Dealing with Uncertainty
Keely Adler and
Dealing with Uncertainty
Keely Adler and
It’s no wonder that Montessori is flourishing, along with other highly ideological school formats like Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, forest schooling, worldschooling, and many, many others.
These schools focus the chaos of parenting into something manageable, tightening the vice of parenting and family with heavy norms. They know their job is not to
... See moreIn contrast, the improvisational spirit lives inside that gap, and it can be surprisingly full of ingenuity and joy even when the situation is dire. As something we share with our nonhuman brethren, the capacity to form new responses is how you know you’re alive, today, here. So when my mum says, “whatever happens, happens,” what I hear is not
... See moreSendak understood that stories can be scary. He believed that we should all—kids and adults alike—experience stories that deliver encounters with all the emotions available to us; that scary stories are how we become prepared for any eventuality. Indeed, this is the very reason we need stories. We don’t do well with uncertainty, and so we seek out
... See moreBut you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumstances are as anticipated means that there isn’t much slack in the system to respond when the unanticipated happens. Optimization is intrinsically brittle , because it’s about closely matching the
... See moreDifferent as it sounds, this kind of triumphalism had something in common with paralysed heartbreak. One rested in arrogant assurance, while the other rested in despair. Both saw the future as something offstage, rather than as the thing we were always creating in every moment, whether we acknowledged it or not. And both forgot that essential truth
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