“The more I know….”

“The more I know, the more I know I need to know more.” This has been a personal motto for a number of years now.  In teaching and learning, I’m comfortable with the idea that I won’t know everything there is to know about even one subject at any point in this life.  That said, the pursuit of knowledge, particularly if it helps me better support those in my life, my classroom, my team is worthy of attention, energy, and time.  I’ve used a slide and saying in many of my presentations it shows a lady with a horse by the stream, the saying I invite everyone to complete is, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him/her …”  Most of us naturally finish with “drink.”  I invite folks to ponder what changes if rather than making a horse drink, we work at creating the environment where the horse is thirsty.  Presented with water, a thirsty horse will always drink. 

Our work in the classroom, grade 2, 2^nd year of university, post-graduate or just ongoing professional and personal learning is about supporting a healthy thirst to know more, improve upon what we do to reach and help those with whom we work.  On a personal level, everything we do to learn a little more should help us in our interactions.  There’s no reason for any of us to hold back on the good stuff, the fine china reserved for special guests.  If we have something that can help; a book, a resource, a video, a Learn N Go, a presentation, we look for every way we can share that work.  If there’s something we think can help, we’re going to do all we can to share it.  If there’s something we’ve seen or heard from you that is awesome, and we see lots of that around the region and the province, we’re going to do all we can to share that as well.  IF there is something about which you are THIRSTY to know more, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail us and we’ll find a way to help you drink.  Ok, that’s the extended metaphor for this week.  To borrow a line from a commercial series on TV – stay thirsty my friends, to which I’ll add stay safe, stay awesome.