Posts made by Joyce McKnight

I truly enjoyed the ideas expressed here...the concept of emerging learning and especially the visual footprint were especially useful.  Because of a family emergency, I was not able to truly tie up loose ends as I would have like to have done, but I enjoyed the sharing.   I love these ScopE seminars.   All the best to all.   Joyce McKnight, SUNY Empire State College.

Hi Scott:  I am sorry for your unhappy experience with the medical system.  I had a similar one in 2011 that nearly killed me and from which I am still recovering...mine had to do with the unfortunate tendency that modern medicine (at least modern Western medicine) seems to have developed to "play the numbers"...one "can't" have something because it is rare, therefore one can't be tested for it because it is "rare", and, of course, it is "rare" because it never shows up in tests!!!    My particular example is hereditary hemochromatosis...the tendency of my body to collect too much iron over the decades and the most common life threatening hereditary disorder found in people of nothern European decent.  I nearly died before a wise physician's assistant thought to check my iron levels which were 20+ times the normal level.  I tell this story to emphasize that all medical practicitioners need to observe and think, not just play the numbers...and because I feel folks need to know about hemochromatosis which manifests itself with arthritis of the hands and feet, feels a lot like fibromyalgia, kills vital organs like your pancreas, liver, and eventually your heart and is kept in check by old fashioned phlebotomies...other than the arthritis it shows up most commonly as middle age onset diabetes which by the numbers (again) is most usually called Type II diabetes and blamed on lifestyle especially being overweight.  In fact, in the US endocrinologists aren't even allowed to  order the relatively inexpensive blood test to rule out hemochromatosis because the numbers "show" it is so rare.   At any rate, Scott you are so right!  And folks with northern European ancestry...if you have some or all of the symptoms please don't be afraid to bring the possibility up to your health care providers..

Barbara:  I very much agree with you.   I think that most professions (and most disciplines for that matter) begin with a common core of knowledge, skills, values, techniques, and often vocabulary that are crucial in enabling practitioners to work together and helps increase the sum of human knowledge.  Plain, old-fashioned rote learning is often the best way to begin, then the scaffolding experience that you so eloquently described takes shape as one listens, learns, and practices under experts' careful attention...then you become a practitioner yourself, a level where many people remain for their entire lives, doing useful but not especially creative work, but the person who becomes a master healer keeps reflecting, learning, trying new things, observing, bringing in ideas that may seem to come from "left field" ...but is always aware of the ongoing dictum..."first of all do no harm"...and occasionally circles back to basic principles to make sure s/he is on track.

I also liked your thoughts on the ways emerging learning is really about learning who you are (and who you are not) as a practitioner and how structured reflection as is often required in medicine and other helping professions can be useful in this process.

By the way, we seem to have shared a somewhat similar journey...although I started out as a mental health professional not as a medical person.

 

Kathleen: From becoming acquainted with you in other venues, I would say you play the game well indeed and still manage to learn a lot and connect many diverse ideas well so it is possible to play the game, get the "ticks" and still win...too bad all the "ticks" often discourage folks.    I too have gone for some big "ticks" next to my name, but mostly while I was learning the really important things in life elsewhere and sometimes actually getting to apply that "real" learning to the "tick collection"...the real trick is to somehow find ways to get both "ticks" and satisfying learning...those who do have a right to feel smug about it!  :-)

Just a thought about emergence in nature...when a caterpiller "emerges" as a butterfly there is an intentional struggle...it is not simply "etherial and suggestive"...when a chick emerges from an egg, it pecks like mad because the time is right, when a baby is born there is pain and pushing...I am not sure that all emerging learning involves at least some kind of intentionality but I think at least some of it does.  On the other hand, I always have liked time lapse photography where a shoot pushes up from the earth, a flower opens in a smooth flow etc.  I think that happens too.  I also believe emerging learning happens to me when pieces that don't seem to make sense or have always seemed to fit in a single pattern are somehow transformed in new ways...and everything seems different somehow.