Thursday Evening Reflection

My week back on campus is quickly coming to an end.  It is hard to believe that I have only been in Mt. Pleasant since this past Sunday, and in a few days head back out to California.  And perhaps even harder to believe that I have officially started this journey towards a new way of thinking.

Speaking of a new way of thinking, today was an enlightening day.  In my group I served as the moderator for an interesting exercise - talking about the role of governance and emergency management, through the eyes of philosophers of old.  Our group shared insight through the lens of Ben Franklin, Francis Bacon, Immanual Kant, Zeno, Confucius, and Descartes.  We talked about the type of governance these individuals would endorse, what role the state should play in education, whether public education is too big to fail, and a curve ball, their reaction to the current state of education in Michigan.  What you see through this exercise is the difficulty it is to see the world around you in a restrictive lens.  They could only base their responses based on what they knew at that time.  It shows what it really means to bring the world into perspective.

A question I posed on twitter was, who are the philosophers of our time?  Feel free to answer here or on twitter.

We also spent some time reflecting on tribal leadership, power and influence, and the five (5) components of social change.  These are all based on perception, really, and how you interact and react to those perceptions.  Where one individual may see a certain type of power, another may view it completely differently.  What is important here in understanding the many types of power and influence, and the ways they impact social change.

This week has stretched some of my beliefs, and opened up my eyes to other beliefs.  I know this new journey is going to challenge the way I think and the way I see the world around me.  I am thrilled to be on this journey, to learn and grow with my cohort of scholars, and see how we are able to shape the world around us.  ​