03. Growing (Up) At Work

[In]Distinct Chatter

Author, speaker, and consultant Jennifer Abrams (www.jenniferabrams.com) speaks with Dr. Kevin Ruth about her latest book, Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) At Work. Excerpt below:

As educators, we speak of the importance of being lifelong learners. The concept of already ‘being done’ with learning assumes that we are fully cooked and ‘complete’, yet the time of adulthood can be one of tremendous growth and development emotionally, psychologically and cognitively. Schools can and should be places where we learn, mature and develop as those who work and teach within them. We should always be on a learning edge in many aspects of our lives and to stretch and to engage with that edge should be a consistent practice – where we learn and unlearn.

Stretching at your edges requires work. This is what we mean by you finding your “learning edge”— working to see more, to hold more. It is acting out of your zone of proximal development—working on skills you are close to mastering (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).