tech and try to see what ways I can optimize my life through the internet’s many tools.
For spare time, well, I wonder “what is that?” I’m fairly non-stop with education, professional development, and family. Ever busy and always moving, my major hobby for what spare time I do get is spent practicing my martial art Taekwon-Do. I’ve been training for 18 years, and I love every component of it.
If I could live off of Taekwon-Do, I would. However, I do not believe I could healthily run a school as a business, so I prefer to teach under my master instructor and participate in my community as a servant so that I can pour my heart into the practice without compromising my beliefs.
I just recently tested for my 4th-degree black belt in the International Taekwon-Do Federation and it was a wonderful moment in what was a very tough 2016. The photo below shows the whole gang that was involved, and it was truly a community event. Even though there were only a few of us being tested, everyone in this photo participated in the event to some extent or another.
Otherwise, a critical component of my character is my attention to the details. It is hard for me to do anything at less than the best, and so when I start a project I like to aim for the best, finished product I can. Where this blog is the only exception is that I intend to learn, throughout the course of this semester, what it is to blog in the professional world. I’ve blogged before, but I’ve never found much success with it and I haven’t kept up with it. This semester, I hope that this process will show me what the end looks like so that I can start again.
Til next time,
WVHI