How about a little Nikos Kazantzakis and a some Kurt Hahn. Let’s look over the edge of that leaf and tremble and let’s take a walk where we can find a little stream and sit back in the cool grass discover some water moving by us. And just listen.
I need challenge. I need a wee bit of conflict – internally or externally. I need to feel. Tired and exhausted. Fully awake and energetic, I need to look over that edge every so often to get going. To be poetry.
This is from Zorba the Greek. Forgive the long quote, but it is one of my favorites.
“We are little grubs, Zorba, minute grubs on the small leaf of a tremendous tree. The small leaf is the earth. The other leaves are the stars that you see moving at night. We make our way on this little leaf examining it anxiously and carefully. We smell it; it smells good or bad to us. We taste it and find it eatable. We beat on it and it cries out like a living thing.
“Some men — the more intrepid ones — reach the edge of the leaf. From there we stretch out, gazing into chaos. We tremble. We guess what a frightening abyss lies beneath us. In the distance we can hear the noise of the other leaves of the tremendous tree, we feel the sap rising from the root of our leaf and our hearts swell. Bent thus over the awe-inspiring abyss, with all our bodies and all our souls, we tremble with terror. From that moment begins…”
“I stopped. I wanted to say “from that moment begins poetry,” but Zorba would not have understood. I stopped.
“‘What begins’? asked Zorba’s anxious voice. ‘Why did you stop’?
“…begins the great danger, Zorba. Some grow dizzy and delirious, others are afraid; they try to find an answer to strengthen their hearts, and they say: ‘God’! Others again, from the edge of the leaf, look over the precipice calmly and bravely and say, ‘I like it!”
Yummy right? We should all be so lucky as to be, “…that moment begins poetry”
But what about school and all the stuff that presses down upon us as educators? The bureaucracy. The global condition? The unhappy student or colleague? I think finding the adventure in our work, finding challenge and adventure help me remain excited about the work I get to do.
I think I do this: Look upon my work as if I am a student.
To try to self-impose some of the guidance that Kurt Hahn may have liked to use in his schools. You know of Kurt Hahn? Among many other things, he founded our modern “Outward Bound” and the notions around expeditionary learning.
There are a number of ways of learning that he observed, but the Seven Laws of Salem come to mind as really useful in keeping up with the joy of the work. Here they are.
- Give the children opportunities for self-discovery.
- Make the children meet with triumph and defeat.
- Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause.
- Provide periods of silence
- Train the imagination.
- Make games important but not predominant.
- Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege.
In my work, working with teachers and improvement, I could easily change the word “children” to “teachers.” Or better yet, to “me.”
Give me the opportunity for self-discovery and periods of silence. Yeah, I’ll take some of that every day.
