I have spent the past few days at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in San Antonio. I am sure that there are many topics for reflection which will appear in future posts, but one idea which really resonated with me was the powerful metaphor of the coffee house our keynote speaker Steven Johnson used this morning.
Historically, the coffee house was a place where people of all walks of life came together and had multidisciplinary conversations about the world. Johnson calls this a "liquid network" -- a place where ideas naturally flow.
There is clearly value in this concept, especially as we in Lutheran education grapple with weighty issue of discovering how we better meet the learning needs of our communities while still maintaining our focus on the critical mission of sharing Christ with children and families. It seems to me that we do not wrestle with these issues nearly enough for us to truly understand and adapt to these changes.
To that end, I ask, "What is our Lutheran coffee house?" Or, perhaps more pointedly, "Where should our Lutheran coffee house be located, and how can we engage many more people in these important conversations for the future of Lutheran education?" I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Feel free to share your ideas as a comment to this post. Let's build the coffee house!
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