All my life, I remember hearing Julie Andrews, as Maria, sing that line in The Sound Of Music… “Let’s start at the very beginning… a very good place to start…”

While we must set aside the fact that she is outlining the very basics of melody, notes and song – what she is doing is quite complicated.

Nothing starts at the beginning without as basis.

• We rock on our bellies before we crawl, before we walk.
• We coo and grunt before we babble and then eventually (thank goodness) speak; then learning to read and write.
• We count blocks, then add blocks and take away apples before we add in oranges – leading to algebra and perhaps calculus.
• Students, become learners, then peers, and perhaps they become teachers…

We never start at the very beginning, truly, unless we go back to the day we were born. Every thing we have learned throughout our lives gets us to the next moment of learning, the next moment of opportunity, the next moment of exclamation that we understand and we can now teach, lead and mentor others. It is a process, a lifelong process that is never, never truly done until…we are. So, until then, keep moving forward, keep learning, keep growing and share your knowledge with others.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl