Ainsi, toujours poussés
vers de nouveaux rivages,
Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,
Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l'océan des âges
Jeter l'ancre un seul jour ?
And so, driven on ceaselessly
toward
new shores, carried beyond return into eternal
darkness, shall we never cast anchor for a
single day in the ocean of time?
Alphonse de Lamartine:
Le Lac (1820).
English translation:
http://french.chass.utoronto.ca/fcs195/lamartine-text.htm
The idea
The Learning Development Institute
has, over the ten years of its existence, organized transdisciplinary
dialogic events that usually involved groups of participants
of several tens to more than a hundred people. The debates on
the Meaning of Learning (MOL), those around the Book
of Problems (BOP) or concerning the Building of the Scientific
Mind (BtSM) are examples of such events.
On an on-and-off basis, we have
also opened our house to receive guests from the LDI community
or sympathetic to LDI's mission and had very interesting conversations
with them. Based on that valuable experience, we have now decided
to become more proactive in this area and, still on an ad hoc
basis, wish to host, whenever the opportunity arises, conversations
about things that matter at one of the places where we regularly
live in southern France and The Netherlands, or even where we
may be traveling. We call these events Lakeside Conversations
or, in French, Conversations au bord du lac, not only
because of the setting of where we spend part of our time in
the Low Countries (see the photo), but also inspired by Alphonse
de Lamartine's above cited poetic words.
We are glad, also, that these
localized meetings have a much smaller ecological footprint than
the larger ones we will continue to organize from time to time.
How it works
Typically, these events take
place around dishes and glasses whose delicious, refreshing and
uplifting contents we share as much as the thoughts, ideas and
experiences we bring to the table.
While, by nature of these events,
participation is by invitation, you are welcome to indicate your
interest in participating by writing
to us. If you are part of the LDI community, i.e., if you
have ever seriously collaborated with us on implementing LDI's mission, don't hesitate to be
in touch if you happen to be in or to be traveling to The Netherlands
or France. We shall be happy to host you, as many of you have
experienced in the past, and invite, whenever possible, like
minded spirits to cast their anchor at the same place, so that
we can all share thoughts, food and drinks.
In the spirit of social networking,
those invited are welcome to suggests others whom they feel should
join the party.
The issues of discussion
We feel that there is no shortage
of issues that serve as food for thought. Some of them may be
related to LDI's current work in the areas of Building the
Scientific Mind (BtSM) and Learning for Sustainable Futures
(LfSF). However, we are naturally also open to any suggestions.
Over time, we assume some workable
process will emerge to ensure that matters of discussion reflect
the interests of the community of those who participate in these
conversations, while at the same time serving to propel LDI's
work forward. They may well turn out to fall in line with Christopher
Phillips's ideas of the .
Preceding experience
Without yet having invented
the name, several discussions that would have deserved to be
called 'lakeside conversations' took place over the years, most
of them in Eyragues, France. They involved visitors from Australia,
North America, and Europe. We are hopeful that this choice of
continents will become less biased. They focused on issues such
as learning in a transdisciplinary perspective; building the
scientific mind through in-depth exploration of the conceptual
nature and structure of the sciences; electronic gaming for value
clarification and attitudinal change; and the building of sustainable
futures.
Past events
On September 2, 2009, we met
in Lienden, The Netherlands, to discuss the conceptualization
of Life Sciences books for the series Basic
Books in Science. Participating scientists were Roy McWeeny
(via a teleconferencing link from Pisa, Italy), Maria Christophorou,
Maurijn van der Zee, and Jan Visser. The outcome of this conversation
is shared among the participants and two other scientists, Toni
Gabaldon and Jordi Villà i Freixa, who are part of the
authoring team of the life sciences books for the series in question.
On September 13, 2009, we exchanged
thoughts about collective intelligence and the collaborative
building of the scientific mind among Carolina Ödman, who
had proposed the theme; Chide Groenouwe; Lya Visser; Ronald Siebes,
and Jan Visser. Information on the outcome of this conversation
and possible next steps can be found by following the link to
the report about
this conversation.
On September 17, 2009, and still
in Lienden, we engaged on a dialogic event dedicated to issues
in the realm of Learning for Sustainable Futures involving Lya
Visser, Chide Groenouwe, Jaap Swart, Marten de Vries, Ekko van
Ierland, and Jan Visser. Francio Guadeloupe and George Miley,
who had wanted to attend, had to cancel their participation at
the last moment due to unforeseen circumstances. A report is
not (yet) available on this discussion. Following the link, however,
one has access to the Prompt
to Discussion that sparked off the conversation.
