Here is a simply lovely piece about a book: The Gardener and the Carpenter about social learning. I knew what it was going to be about from the title alone. There are so many parallels with the ideas some of us share about dancing tango and an approach to life generally: that it's about exploration and discovery not targeted on "levels" of development, that it's play, not work, that there is no right and wrong, simply what happens, that it's about growing, not building and that the skills that develop happen organically, in an emergent way and are thus stronger for it. Also, that we learn much by listening and observation, play and apprenticeship, which in dance terms means we can learn much just by attending a milonga and that beginners learn easily just by dancing (not being told what to do) with people who already can. No surprise that she calls the relationship between parent and child - or anyone - an interplay, "like dancing".
