💃 TREE 326: Learning

This week author, teacher and master learner Alison Acheson is writing about continuing to learn throughout life. She’s choosing the music too. I’m doing the illustrations and notes at the end. —Jeff

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One.

In the books I read as a child, characters would pinch themselves or poke to feel some discomfort, to prove they were alive and awake. They would do this when strange things were happening.

Pinch! Am I dreaming?

We seem to have grown out of that idea. Or at least in today’s children’s books.

Maybe I read too many Enid Blytons. Too many adventures in caves with sandwiches and ginger beer. I always wanted a parrot named Kiki, digging into my shoulder and nattering oddly timely words.

But we need some way to test: Where am I today? Am I awake? Am I living? Growing?

For me, the pinch has always been: Am I learning something?

When I was fifteen, I took ventriloquism by correspondence. Two of me were living, and one was learning. A strange meta-learning with another girl at the end of my arm. We were instructed NEVER to call the dummy Dummy. Give her a name and use the name. Always.

Next week I start a five week course on the history of God.

More often than taking courses, I read books about things I don’t know, often as research for books I’m writing.

When I was a child and someone pointed out to me that my surname is not Wonderland and that Alison is not the same as Alice in, I was pretty devastated. But I’ve continued to go down rabbit holes.

Two.

Last week I was looking at some drawings my oldest daughter did when she was four. There’s a looseness and vibrancy in them that I feel is missing from a lot of my drawings. The illustrators I admire most – people like Quentin Blake, E.H. Shepard and Jim Mahfood – never lost that kid spark when they grew up. This week, as a learning exercise, I’m trying to draw more like a four year-old.

Three.

Let’s start the week with an unplugged version of Morning Coffee by Jesper Munk

If you rushed through today’s post, please scroll up and read it again slowly. There’s a lot to take in. Once you’ve done that, check out Alison’s Unschool for Writers.

Grow slowly
Jeff