The essential experience of creative learning is the feeling of emergence.
For more than 100 years our core model of learning focused on the transfer of a defined body of knowledge. Our focus has been on developing ways to increase the efficiency of this transfer. For this reason, our educational systems have felt very industrial – because it has been.
In order to open the door to creative learning, we must guide others into an uncomfortable feeling of the unknown, what we call the Emergent Whitespace, in a courageous journey inspired by their curiosity.
In DiGs, there are no predefined answers or definitions of success. But what the learning journey provides is a challenge to go deeper and explore further to find purpose and meaning for the learner.
In this way, the DiG is a Hero's Journey, the classic monomyth described by Joseph Campbell.
In this journey, one follows their curiosity into a forest, where there is surprise – that rabbit with a pocket watch – that leads to a rabbit hole where one digs deeper and deeper, looking to find a space of wonderment, a wonderland. Many journeys down different rabbit holes are often needed until something is discovered that is personally important to the learner.
This meaning emerges in Eureka Moments that often happen when they are least expected.
This feeling of emergence is special, very special. They feel joyful, empowering, and inspiring. Through these special moments, wonder is reawakened, the wonder of a creative mind – a genie, our Creative Genius – that once released from its bottle can't be put back inside.
Can curriculum be covered and standards be met with this wonder? Absolutely. But when learners learn because they want to, not because they have to, the learning is far deeper and will go far further than we ever thought imaginable, guided by Believing Eyes.
Next: Peeling the Onion
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