The travels of Wisdom Road are 90% complete. I can now start to explore the lessons of this journey: Where we live really matters.  Place imprints on who we are.  I, a child of suburbia and California, share many values with the people I meet along the way, but there are limits on how well I can know them, and them, me.  I will never fully understand rich soil, the pulse of tides, life-giving rain, racism, tough city streets, deep poverty, or the quiet comfort of a tiny town like those who grew up and lived with these their entire lives.  Where we call home creates a multi ..read more

I head south from Virginia Beach, down the Outer Banks through Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, across Roanoke Island where an early colony of Europeans was somehow lost.  I zig-zag through the North Carolina lowlands, skipping over and around ocean inlets crossed with lines of crab pot buoys, and languid rivers that lost their gumption 100 miles to the west in the nearest hills.   As if being force-fed irony and stereotype, the first Confederate flag I have seen in two weeks hangs limply off the front step of a dilapidated single-wide in a small park of similarly worn-out trailers.  A ..read more

It is high tide in mid-afternoon, and a full moon high at that, when I get to tiny Tangier Island, a 45 minute boat ride from the Maryland and Virginia Eastern Shore.  The paved trails that traverse the island are covered in places with a few inches of water that creeps out of the salt marshes on all sides.  Small bait fish glitter along the edge of the roadways that are just wide enough for two golf carts to pass each other.   Songbirds fill the trees and peck around on the grass. The houses are a complete mix, from abandoned and becoming one with the marsh, to as cute as a sum ..read more

If you take the interstate across southern Pennsylvania, you miss the chance to stop for a loaf of bread at the Wild Goose Grocery in Intercourse; you probably won’t see the Amish farmer outside the small burg of Bird-in-the-Hand standing on his wooden disk plow, pulled by stout, tawny horses, six abreast; or the 10 year-old Amish girl driving a horse carriage down the side of the road in the early morning.  You might miss taking in the soybean fields, a depth of green that would be impossible were it not for the limestone that sources the mythically rich soil near Lancaster, or the fairy ..read more

Margie Patlak, in her book about Down East,  More Than Meets the Eye, writes: “To be grateful for the opportunity to walk on this earth and be mesmerized by all its ephemeral wonders and mysteries: the thin ribbon of fog suspended in midair; the glittery dance of wind and light on the water; the intricate aerial choreography of a swooping shorebird; the pulsating wings of a gilded dragonfly; the throbbing of a persistent heart. “There  always will be mystery and more to explore, because the more we know, the more questions we learn to ask, and the deeper we have to dig to find the an ..read more

Wisdom Road is staying in America, but I secured an invitation to visit the First Nation community at Kitigan Zibi, about 100 miles north of Ottawa.  It is way out of the way, but I decided to visit to make a point.  National borders are ephemeral lines on a map, drawn by the most recent victor in humanity’s desire to control pieces of the shared earth.  Just because the current members of this ancient community live north of a border drawn by old white-wigged  Europeans a few hundred years ago does not diminish the value of their wisdom for those of us to the south. I met ..read more

As we get ready for the new school year, I want to share this with you in case you did not see it at the beginning of summer. I won’t re-state my argument here; just click through to this article that I published in June via Next Gen Learning Challenge.  The big question that I hope you will ponder: Might it be time to refresh education around a taxonomy that addresses today’s hurdles and biggest learning challenges? Should we not retire what was, in essence, the taxonomy of the Industrial Age learning imperatives… With one that addresses the realities of today and tomorrow? I hope this ..read more

Infectious passion at the intersection of redemption, hope, pride, and great food radiates off of Brandon Chrostowski like heat from the embers of a well-banked camp fire.  In 2007 Brandon founded a culinary institute, and in 2013 added  Edwins, a high end French restaurant in a downtrodden section of Cleveland with the unlikely business plan that everyone in both the school and the restaurant would be just getting out of prison.  Ten years later, he owns and runs the culinary institute, two restaurants, a bakery, a butchery, a community garden, and a block of housing for p ..read more

A key takeaway from Wisdom Road is not a surprise:  America has seen a dramatic loss of civil discourse in the last decade.  The skills and practice of civility itself have become endangered by a toxic stew of political, social, and opinion-masquerading-as-news media. I believe that the very foundations of our democratic society are rooted in civility.  Without the ability to be human with each other, not through digital interfaces, but face-to-face with others with whom we may have significant disagreements, the system is destined to fail. In a Futures Foundation event sponsore ..read more

I hit the trifecta to end Leg 2 of Wisdom Road. First, incredible blues at Red’s Blues Club in Clarksdale, MS.  The band starts in slowly, but by the third number they are hitting pile driver blues with a beat that thumps your chest and makes your foot rock heel to toe like no other music I know.  For some reason, when I listen to live blues and close my eyes, it is like there are little strings around my eyes and across my forehead that pull my face up and down in tiny twitches as if being plucked in time with the guitarist or tossed up and down scales with the singer’s voice. Secon ..read more