Not all of us are artists by trade. Famed artist Pablo Picasso said something once about art though that stuck with me. He said, “the purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” I had been covered with the dust for years and let that shape my decisions and my attitude.

Picasso was something extraordinary as a painter, sculptor, poet, playwright, and founder of the Cubist movement. It was his free spirit and the belief that he was not bound by conventional thought that allowed him to thrive and create. He once commented that “the world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”

What if we apply this mentality to Learning?

Author Will Richardson talked about the 5 ways that learning is currently evolving and changing. They included:

• -Content is everywhere: Knowledge is readily available through digital means from many sources.
• -Teachers are everywhere: Emphasis will be on where is the expertise to support your learning.
• -Learning will be personalized: Learning will be tailored to cater for individual differences and learners will have many opportunities to learn what they are interested in learning.
• -Networks are the new classroom: Learning will be formed around people with common interests and differences in expertise.
• -Learning will be everywhere: Learning won’t require a bounded type of organization. Learning will occur more in small groups (in coffee shops, in book clubs, etc.).

The wisdom that we need is just sitting there all around us! It no longer is only in a classroom.

It is just resting, waiting for us to discover it and recognize its significance. And in this case, we would get to pursue the specific treasures that we desire. We are the ones that determine its value and worth.

If what Will Richardson said epitomizes the new canvas, then I would assert that Human Connection and Emergent Learning Strategies are the brushes.

Human Connection

Human connection can be defined as the energy exchange between people who are paying attention to one another. It has the power to deepen the moment, inspire change and build trust. In the larger social construct, people that feel valued and more connected to others have lower levels of anxiety and depression as Emma Seppala details in her book, “The Happiness Track.” Therefore, if more and more of us are feeling valued and connected, there will be an upbeat swing in the levels of empathy, self-esteem, and resilience. The more positive relationships that we can create overall, the better we will be able to face life’s challenges and learn from each other.

Emergent Learning Strategy

Emergent learning invites people into deeper thinking and makes learnings visible – including failure. It encourages discussion, develops and tests out hypotheses about what should be done to move things forward, and shares insights across a community. As authors Marilyn Darling and Charles Parry wrote, at least three of the major benefits of working in this way are, “1) it generates more robust solutions that take into account a range of situations 2) it creates more ownership for the solution rather than imposing it, and 3) it sets the stage for learning and adaptation at every level of implementation.”

It is time to capsize the methods of learning and begin a new movement that enables us to extract the power, knowledge, and value from the vast human library that we are and combine that with simplified methods to expediently implement our learnings and takeaways. Each of us can be the change we desire, and just like Picasso, we can create the pieces of art that make sense to us, as individuals.