Globalization is all around us. It is a fundamental dimension of the changing world that planners... more Globalization is all around us. It is a fundamental dimension of the changing world that planners-and others-have to come to terms with these days. It was an almost inevitable focus of one of the 1998 CIP Conference sessions, attracting a particularly large contingent of curious and questioning attendees. This article discusses how the global dimension of the planners' changing world was considered in a series of presentations by Pamela Robinson, Gillian Mason, and Ian Wight. Collectively, the presentations yielded the notion that mediating the global and the local might be a natural crossroads for planning and planners-connecting relevant knowledge with necessary action.
What distinguishes professionals from mere mortals? We may often quite readily self-identify as p... more What distinguishes professionals from mere mortals? We may often quite readily self-identify as professionals, but rarely give it much further thought. Might we benefit from some greater discernment about what it really means to ‘profess’? It has been suggested (in a previous article: Part 1: From Practice to Praxis: A Place for Meshing the Personal and the Professional?) that a professional can in part be distinguished by having not simply a practice, but a praxis; mere mortals – regular working stiffs – may have a practice (or a trade, or a training, for examples) but professionals worthy of strong regard have something more – a praxis (en route to an ethos, and a propensity for poiesis). This is where the personal and the professional is positively and constructively meshed (rather than divorced), where there is a deliberate conscious integration of not only one’s theory studies and practice experiences, but also – and perhaps crucially - one’s personal values and beliefs.
Over almost two decades (1994-2013) the graduate Professional Planning Practice course, in the Un... more Over almost two decades (1994-2013) the graduate Professional Planning Practice course, in the University of Manitoba City Planning program, evolved in various ways, in pursuit of better preparing planning students for professional practice. An earlier article - Praxis and Professional-Self Design: Personal Plans for Public Professing (2014) - has provided examples of one innovation, in terms of professional self-design – the praxis statement work. In more recent years this became the context for further explorations – beyond the individual and the personal – into the realms of the collective, and each class cohort as a whole.
The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by invit... more The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by inviting each student – as a culmination of their program - to actively design an expression of their authentic professional self, albeit as a professional-in-the-making. For almost 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, the Professional Practice course at the University of Manitoba sought to help about-to-graduate students, i.e. budding professionals, formulate and articulate how they might want to practice their planning - in a way that incorporates and integrates their theory studies, practice experiences and personal values and beliefs.
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has came to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.
Well-being and Place - International Perspectives (based on presentations at an April 2009 conference at Durham University), 2016
What is so special, so uncommon, about well-being and place, not only on their own terms but – pe... more What is so special, so uncommon, about well-being and place, not only on their own terms but – perhaps especially - in combination? Why might we want to go out of our way (our normal way of doing and seeing) to honour this specialness? And how might we best do so? Well-being and place have in common an essential wholeness, goodness and togetherness - resisting easy deconstruction, abhorring insensitive reduction, and confounding simplistic quantification. They transcend individual disciplines and professions; they are – above all – integrations of pretty much all we hold dear – the good, the true and the beautiful. They range wide and deep; they implicate our whole being – body, mind, soul and spirit.
One, place-making, is perhaps more means than end, the other, well-being, more end than means – but they are indubitably linked; we know this at our core, from everyday - and extraordinary – experience. But it does seem to require a shift in perspective to fully see and feel, and validate, all this. They have a primalcy and potency that demands we make this effort, in service to our selves – individually and collectively, if we are not simply to survive but to thrive, if we are not doomed to languish but to flourish. Well-being and place cannot simply be studied as objective ‘its’ – they are an integration of integrations, in flux, as dynamic enactions. The concern needs to be with the enacting that is place- making and with the enacting of well-being (as whole-making) – ongoing productions both, that might just be amenable to some enlightened planning, policy and design. But how? At the very least, it is suggested, we will need to take a more integral approach.
The city and its region or the region and its city?
An explicitly critical perspective of the Conference theme is used to inform an exploration of th... more An explicitly critical perspective of the Conference theme is used to inform an exploration of the contemporary city-region planning challenge and to argue for an alternative operative philosophy to the current centre-periphery dichotomy framework that has made it natural to think about the city and its region, rather than the other way around. A paradigm shift is proposed, based on a new operative philosophy - the territory/function dialectic, whereby city-region planning is reframed as an exercise in mediating territorial autonomies and functional interdependencies. Making such a shift is expected to entail planners learning new roles such as eco-citistate "placemakers," "agent collaborateurs," "common market-eers," and "cosmopolitan convivants."
Taking the pulse of planning: Student-practitioner collaboration at the University of Manitoba
This article provides a brief overview of a successful component of the Professional Practice cou... more This article provides a brief overview of a successful component of the Professional Practice course requirement of the University of Manitoba's City Planning Program. The component is designed to encourage case study research collaborations between planning students and professional practitioners on topical planning issues. The collaborations collectively help to take the pulse of planning practice in the province.
An exploration of the possible place and purpose of a postmodernizing planning, in the pursuit of... more An exploration of the possible place and purpose of a postmodernizing planning, in the pursuit of ecological wisdom—defined, in Ken Wilber’s terms, as how to get people to agree on how to live in accord with nature. Placemaking—conceived as a form of applied Integral Ecology—is hypothesized as an appropriate planning response, driven by a more explicit “spirit-friendly” outlook, with an associated critique of contemporary conventional notions of growth and sustainability. Place and placemaking are viewed as furnishing the rich relief of an ecologically wise planning.
Mediating the politics of place: Negotiating our professional and personal selves
Politics often gets "a bad rap" from planners, who perceive it as problematic or underm... more Politics often gets "a bad rap" from planners, who perceive it as problematic or undermining, and as something to be negated or neutralized. Daniel Kemmis, in his Community and the Politics of Place, presents a more positive view of a higher politics, interpreted here as a form of "democratics". From this vantage point, much of the politics that planners decry is possibly more akin to "plutocratics" or " autocratics". However, it is also possible that, deep down, planners really want a default form of politics, namely "technocratic", that would play more to their own traditional strengths. What could be more politically correct?
Capitalizing on provincial capital status: A novel strategy for Winnipeg
There are some provincial capitals in Canada where capital status really counts and really seems ... more There are some provincial capitals in Canada where capital status really counts and really seems to benefit the city in question, as is perhaps the case in places like Victoria, Quebec City and Regina. But there are others - perhaps Toronto, Halifax, and St. John's for example - where capital status hardly registers on their political and economic "screens." Winnipeg is clearly in the latter category, with no "perhaps" about it!
Paper presented at Track 12: Planning Education: Educating For The Planning Profession, Room 114,... more Paper presented at Track 12: Planning Education: Educating For The Planning Profession, Room 114, July 9 2014, 15.30-17.00 Session Chair: Remon Rooij. Paper published as Practice Reflection Learning.
This paper reports findings from textual analysis of the journals submitted by students who undertook the 2013 Planning Field Placement Course for the undergraduate degree of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of South Australia. We discuss the extent to which the reflective narratives contained in journal assignments demonstrate student expectations about the goals of work experience and their relative focus on descriptive versus reflective dimensions of work experience learning. We conclude that whilst the learning is quite significant, the extent of reflection on critical issues of professionalism is limited. Different perspectives on practice, reflection and learning seem to be in play, with possibly too much of a silo/solo approach to each. We end with some reflections on the implications for pedagogical practice in relation to work experience programming.
In the wake of Walkerton, the 2000 CIP conference in Charlottetown, with its theme of water as th... more In the wake of Walkerton, the 2000 CIP conference in Charlottetown, with its theme of water as the "Oil of the Twenty-First Century," was timely in an almost morbid way. When not in the foreground, Walkerton was nearly always in the background of the deliberations-continually reinforced by our island setting and its own strong agricultural profile, with its own considerable challenges in water management. It seemed at times that planning itself was on trial. However, while there is certainly no room for complacency, the record of the conference suggests that planning is at least "on the case." The occasion also served as a re-commissioning of sorts, to reinforce commitment to the cause of planning on fundamental grounds of public health. Commendations go to Dennis Friesen and his organizing committee, and especially to Valerie Spencer, the program czar who expended considerable effort to ensure a coherent, coordinated and empowering outcome.
Whether we consider our kind as part of or separate from nature, it is time to decide whether our... more Whether we consider our kind as part of or separate from nature, it is time to decide whether our species is here for a good time, or a long time. "-Don Gayton, Landscapes of the Interior At the risk of being a year early (the Aussies plan on celebrating next year), and in the interest of terminating all the seemingly interminable "MM" hype, I am pleased to introduce Plan Canada's own modest acknowledgement of the millennium. We begin with a contribution from a prominent commentator on popular culture who has been part of the hype while trying to make sense of it.
Globalization is all around us. It is a fundamental dimension of the changing world that planners... more Globalization is all around us. It is a fundamental dimension of the changing world that planners-and others-have to come to terms with these days. It was an almost inevitable focus of one of the 1998 CIP Conference sessions, attracting a particularly large contingent of curious and questioning attendees. This article discusses how the global dimension of the planners' changing world was considered in a series of presentations by Pamela Robinson, Gillian Mason, and Ian Wight. Collectively, the presentations yielded the notion that mediating the global and the local might be a natural crossroads for planning and planners-connecting relevant knowledge with necessary action.
What distinguishes professionals from mere mortals? We may often quite readily self-identify as p... more What distinguishes professionals from mere mortals? We may often quite readily self-identify as professionals, but rarely give it much further thought. Might we benefit from some greater discernment about what it really means to ‘profess’? It has been suggested (in a previous article: Part 1: From Practice to Praxis: A Place for Meshing the Personal and the Professional?) that a professional can in part be distinguished by having not simply a practice, but a praxis; mere mortals – regular working stiffs – may have a practice (or a trade, or a training, for examples) but professionals worthy of strong regard have something more – a praxis (en route to an ethos, and a propensity for poiesis). This is where the personal and the professional is positively and constructively meshed (rather than divorced), where there is a deliberate conscious integration of not only one’s theory studies and practice experiences, but also – and perhaps crucially - one’s personal values and beliefs.
Over almost two decades (1994-2013) the graduate Professional Planning Practice course, in the Un... more Over almost two decades (1994-2013) the graduate Professional Planning Practice course, in the University of Manitoba City Planning program, evolved in various ways, in pursuit of better preparing planning students for professional practice. An earlier article - Praxis and Professional-Self Design: Personal Plans for Public Professing (2014) - has provided examples of one innovation, in terms of professional self-design – the praxis statement work. In more recent years this became the context for further explorations – beyond the individual and the personal – into the realms of the collective, and each class cohort as a whole.
The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by invit... more The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by inviting each student – as a culmination of their program - to actively design an expression of their authentic professional self, albeit as a professional-in-the-making. For almost 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, the Professional Practice course at the University of Manitoba sought to help about-to-graduate students, i.e. budding professionals, formulate and articulate how they might want to practice their planning - in a way that incorporates and integrates their theory studies, practice experiences and personal values and beliefs.
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has came to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.
Well-being and Place - International Perspectives (based on presentations at an April 2009 conference at Durham University), 2016
What is so special, so uncommon, about well-being and place, not only on their own terms but – pe... more What is so special, so uncommon, about well-being and place, not only on their own terms but – perhaps especially - in combination? Why might we want to go out of our way (our normal way of doing and seeing) to honour this specialness? And how might we best do so? Well-being and place have in common an essential wholeness, goodness and togetherness - resisting easy deconstruction, abhorring insensitive reduction, and confounding simplistic quantification. They transcend individual disciplines and professions; they are – above all – integrations of pretty much all we hold dear – the good, the true and the beautiful. They range wide and deep; they implicate our whole being – body, mind, soul and spirit.
One, place-making, is perhaps more means than end, the other, well-being, more end than means – but they are indubitably linked; we know this at our core, from everyday - and extraordinary – experience. But it does seem to require a shift in perspective to fully see and feel, and validate, all this. They have a primalcy and potency that demands we make this effort, in service to our selves – individually and collectively, if we are not simply to survive but to thrive, if we are not doomed to languish but to flourish. Well-being and place cannot simply be studied as objective ‘its’ – they are an integration of integrations, in flux, as dynamic enactions. The concern needs to be with the enacting that is place- making and with the enacting of well-being (as whole-making) – ongoing productions both, that might just be amenable to some enlightened planning, policy and design. But how? At the very least, it is suggested, we will need to take a more integral approach.
The city and its region or the region and its city?
An explicitly critical perspective of the Conference theme is used to inform an exploration of th... more An explicitly critical perspective of the Conference theme is used to inform an exploration of the contemporary city-region planning challenge and to argue for an alternative operative philosophy to the current centre-periphery dichotomy framework that has made it natural to think about the city and its region, rather than the other way around. A paradigm shift is proposed, based on a new operative philosophy - the territory/function dialectic, whereby city-region planning is reframed as an exercise in mediating territorial autonomies and functional interdependencies. Making such a shift is expected to entail planners learning new roles such as eco-citistate "placemakers," "agent collaborateurs," "common market-eers," and "cosmopolitan convivants."
Taking the pulse of planning: Student-practitioner collaboration at the University of Manitoba
This article provides a brief overview of a successful component of the Professional Practice cou... more This article provides a brief overview of a successful component of the Professional Practice course requirement of the University of Manitoba's City Planning Program. The component is designed to encourage case study research collaborations between planning students and professional practitioners on topical planning issues. The collaborations collectively help to take the pulse of planning practice in the province.
An exploration of the possible place and purpose of a postmodernizing planning, in the pursuit of... more An exploration of the possible place and purpose of a postmodernizing planning, in the pursuit of ecological wisdom—defined, in Ken Wilber’s terms, as how to get people to agree on how to live in accord with nature. Placemaking—conceived as a form of applied Integral Ecology—is hypothesized as an appropriate planning response, driven by a more explicit “spirit-friendly” outlook, with an associated critique of contemporary conventional notions of growth and sustainability. Place and placemaking are viewed as furnishing the rich relief of an ecologically wise planning.
Mediating the politics of place: Negotiating our professional and personal selves
Politics often gets "a bad rap" from planners, who perceive it as problematic or underm... more Politics often gets "a bad rap" from planners, who perceive it as problematic or undermining, and as something to be negated or neutralized. Daniel Kemmis, in his Community and the Politics of Place, presents a more positive view of a higher politics, interpreted here as a form of "democratics". From this vantage point, much of the politics that planners decry is possibly more akin to "plutocratics" or " autocratics". However, it is also possible that, deep down, planners really want a default form of politics, namely "technocratic", that would play more to their own traditional strengths. What could be more politically correct?
Capitalizing on provincial capital status: A novel strategy for Winnipeg
There are some provincial capitals in Canada where capital status really counts and really seems ... more There are some provincial capitals in Canada where capital status really counts and really seems to benefit the city in question, as is perhaps the case in places like Victoria, Quebec City and Regina. But there are others - perhaps Toronto, Halifax, and St. John's for example - where capital status hardly registers on their political and economic "screens." Winnipeg is clearly in the latter category, with no "perhaps" about it!
Paper presented at Track 12: Planning Education: Educating For The Planning Profession, Room 114,... more Paper presented at Track 12: Planning Education: Educating For The Planning Profession, Room 114, July 9 2014, 15.30-17.00 Session Chair: Remon Rooij. Paper published as Practice Reflection Learning.
This paper reports findings from textual analysis of the journals submitted by students who undertook the 2013 Planning Field Placement Course for the undergraduate degree of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of South Australia. We discuss the extent to which the reflective narratives contained in journal assignments demonstrate student expectations about the goals of work experience and their relative focus on descriptive versus reflective dimensions of work experience learning. We conclude that whilst the learning is quite significant, the extent of reflection on critical issues of professionalism is limited. Different perspectives on practice, reflection and learning seem to be in play, with possibly too much of a silo/solo approach to each. We end with some reflections on the implications for pedagogical practice in relation to work experience programming.
In the wake of Walkerton, the 2000 CIP conference in Charlottetown, with its theme of water as th... more In the wake of Walkerton, the 2000 CIP conference in Charlottetown, with its theme of water as the "Oil of the Twenty-First Century," was timely in an almost morbid way. When not in the foreground, Walkerton was nearly always in the background of the deliberations-continually reinforced by our island setting and its own strong agricultural profile, with its own considerable challenges in water management. It seemed at times that planning itself was on trial. However, while there is certainly no room for complacency, the record of the conference suggests that planning is at least "on the case." The occasion also served as a re-commissioning of sorts, to reinforce commitment to the cause of planning on fundamental grounds of public health. Commendations go to Dennis Friesen and his organizing committee, and especially to Valerie Spencer, the program czar who expended considerable effort to ensure a coherent, coordinated and empowering outcome.
Whether we consider our kind as part of or separate from nature, it is time to decide whether our... more Whether we consider our kind as part of or separate from nature, it is time to decide whether our species is here for a good time, or a long time. "-Don Gayton, Landscapes of the Interior At the risk of being a year early (the Aussies plan on celebrating next year), and in the interest of terminating all the seemingly interminable "MM" hype, I am pleased to introduce Plan Canada's own modest acknowledgement of the millennium. We begin with a contribution from a prominent commentator on popular culture who has been part of the hype while trying to make sense of it.
Architectural education generally implies a form of
professional education, with a focus on desig... more Architectural education generally implies a form of professional education, with a focus on design as the underlying process and outcome. Professional education is fundamentally about the education of professionals i.e. live, living people, rather than inanimate objects. A direct focus on the education of professionals in design contexts naturally leads to curiosity around the design of the designers-in-the-making, drawing out the constitutive elements of the personal/professional interface. We are thus in the realms of professional-self design, where the subject and object of the designing is the prospective designer themselves – in terms of what they intend to profess, and how, and why. This is subtly, but significantly, different from a focus on the essentially impersonal subject matter – in this case, architecture. The intent here is to privilege architect education (rather than architectural education) i.e. the making of architects, rather than the making of architecture. The associated professional education needs to be more consciously designed to support this distinction, which may be accomplished through an extraordinary regard for extraordinary integrations. This presentation reports on some learning from an ongoing experiment in enabling such professional-self design (Friesen and Wight, 2009), by approaching the education challenge as an effort to realize certain integrations. These key ‘makings’ of professionals (involving much inner work), are named here as praxis (personal), ethos (interpersonal) and poiesis (trans-personal) (Wight 2012b). This triad represents the form-response to the questions: What makes a professional? What does a professional make?
The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by invit... more The often bumpy transition from planning school to professional practice may be smoothed by inviting each student – as a culmination of their program - to actively design an expression of their authentic professional self, albeit as a professional-in-the-making. For almost 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, the UMCP Professional Practice course at the University of Manitoba sought to help about-to-graduate students, i.e. budding professionals, formulate and articulate how they might want to practice their planning - in a way that incorporates and integrates their theory studies, practice experiences and personal values and beliefs.
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has come to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.
Uploads
Papers by Ian Wight
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has came to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.
One, place-making, is perhaps more means than end, the other, well-being, more end than means – but they are indubitably linked; we know this at our core, from everyday - and extraordinary – experience. But it does seem to require a shift in perspective to fully see and feel, and validate, all this. They have a primalcy and potency that demands we make this effort, in service to our selves – individually and collectively, if we are not simply to survive but to thrive, if we are not doomed to languish but to flourish. Well-being and place cannot simply be studied as objective ‘its’ – they are an integration of integrations, in flux, as dynamic enactions. The concern needs to be with the enacting that is place- making and with the enacting of well-being (as whole-making) – ongoing productions both, that might just be amenable to some enlightened planning, policy and design. But how? At the very least, it is suggested, we will need to take a more integral approach.
This paper reports findings from textual analysis of the journals submitted by students who undertook the 2013 Planning Field Placement Course for the undergraduate degree of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of South Australia. We discuss the extent to which the reflective narratives contained in journal assignments demonstrate student expectations about the goals of work experience and their relative focus on descriptive versus reflective dimensions of work experience learning. We conclude that whilst the learning is quite significant, the extent of reflection on critical issues of professionalism is limited. Different perspectives on practice, reflection and learning seem to be in play, with possibly too much of a silo/solo approach to each. We end with some reflections on the implications for pedagogical practice in relation to work experience programming.
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has came to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.
One, place-making, is perhaps more means than end, the other, well-being, more end than means – but they are indubitably linked; we know this at our core, from everyday - and extraordinary – experience. But it does seem to require a shift in perspective to fully see and feel, and validate, all this. They have a primalcy and potency that demands we make this effort, in service to our selves – individually and collectively, if we are not simply to survive but to thrive, if we are not doomed to languish but to flourish. Well-being and place cannot simply be studied as objective ‘its’ – they are an integration of integrations, in flux, as dynamic enactions. The concern needs to be with the enacting that is place- making and with the enacting of well-being (as whole-making) – ongoing productions both, that might just be amenable to some enlightened planning, policy and design. But how? At the very least, it is suggested, we will need to take a more integral approach.
This paper reports findings from textual analysis of the journals submitted by students who undertook the 2013 Planning Field Placement Course for the undergraduate degree of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of South Australia. We discuss the extent to which the reflective narratives contained in journal assignments demonstrate student expectations about the goals of work experience and their relative focus on descriptive versus reflective dimensions of work experience learning. We conclude that whilst the learning is quite significant, the extent of reflection on critical issues of professionalism is limited. Different perspectives on practice, reflection and learning seem to be in play, with possibly too much of a silo/solo approach to each. We end with some reflections on the implications for pedagogical practice in relation to work experience programming.
professional education, with a focus on design as the
underlying process and outcome. Professional education
is fundamentally about the education of professionals
i.e. live, living people, rather than inanimate objects. A
direct focus on the education of professionals in design
contexts naturally leads to curiosity around the design
of the designers-in-the-making, drawing out the
constitutive elements of the personal/professional
interface.
We are thus in the realms of professional-self design,
where the subject and object of the designing is the
prospective designer themselves – in terms of what they
intend to profess, and how, and why. This is subtly, but
significantly, different from a focus on the essentially
impersonal subject matter – in this case, architecture.
The intent here is to privilege architect education (rather
than architectural education) i.e. the making of
architects, rather than the making of architecture.
The associated professional education needs to be more
consciously designed to support this distinction, which
may be accomplished through an extraordinary regard
for extraordinary integrations. This presentation reports
on some learning from an ongoing experiment in
enabling such professional-self design (Friesen and
Wight, 2009), by approaching the education challenge as
an effort to realize certain integrations. These key
‘makings’ of professionals (involving much inner work),
are named here as praxis (personal), ethos (interpersonal)
and poiesis (trans-personal) (Wight 2012b).
This triad represents the form-response to the
questions: What makes a professional? What does a
professional make?
Through intensive directed journaling, their professional-self design emerged in the form of what has come to be regarded as a praxis statement - that can light the way through the labyrinths, vortices, and forests of public, professional life. Here, four former students, after at least two years of actual professional planning practice, reflect on their praxis statements, especially the swordplay between early ideals and their two-years on reality, but also on the light that continued to serve as a source of inspiration; their day-to-day practice of planning enlightened, by something deeper and wider and brighter – by their praxis.