Walking and Learning
This post came about as a pair of comments that I made on “Being in the Middle: Learning Walks” by Mary Ann Reilly. For a great read and for context, start there. Don’t miss the comments. Note, also, that I’ve made a few corrections, but no significant changes here, where I am posting for my own future reference.
This is a wonderful post that beautifully articulates the need to let go, to stop trying to control everything our students do, and, for that matter, everything about our own lives and experiences. And, while in some ways it would seem to be the opposite of flow, I think these learning walks that you describe are the physical equivalent of being in flow on the web.
Your post has my head spinning, as it often does with topics that I am passionate about. In this case you cover something that I’ve worked on with students, but not exactly in the same way. (See the idea and one result.) So, please excuse me as I bombard you with a variety of resources related to the topics that come to mind, including tools that might help students learn to get the most out of learning walks like those that you describe. Note that some of the examples are more controlled, but they can either serve as a bridge and/or a model for more specialized walks that students might be want to take to help them pursue individual interests or collect ideas for specific projects.
To start, I have tagged numerous bookmarks with ‘noticing’ and ‘observation’. Other sets of bookmarks that apply are those tagged ‘flâneur’ (see also) and ‘dérive’ (see also) and ‘psychogeography’ (see also). I think those cover what you’re going after in the learning walks.
If there is a need for tools at all, maybe as students are first becoming accustomed to the idea of learning walks, there are several that might be helpful. Three iOS applications might be of interest, all from the Situationist tradition: Serendipitor, Situationist App, and the yet-to-be-released Drift Deck (more, including a non-digital version).
Hototoki might be a great tool for documentation. (It uses Twitter.) RjDj might be a fun way to filter the sounds, if there is a need for filtering at all. And Noticin.gs (now closed) might inspire someone to build something similar for collecting and sharing the photographs collected on learning walks.
There is also some value in giving students the opportunity to place their own constraints on what they are looking for. An example of such might be Sister Corita Kent, who used to go out looking at vernacular signage to use in her work. There’s a great documentary about her that includes some footage of her out on walks with students. Likewise, John Stilgoe (more) takes his university students out on walks to observe the landscape. 60 Minutes did a segment on him back in 2003. There’s no wonder (to me) why he’s one of the most popular professors at Harvard.
Another set of more constrained walks comes from Adam Greenfield and Nurri Kim. Their walks are concerned with how urban environments are being “transformed by the presence of networked computation.” They call these excursions “walkshops” and they’ve released a free guide to the concept.
There are many books that I could recommend. These might make a nice resource library to go along with the learning walks. First is Will Self’s Psychogeography (more here on his blog). Next are three Rebecca Solnit books: Wanderlust: A History of Walking, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and, as an example of maps that could be made as a product of walks, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.
Three other books related to the concept of seeing and/or exploring are Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, The Art of Looking Sideways, by Alan Fletcher, and How to Be an Explorer of the World, by Keri Smith. Actually, any of Keri Smith’s books would make a great addition to a resource library for learning walks.
And finally, to riff off your final line, I recommend the Lawrence Weschler biography of artist Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. That is one of my favorite books.
Sorry to blather on so long. Leaving this sort of comment is really mostly for me, a way to sort through my thoughts that were inspired by yours. Thanks for sparking that and thanks for indulging me.
