the act of travelling as a metaphor
“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
The act of traveling is a natural metaphor for teaching and learning—it seems almost instinctive. I think of both travel and teaching as venturing into the unknown, and with that come both trepidation and excitement. At any time I've embarked on a new path of discovery, whether it be through teaching or learning, there is always an element of movement in a specific direction, with a destination in mind. I've discovered that movement, often through unknown territory, brings clarity and a new sense of understanding about the world—nothing is found by sitting still.
The destination that we embark on may be unclear and we may not be sure of what to expect, or what we will discover, but through exploration, we head off in the pursuit new knowledge and new understanding. Online education lends itself well to the idea of exploration; of opening up to new areas of teaching and learning, and with that come the sense of venturing into the unknown. The unknown is the future of education and what it looks like for our students.
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When we travel we wade into unfamiliar cultures, communities and people, the mysterious becomes known—we open our eyes to new ideas and ways of being. In teaching and learning, we know that learning is a social process, one that occurs through interactions within communities. We learn through interactions with our students. Our students work with their peers and other social networks to collaboratively create knowledge and new understandings about the world. Much like traveling, we must approach unfamiliar cultures and people like we have something to learn and something to offer.
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All images on this site were taken on my travels to various destinations around Europe.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.