The Reward of Teaching and discovering Serendipity

In my last post, I sited going back to Michigan State to teach a course on digital media. It is now one week after the fact and I am thrilled I got the opportunity to share my insights. It is humbling to think that a generation has passed since I embarked on my career ambitions from those hallowed grounds 25 years ago. It was extremely rewarding to “give back” and participate in educating tomorrow’s would be heroes. My presentation went over very well. The course I constructed created a firestorm of energy and creativity. A connection was made with the students. They were grateful for learning a subject matter in a digital context verses their current analog process. That discovery is another blog post to come.

When I created the Spatial Shift blog, it was part of my new years resolution to begin a new chapter in my life. I was inspired by a blog post by Christine Kane who prompted me to create a new years resolution around one word. The word chosen was “serendipity” . The goal being to filter everything for the year around that word. I really didn’t fully understand the word, but threw it around a lot in my conversations. Serendipity seemed to fit the mindset that I was about to embark on. I knew I needed to open up in new ways and to become more receptive to whatever came along. I also knew that I had to create the energy necessary to foster serendipity.

So, I am back from teaching and reflecting on what I learned. I got involved with the MSU opportunity because I reached out on something completely different and was offered a tenure that I had never considered before. I said yes. Serendipity to a “T”. While at Michigan State, I also ran into two other professors who happened to be working on several projects that are likely to overlap with some of my current efforts. Yet, another form of serendipity yet to come.

Sparked by my educational adventure, I thought I would dig down a little deeper for the true context of “Serendipity”. I found some very interesting things. One being a young adult female in Mexico who also discovered Serendipity and decided to spend a year writing a book about it – while a teenager. The book is called Discovering Serendipity and she has made it free on the web. Another find was the following quote and accompanying video:

Serendipity is when you find things you weren’t looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damn difficult. —Erin McKean, speech at TED

Serendipity has its roots in science, social science, anthropology and literature. The core underpinnings point to the significance of “discovery” as the core meaning of the word. In the paper “Three Priniciples of Serendipity: Insight, Chance and Discovery in Qualitative Research”, by Gary Fine and James Deegan – the authors define Serendipity as: “the interactive outcome of unique and contingent mixes of insight coupled with chance”.

The biggest lesson I learned this last week is the one that was taught to me 25 years ago by a wise old Michigan State professor – “You need to learn how to learn, because you will be learning the rest of your life”. Add to that Serendipity and I think you have the makings of a Spatial Shift.

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