Identity Stories to Jettison

Abstract

We propose to call our familiar everyday world the “world of measurement” in order to highlight the central position held by assessments, scales, standards, grades, and comparisons…

All the manifestations of the world of measurement—the winning and losing, the gaining of acceptance and the threatened rejection, the raised hopes and the dash into despair—all are based on a single assumption that is hidden from our awareness…life is about staying alive and making it through—surviving in a world of scarcity and peril…

Let us suppose now that a university of possibility stretches beyond the world of measurement to include all worlds: infinite, generative, and abundant…In the realm of possibility, we gain our knowledge by invention…We speak with an awareness that language creates categories of meaning that open up new worlds to explore. Life appears as variety, pattern, and shimmering movement, inviting us in every moment to engage…

The action in a universe of possibility may be characterized as generative, or giving, in all senses of that word: producing new life, creating new ideas, consciously endowing with meaning, contributing, yielding to the power of contexts. (Zander & Zander, 2000, pp. 17–18)