I have learned a lot about connection recently. Previous to the last couple of months, I was afraid of it. In a way, I’d imagine we all were. As a shared humanity, it seems as though in the last year we’ve never been farther apart. Amidst wars and division in many facets of life, we […]
As we were preparing for and designing a reading group experience, a new principle emerged: resilience. I had said to Valerie: “If this design does not work for those who come to the Zoom session, we can just drop it. Forget about it.” Val replied, “How about, we adjust the design, Jane?” I remembered the encouraging words […]
Last week my friend Paula Berardinelli came to my home to drive me to a doctor’s appointment. I asked if we could put my walker in her car. She agreed and reached down to fold the walker into a tight package. I was amazed! “I had no idea how to do that!” Paula laughed and […]
by Jane Vella with Valerie Uccellani On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old by Parker Palmer, 2019 From Jane: I found this a delightful, informative, funny, inspiring and honest book. Parker is a contemporary of mine (I’m his older sister!) so I discovered that his themes, his laughter, his stories and mine […]
How fortunate I am to have such a forum as this GLP blog to share my new learning! In School of the 80s: Learning from Leisure, Experience and Vulnerability, I said I was learning apace as I turn 88! I realized that there were four factors at play in this learning: I have leisure, I […]
I have the honor of working with Matthew Norman from Barcelona, Spain – a colleague and Certified Dialogue Education Practitioner (CDEP). He is teaching pastors in his church community how to use Dialogue Education in designing and delivering sermons. This is important work! Part of the content for the course is about the system we […]
After completing the Foundations of Dialogue Educationourse in Vermont with Michael Culliton, Peter Perkins and Kate LaRose, Rev. Christine MacDowall kindly flew down to Raleigh to spend a week with me. Imagine! Christine had flown from Melbourne, Australia to Vermont to take the course, after having read a few of my books and realizing how […]
I’ve been in school, one way or the other, on both sides of the desk for the past eighty years. I have never been in a school where my learning was so delightful, my appetite for it so voracious, my joy in it so deep – as this “School of the 80s.” As I tried […]
Not in that order: but do you see the connection? I was stunned, reading William Isaacs’ 1999 book Dialogue: And the Art of Thinking Together to discover the correlation between our well-tested axiom “learning is always cognitive, affective and psychomotor” and the classic theme of the true, the good and the beautiful. I had never […]
(Tuesdays with Jane is a virtual learning series for those wishing to read or re-read Jane's books and immediately apply their new learning to their workplace. In preparation for this task, read Chapter 16 of Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach.) Reviewing the Twelve Principles and Quantum Thinking This is a great chapter, offering a multitude […]