Act into Thinking

In speaking of transformation, character development, shaping and molding people, Alan Hirsch compares:

+ think our way into a new way of acting
versus
+ act our way into a new way of thinking

His point is that the latter approach, not the former, is a means of becoming different. He also writes:

So whether we find ourselves with old thinking and old behavior, or new thinking and old behavior, the way forward is to put actions into the equation. This is not as strange as it sounds at first. Human beings are sentient, thinking creatures with a deep desire to understand our lives and our world. This being so, we tend to process things as we go. Ideas and information are important, but they are generally needed to guide action and are best assimilated and understood in the context of life application. The assumption is that we bring all these dynamic thinking processes with us into our actions. It is all about context (not just content.) - The Forgotten Ways (123)

One of the ideas SPACE was built around was, "If we give students new information about the world, they will act on it." Instead, our continuing challenge and focus should be based on action, movement, motion.

Photo: Some of the Hungary team, moving. Vienna, Austria, August 2007. Photo via RobynB.