Pappert identifies three qualities of a “powerful” or “fully empowered” idea:
- The idea is experienced as powerful in its use. I can use the idea to solve a real problem I’m having with a personal project.
- The idea is connected with other situations in the world. The idea is powerful in its connections.
- The idea has roots in my intuitive understanding of the world and resonates with my personal identity.
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I would add a fourth:
4- The idea connects me to the people around me. Powerful ideas have the power to bind us together in our humanity, to appreciate differences and similarities in our human experience.
Question: Could we replace the word idea with a more generic term like knowing or understanding? I feel like when we really learn something, we incorporate it on all levels of our being and the word “idea” sort of keeps us stuck in our heads and threatens to ignore the rest of the body. I also believe that when something is known deeply, intuitively, we’re more likely to recognize reincarnations of that understanding in the world around us.
Here is a whole list of powerful ideas (models) I would like to explore. And know.
But for this week’s assignment, I will define a powerful idea as something that transforms us. So that means it can be a very simple idea that has the power to transform how we see the world.
One of my favorite words/ideas/models surrounds the act of translation as a complex and somewhat troubling creative act. Troubling, because we invent on top of a network of meanings (source language) that lives next to ours (target language) but can never be fully integrated into our network of meanings for cultural reasons. And so translation reflects (in my mind) an act of extreme faith in a reader’s ability to know beyond the written word, or to suss out the spirit of words. It’s really just a miracle. Words are miraculous. But translation maybe doubly so, because we re-create, we re-make, we re-mix what is in front of us into something TOTALLY DIFFERENT, a final product to which both writer and reader agree to ascribe “equivalent” meaning. This leads very quickly to the idea that our translation faculties are intimately tied to our language-making faculties. Infinite variety; similar source.
I apply this powerful idea to the human experience. I see in the people around me infinite variety; similar source. I see it in creative expression: infinite variety, similar source. It’s like we’re all trying to sing the same song, but we sing so differently. And it’s wonderful. So this idea of translation has led me to a love for diversity (another powerful idea) and also greater empathy for people.
Now, the same paragraph “translated” to learning (it kind of works):
One of my favorite words/ideas/models surrounds the act of learning as a very complex and somewhat troubling creative act. Troubling, because we invent on top of a network of meanings (outside understandings) that lives next to ours (inner understandings) but can never be fully integrated into our network of meanings for cultural reasons. And so learning reflects (in my mind) an act of extreme faith in a learner’s ability to know beyond the teacher’s words, or to suss out the spirit behind the teacher’s instruction. It’s really just a miracle. Good instruction is miraculous. But learning maybe doubly so, because we re-create, we re-make, we re-mix what is in front of us into something TOTALLY DIFFERENT, a final product to which teacher and learner agree to ascribe “equivalent” meaning. This leads very quickly to the idea that our learning faculties are intimately tied to our speech faculties. Infinite variety; similar source.
All learning as a form of translation? All translation as a form of learning? Translation as learning? Learning as trans-creation?
My little bit ‘o turtle art:
Poplar Lane Arts 