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Hello. . . .

my narrative bio
my full cv
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Outtakes

An Ignorant Life

Introducing what is to come

Hello. Thanks for coming by. I'm getting old, 85 as we begin, so I've got a lot to say. And I'll say it as I think and feel it. Lifelong, I've aspired to educate myself and others, and I'm not so sure how well I've done at that. In speaking of my life as an ignorant life, I'm recognizing that that doubt, that uncertainty, pervades all human action, everything a living creature does, everything that I've tried to do. I write to explore my ignorance, so to speak.

What's the point of doing that? Not a quick question. As things go along, we'll develop a response, doing it recursively, observing many repetitions performed with variatons that correct errors and omissions, revealing unexpected possibilities in thought and action. That's how education comes about. Recognize the pervasive actuality of ignorance in all we do; attend to error and omission; openly try possible corrections, over, and over. Perhaps this is what Friedrich Nietzsche meant by eternal recurrence.

I'm unabashedly over-educated, staying in school my whole life, usually not doing what was expected I would, but charting my path through the body of learning. Early on, I came to recognize the pevasive actuality of ignorance and to feel its usages were underappreciated throughout the sphere of cultural activity in which I participated. Consequently, what I and all others may have to say may involve significant and difficult departures from what we educators commonly say. Here's where things get a little tough.

Hello. Thanks for coming by. I'm old, so my story's rather long, but you can click "Add comment" to interject in many places—just keep it to the point. Also, I'm not here, rich and famous, trying to seem like an ordinary guy. I've accomplished some things under the radar, working the intersticies. They may or may not be worth your time, but for you to judge that, I'll say a little about them.

I'll start with the title above, two little words—"wagering" and "life." As I see it, life consists in a sentience, however rudimentary, making choices with respect to what is given to it. And the wagering enters into life because life's sentience cannot fully grasp the worth and the complexity of what's given relative to life's effecting any choice.

Humans live extended lives, like many other kinds of life.

As I see it, life encompasses everything. That proposition presents serious difficulties because what I intend it to mean differs from common, nearly universal usage.

My Studiolo

I come here, attentvely, to reflect on interests and uncertainties, feeling troubled yet curious, buffered from immediate cares, responsive to unexpected remembrance, speculative while (or because?) I'm imperfectly informed, eager to follow clues that point to something promising, to something that will support me in my ignorance.

My ignorance — alive, I am uncertain; I never know what will happen next. Were the stone thoughtfully sentient, it would be certain that nothing would happen until external force jolted it into action. Alive, I come to mystudiolo owing to my ignorance. My ignorance arises, and continues, because I live, situated in time and space like the stone, but able to some degree, tangible however faint, to act, to initiate and sustain acting force within the realm of forces all about me.

Ignorance emerges, not from failings, not from excessive wants or needs, but from vital activity. My ignorance is the price of my living, embodied in vast space and restless time. In living, nothing exists; all emergesable to discern prospects fully or surely Here, it's my space where I recognize the value of things about me, seen and unseen, raising this up, lowering that, then reversing, this down and that that up, judging worth as I see fit, its possibility and its lack.

• My lingo

The Point

(as in "What's the point?")

Arendt on Natality

There's a point to all acting by living beings. That's what distinguishes the activities in their lives from the churning about of lifeless matter and energy. We can say about what happened in the dead flux of lifeless stuff that it was the consequence of various forces on various objects, but all of that just takes place without any point.

Overcoming Identities

Seeking A Place to Study

Power and Pedagogy

The Cumulative Curriculum

The Dalton Technology Plan

The Eiffel Project

Smart Cities: New York

Formative Justice

On Not Defining Education

The Educators' Manifesto

Homeless in the House of Intellect

Enough

The Reflective Commons

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My worksite, a prototype of MyStudiolo

== Robbie McClintock == Robbie (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2025 (MST)