Complexification

We are WHOLE beings, not machines. 

Not only are we a complex mixture of structural stuff (like bones and muscles and skin and hair and...), we are also made up of tiny little things like cells and mitochondria and neural networks and.... And, then there's the chemical potions that flow through us constantly, relentlessly varying their "mixtures" to ensure (sometimes destroy) our health.

But wait! We also host a bazillion critters that aren't even human. Our gut flora is a community of "foreigners" (non-human life forms) that help us digest food and perform other functions. Health researchers conclude that we have at least 400 different kinds of "bugs" that live in our mouths, helping us function as human beings.

We haven't even touched on the different kinds of ways our minds work (see Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intellengences explained). 

Finally, we also have a spiritual or socio-emotional dimension to us. That part has been relentlessly studied through the millennia; we still seem less than certain about how that spiritual element works.

We are walking, talking complexities of "stuff," while also serving as the apartment complex for who knows how many other species. 

We are at once Nouns and Verbs.

As a lifelong learner and educator, I often wonder why we try to define (and measure) children by such narrow metrics as their prowess in math and English and science. Seems far too reductionist for such complex beings.

Dr. Dylan Wiliam is fond of saying that "a lifetime is not long enough to learn the craft of teaching." Nor is it long enough to learn the craft of LEARNING.

But today................we can start anew.