Synopsis

We can choose to learn even if we haven't chosen the lesson or the teacher. In Western mainstream culture, however, we often have experience after experience, without pausing to make meaning from those experiences. You are interested in learning and growing, however. You might be a student of Life or in a specific program. You might be a teacher, instructor, facilitator, or organizational leader.

Learning and growing requires some level of discomfort. Putting a magnifying glass on the phrase “I need to get out of my comfort zone,” this book draws a straightforward map to assist with navigation into, and out of, all kinds of experiences. It can also guide you in making meaning from those experiences - past, present, and future.

License to Learn aims to improve your ability to learn from your own life experience. Regardless of where you are in any formal learning trajectory (or not), the “comfort zone” is truly not the place to be when you want to learn, grow, or develop-- except as a place to reflect and make meaning before heading “out” again. License to Learn utilizes stories from the author's life to highlight the three zones affiliated with the comfort zone metaphor, and the roads to navigate around those zones.

With this map and the stories as your guide, you can become your own best teacher. The offering here is ultimately and extremely flexible for each person. License to Learn also discusses how the stress that develops from traumatic experiences can get in the way of learning, and how to mitigate its effects. In addition, there is an Appendix for educators and organizational leaders to make use of this material in group, team, or classroom settings.

Anna has 30+ years of experience in the world of education - challenging and supporting students of all ages in indoor and outdoor "classrooms." She has been a teacher of teachers as well. She aims to bring her expertise to bear on creating a more adventurous, learning-centered, and reflective society.

License to Learn is the first book in a non-fiction trilogy aiming to elevate the experience of discomfort in solving many current cultural and environmental challenges. The challenge Anna set forth for herself is to transfer what she has learned in many educational pursuits (mostly Experiential Education) into the setting of "real-life." The key, in Anna's writing, is a radical change in our individual and collective relationship with comfort and discomfort. License to Learn will help us get started.

Sales arguments

• Research shows that 90% of our long-term happiness is determined by how we think, not how much money we have or where we live (i.e. our comfort level). License to Learn provides a new way to think.
• Learning and growth actually require discomfort (to some degree). This book, which includes a visual map, can help you find your way into and out of discomfort for the purpose of learning. Using this map, you get to take charge of your own growth.
• Stories of many different kinds of 'adventure' abound in this book. The map is straightforward, and the stories take the map off the page and into real life.
• Teachers, facilitators, and organizational change-makers in all sectors will have new tools for their professional toolbox.

Similar titles

• Courage To Teach by Parker Palmer, Jossey-Bass, 1998. Palmer's book is about the courage that it takes to show up every day as a teacher. My book is about the courage that it takes to show up every day as a learner.
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Riverhead Books, 2007. Gilbert's book is, like mine, autobiographical. However, mine also delivers a model or map for others to take advantage of. Mine is a teaching memoir, not just a memoir.
• Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, Gotham Books, 2012. Brene has become famous for interweaving her research in psychology with stories of her subjects and herself. In my book, I also weave together research and story, but the research I utilize comes from many fields - education, neuroscience, psychology, medicine, etc.

Audience

This book is for lifelong learners, teachers, facilitators, organizational leaders, and those learning to heal from difficult or traumatic experiences. All will gain insights and tools for making meaning from experience to support growth (your own or other's). In short, anyone open to learning from past, present, or future experiences will benefit. This material offers great flexibility in its application.

Advance praise

"The zone model was simple yet profoundly engaging. It provided a helpful lens through which to view the transformations of my own life’s journey. Helped me realize that a recent couple of months of profound depression was an entirely appropriate response to wandering too far out of the discomfort zone into the panic zone. I can see that my natural response of withdrawal back to certain comforts and known routines was subconsciously exactly what I needed. The model helps me see my alternation of discomfort-seeking and comfort-seeking is not pathological but natural." - William Martin, author of The Parent's Tao Te Ching, and A Path and a Practice.