How we learn: what this project is for

The motivation for these blogs is to "enhance learning." We, that is Matt and I, the teachers, hope that by adapting the old practice of a commonplace book to the new technology of the blog we, that is all of us in the class, will learn. We hope that the habit of gathering up pieces of our reading and our lives and reflecting upon them will encourage us to think deeply, to make connections, to gain insight.

I also hope that the discipline of the commonplace blog will help each of us be patient with process of learning. Belden Lane, in a part of his book we are not reading, observes something like this: There are things we can not learn unless we are confused or frightened. Fear I'm not fond of and I try to keep it out of the classroom, but confusion is often an important phase of the journey.

These entries will, I hope, provide markers along the way: compass readings or landmarks. And they will allow us to return, reconsider, make new meaning where there was once confusion. Another image: Per Hansa and his family heading for Dakota, a bit lost, but adapting the trick of steering by a rope from the ocean to the prairie during the day and taking readings from the stars at night. (Photo is of St. Olaf's own restored prairie. See more at http://www.stolaf.edu/academics/naturallands/media/prairie/prairie3.jpg)

Having conversations with way is merely a variation of a principle of the American Conversations program at St. Olaf. Through the four semesters we study defining conversations about a that have taken place in our collective past, we converse with authors, artists, and other Americans, and we converse with each other.