The Learning Project, Rites of Passage

The Learning Project presents 35 in-depth interviews with people of all ages, interests, and walks of life coming from different economic backgrounds, races, cultures, and political perspectives. Each person answers the question of how learning changed their life. The interviews are separated into 11 areas of interest and three stages of life: youth, middle age, or elder.

Those interviewed include young people, artists, athletes, tradesmen, soldiers, scientists, and politicians, some of whom you'll know by name. They range from Nobel Laureate to street vandal, from physician to drug addict. Some have disabilities, many suffered trauma, all are survivors. They speak of learning through schooling, family, struggle, work, and hardship with stories that are personal, frustrating, and sometimes horrific. All are inspiring.

Some of these stories go back 15 years, others go back 150. They are stories of modern rites of passage echoing a mythology that goes back thousands of years. Locked in them is the secret to becoming human. I cannot give you the key, but you can find it.