Three years after my initial foray to Los Angeles in the fall of 1978, I finally found a mentor and the community built around her, which proved to be the first of two anchors that secured me to the city of angels and led to me finally seeing its palm trees and clear blue skies as home. The second anchor was a peer, later my life-partner, Sally, who it so happened, was another protégé of that same mentor.

As an older youth and a young adult, some of my most productive developmental times came when I had a compelling mentor and also a good circle of peers connected with that mentor. I think it is an ideal state for learning, whether the context is in or outside of formal education. To have a mentor at any point is a blessing, but the affect is amplified by having that circle of peers, as it were in academic terms, the “lab” that goes with the “lecture”. The wisdom of sought out authority (the mentor) is best integrated by using it to develop the agency that one can find in a circle of peers. This I see as different than most conventional classroom situations where the teacher administers and the students conform, and do not have the opportunity to become a “circle”, that is a self-governing group exercising power-with (rather than power-over) and choosing to give authority to their common mentor. (more…)

My partner Sally the other day, after reading one of my blog posts, commented that an overarching theme of most of my writing is having the opportunity, the wisdom, and the courage to lead a thoughtful life, which involves making thoughtful choices, in as many areas of life as possible. Though I had never framed it quite that way, I think she is right on. Under that umbrella of choices are ideas of liberty, agency, partnership (rather than hierarchy), and what seems to still be a radical idea that these things can be applicable to both youth and adults. (more…)