I don’t think education is about centralized instruction anymore; rather, it is the process of establishing oneself as a node in a broad network of distributed creativity. Neoteny, one of my favorite words, means the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood: idealism, experimentation and wonder. In this new world, not only must we behave more like children, we also must teach the next generation to retain those attributes that will allow them to be world-changing, innovative adults who will help us reinvent the future.
Joichi Ito – Innovating by the Seat of Our Pants – NYTimes.com
I keep thinking about Ito’s statements since he took the helm of MIT’s media lab. It’s a wonderfully optimistic bit of writing here.
(via notational)