Friday, June 20, 2008
What shall I call you? Girls? Guys? Chaps? Horrors? How about "Dear Students in my care?"
Whatever the name, a thing is itself and nothing else, and, as the saying goes What goes, goes and is over and done with. I am looking at your class, and hearing about your class, and I'm wondering Is this really what they want to do?
Life is a terrific thing, but it's there only once and we can't undo what we choose to do with it. Learning is not about things on the outside, it's about yourself, about recognising what life asks of you and about inspiring yourself to work. It's a sort of training to search and find an occuption that consumes you and will always be a many-toned adventure...it's a training towards being able to say This is me, this is not. Not everyone ever gets there, but the reason we have student-time and teacher-space is that we should become habituated to think of ourselves as capable of that search. And believe me, that is great "fun" - to know what you can do. And this knowing comes from taking yourself seriously, oh, I don't mean you should discard fun and laughter, but to giggle when you should be thinking?
Wake up, wake up to your intellect - examine, categorise, classify, separate, discriminate, order...bring some rigour into your thinking, your work, your way of presenting your knowledge. And find a point of reference other than your own self. There's a whole world of events, people, thoughts and ideals out there. Look outward; read, read, read and think.
Oof, that's it.
K