Week 3 - Response to Mike Skocko

Mike,
I too pulled the same exact inspirational passage for my blog post from the reading. I think what you have accomplished in the Mac Lab is and will continue to be great. I know you have a lot invested in your students and the resources you create for them. I appreciate your candidness about the posts this month as I too wish I could be focusing more on the mentoring taking place where I work. I think it is a matter of them (FS) trying to find an outlet for us to discuss the reading. I think I much rather have preferred a discussion post in which we all went back and forth on one page relaying our thoughts. There's always room for improvement right. I hope all goes well for you at Adobe's HQ. Good luck!!!

Wk 3 Reading: The Best Laid Plans

Posted on July 21, 2011 by skocko

Without thinking, I leapt to the stage and said to the young Cuban players through an interpreter, “Your job is to teach those rhythms to your stand partner.” And to the American players I said, “Just give yourselves over to the leaders sitting next to you.”
— from The Art of Possibility (p. 75)

It would be so easy for me to use that passage as an opening to speak to the power of peer mentoring, link toMac Lab Mentors, and embed a video to hammer the point home:

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And to be completely honest, that was my plan. I’ve finished the book and just want to get these posts out of the way. Yes, I enjoy writing and yes, I believe in the power of blogging and sharing ideas, and commenting on one another’s posts, But dang it! a part of me complains, This in Month 11 of our Masters program. Why are we blogging again? After all, we already did this in Month 4. And besides, as I’ve already said, blogging has been in my blood for a while now.

(Probably a good time to swallow a little Rule Number 6.)

Anyway, when I write, it takes forever. My Week 2 posts were extremely time-consuming. The more I care about a subject, the more deeply I’m invested, the longer it takes to write about it. Or at least that’s how it seems to happen. And I’m leaving for San Jose on Monday for a week at Adobe’s HQ and need to finish the Week 3 and 4 postsnow. Best to stick with my plan and crank posts out like widgets on an assembly line.

So, with notes from the book in hand, I picked the no brainer topic: peer mentoring. I found the passage and began copying the key lines to introduce the topic and WHAM! The first time through I didn’t catch the implication of Ben’s first two words…

Without thinking…

And I was transported back to a recollection of that oh-so-fateful day…

Someday I’ll have to animate the process of creating content for the blog. It begins with at least a half-dozen false starts. Sentence after sentence falls onto the page, short-lived attempts to shape (or discover) the story I hope will capture your imagination and set the tone for the day. There’s almost always a chicken or egg scenario with the picture that accompanies the story. Today was different. I knew I’d be using Zack T’s Cinema 4D/Photoshop, perspective-defying WIP. Well, unless I switched at the last minute and used Alex S’s Bugatti. But Gravity (Kyle H) got the nod a few minutes ago.

That’s not only how the blog is written, it’s how the Mac Lab functions. Like it says in the excerpt from DYC right here, improvisation’s planned. I knew how this second semester was going to unfold when I stood before the class the day we returned to school back in January. I remember, quite distinctly, how I took a breath and began to speak, but the words weren’t anything I’d planned on saying. Sudden inspiration altered our direction that day. The blog was born the following week. We’ve had one constant though, from that first post right up to yesterday’s. We experiment. Every creative act involves a measure of uncertainty. We don’t move from A to B in a straight line. We learn though process. We ponder, reflect, imagine, adapt, improve, refine, present, and begin again. We actively seek out inspiration, always reaching higher.
— from Resourcefully Yours

I wouldn’t trade my meandering path of discovery for seven magical posts to complete this semi-onerous task, but am I wise in trusting impulse, intuition, or whatever is driving me away from my pre-planned escape route?

Acting without thinking seemed to have served Ben, the musicians, and his fellow conductor well in the excerpt from the reading. And I certainly can’t complain about the results of my rash behavior in January of 2009. But how does one learn to trust and act, to give oneself over to spontaneous improvisation?

Innocence, sometimes leaps to correct conclusions
when knowledge makes one resist with all one’s might.
— David Brin & Gregory Benford / Heart of the Comet

Pay attention to the whispers of your soul.
Trust them as you would a map, because that’s what they are.
— Andrew Heller

And because Dream Yet Complete has connected so clearly with The Art of Possibility:

Long ago, far and away, or always somewhere near
Conductor’s instrumental, sends notes to inner ear
Harmonic reconvergence, improvisation’s planned
To amend the broken page, pour melodies from band
Watering the wildest flowers, a second-handed chance
To trade in white-washed paddock walls, for suit and horse and lance

Credits: Illustration by Mac Lab student Claire Russell.