The threshold, the foyer, the corridor, the landing, the stairway, its steps, doors opening onto the stairway, gates to front and back yards, and beyond these, the city: squares, streets, facades, taverns, dens, bridges, gutters.

(Dostoevsky’s Poetics 170).

I am interested in using the blogging tools to explore the topic of liminality, the journeys students make as they progressively become more autonomous learners.

Up to this point in our social and individual evolution, human beings have managed rapid change in a reactive mode, coping as best as possible, and returning to a point of comfort with earlier, entrenched, meaning perspectives, and the meaning schemes that are supported by them.People enter this state of hyper-reactivity, of liminality, more and more often now, not so much because of the adrenaline rush, but because it is a mode of self-making. Seeking the luminal is done not to escape the pressures of everyday life, but to meet them and surpass them by being in a proactive mode. The transformation process is elusive, and painful, and more often than not, people do revert back to previous worldviews. However, other find themselves fully alive in the liminal state, or the state of becoming, partly because of the associated emotional exuberance (especially if prepared for in advance), and partly because of the anticipated payoff. Transformations can potentially shift from being accidental to being intentional. The changes brought about by perspective transformations in adulthood are not always a result of distortions and past defensive strategies, as would be the case in the majority of perspective transformations occurring during childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. They are intentional, deliberate, and require a process of reflection-in-action and emancipatory learning, involving a line of action that draws an individual forward towards autonomous self-actualization.Reflecting on how we learn often influences - and is influenced by - our emotional states. Whereas imagination is trying on of various scenarios, some of which might be rehearsals leading to learning, critical self-reflection on how we learn, how we interpret, how we make meaning. is part of meta-cognition. Interpretation, meaning-making, and learning are blurry, imprecise terms. There is, however, a vital difference between imagination and reflection: in the case of imagination, the line of action is weaker than with reflection. Reflection has a stronger line of action, with more direct focus on the external world, involving a stronger drive to set goals, and with more emphasis on intention.Consider imagination as a little brother of reflection :) where the stakes are not so high, the identity of the imaginer is not threatened, and the purpose is for mind-play rather than solving problems or reaching goals. Much of the same skills involved in the active imagining or rehearsing are used during critical self-reflection. Meta-cognition (reflecting on how we learn) is a goal of self-reflection.

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Liminal Passages

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