Making Progress
Theory and practice
Welcome back after the break. Today is “meta Monday” offering a short preview of what’s to come here at Pose Ponder over the next three weeks. Pose Ponder publishes daily on weekdays, 3 weeks on, 1 week off.
First up will be a dedicated focus on what could go into a curriculum Core for lifelong learning in the Anthropocene, branching off from this introductory post:
Alongside lifelong learning practice is continuing the conversation on “why,” on theory. What’s an overhaul of contemporary education up against? Let’s see if we can break out of the usual boxes.
Readers of Pose Ponder know I’m not about experts and gurus, including extreme influencers and their crowds of followers. On the other hand, I have no desire to be involved with big faceless institutions, either. Where’s the sweet spot? It should be possible to enable and to encourage unique individual people — not as isolated loners, but ideally within small collaborative families, networks, and communities — to forge their own path(s), while affirming and bolstering sufficient common ground for the sake of living together peacefully in a diverse world. Watch for some thoughts on collaboration.
Finally, working from reading I’ve been doing lately about the late 19th century Gilded Age and early 20th century Progressive Era in the US (which ostensibly challenges some of our founding democratic American principles), I’m thinking into the present. If we’re in a Second Gilded Age, it might help explain the reviving conversations about the opportunities and limitations for Progress as a civilizational ideal. Substack is fertile territory for these conversations. My notes so far are inchoate, but let’s see what falls out.
As always, thank you for reading. Comments are always appreciated or drop me a message. DMs are open.
