Nimble Thinking Across the Curriculum

Collaborative Genius & Nimble Thinking
Putting IT in Play

The following has nothing to do with the subject
matter or content of courses, nor with house-
keeping concerns re: academics, work, or service,
sexual harassment training, load & office hours,
technological support and faculty development,
advancemental agenda & goals, how much size
matters regarding expansion and economic
exigency—not that there's anything wrong with
these topics: they rule!

Rather: consider it an Environmental Issue. Meta-
environmental maybe: concerns considering the
sustainability of sustained practices that could
actually be un-sustainable no matter how sustainable
they have been and appear to be.

Are our educational processes & habits on both sides of
the desk sustaining less than nimble if not non-nimble
thinking? Critical Thinking, sure: plenty of that going on,
an expressed agenda since the mid-80's & a stated course
objective in many syllabi across the curriculum, I bet..

Who isn't teaching Critical Thinking? raise your hand.

But is it NIMBLE? Can we wonder collectively if there's
Nimbleness-In-Thinking emerging from our collaborative
genius & rising epi-phenomenally like a psychic perfume,
antidote to the bozone level & its sustainable unsustain-
abilities?

A question for the Sustainability Club: what kinds of
ENVIRONMENTALISM generate the advancement
of Nimble Thinking? What kinds don't? Can Nimble
Thinking, in fact, be taught? Or just Critical Thinking
—nimble being a gift from god?

Are we nimble enough or critical already to put this
distinction in play? Nimble & Non-Nimble & the
processes that love them —teasing-out the
differences so that maybe ratios and
relation-ships might could be
measured and assessed &
maybe encouraged if not
directly instructed?

Would NIMBLE-THINKING in physics look the same
as NIMBLE-THINKING in chemistry or biology? Same
or different in sociology and economics? Literature &
Religion? Psyche & Philosophy? Or would those be
allo-variations, such Nimble Diversity occluding
a Vision of Overarching Nimble Delight?

These are stunning questions, I think: stupid and therfore
just right for study. Prerequisite to the possibility of
nimbleness. How else come to terms?

Might we expect to see a disciplinary-constraining nimbleness
departmentalized into hallways of ex-offico territorial wishing:
diverse & incommensurate—distinct, acculturated, each
adapted to its environment, sure: but non-generalizable?
Local food but non-transferable?

Or could we look, too, for ABSOLUTE NIMBLE-NESS, a
non-disciplined Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick, jumping over
the candle sticks. To parse the darkness, damnit!

Nimble will OUT, I bet, no matter
course or subject matter: it's not
what we know these days (every kid
with a lap top: the smartest kid in class)
but the process that counts: whether
we can put it in play. Do I have to spell
IT out? I need help. Come labor on a
conspiracy: breathing together--yes
we can.

xxxooo, Presbyter