"The earth has music for those who listen."
William Shakespeare.
It was foolhardy...
[Middle English: from Old French folhardi, from fol 'foolish' + hardi 'bold' (see hardy).]
It came from reading Sean Michael Morris's post
"On love, critical pedagogy, and the work we must do."
It was his final paragraph which really touched me:
"As I finish writing this post, I can hear the distant call to prayer carried on the breeze over Cairo. I pause to listen, to wonder at why it stirs me. I must always allow myself to be stirred -- by learners, by teachers, by pedagogy, by the weird transpersonal nature of digital networks -- and I must always let that stirring call me to critical practice in my teaching."
I not so much thought but was captured by this instant. I took a piece of paper and scribbled some words and some lines and some shading.
"What is most precious?" I wonder.
Love - that is present - in the moment.
Giving-forgiving.
To be attentive to ourselves, to others, so that we may move beyond ourselves.
To be alive to silence, to words, to meaning.
To accept our common vulnerability, our inability to communicate, our ability to not quite communicate...
To be alive to our common humanity and our relationship with time...
The time that is counted which counts for all but nothing.
What is knowledge without love?
It is foolhardy.
I put in the word "Love" in the search box of this blog.
I couldn't contain the word...it was beyond me.
I strived and I failed.
I gave up.
There were too many occurrences for me to contain them here.
I browsed through the posts, picking up pieces which caught my attention.
Other pieces will capture my attention tomorrow.
I make some sort of order of this.
It is vain.
We cannot be contained my friends, neither love, neither learning, neither education.
We are for ever in movement, spirit more than bones.
We are ether with a voice.
Educare
Making space is the most important role for the teacher,
In MemorIam
"There is no sense if there is no love.
There is no education if there is no love.
There is no learning worth learning if there is no love."
So that we may be alive.
"A light breeze is dancing on my skin.
I can feel the hairs on my arms moving.
I can hear the leaves in the trees..."
Educational Complex
"There is this idea of always striving, never arriving, of being authentic in our relations with the other...in this our lives."
Remember Stormier Days
"Hacking 'On the shore', I discover hidden waves, hidden rhythms.
I am swept out to sea.
I love the sea."
Feint intention.
"Scrawl etched on surface
Criss-crossing haphazard lines;
Feint intention felt."
In a Different Light
"I contemplate photos in no particular order.
I am not looking to do anything.
I let myself wander.
I love this feeling of freedom.
Where will I be taken today?"
"We are thrown out and there we lie, helpless.
Little by little we try to make sense of our lot.
I think we all come to the same conclusion: Alone we are meaningless."
Little by little we try to make sense of our lot.
I think we all come to the same conclusion: Alone we are meaningless."
Dear Maha
"We must unpick the colonisation of our minds, bodies, spirit, as children of the slaves and the slave-owners, as mothers, as fathers, as sisters and as brothers."
Distance Learning
“Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Being Here.
"The word content is beginning to feel like a pervasive prison.
We have all the content in the world but we appear to be unhappily self-contained.
I am coming to the impression that the concept'content' hides a distinct world view...the politics, the economics of enclosure, of appropriation, of extraction, of individual isolation/wealth/poverty/identity, of identifiable authors, of 'scientific progress', of superiority over nature.."
Order from chaos.
"An inflexible frame is a corpse"
The Fear of Silence
"Colossal rigidity, whether in dinosaurs or dictatorships, has a very poor record of evolutionary survival."
Carl Rogers
Souk
"Navigating through formatted academic wasteland where orderly discussion is the order of the day,
I soon start tapping my fingers, looking out of the window, find any distraction from the monotony."
Learning is a mechanism.
Eclosuredisclosurenclosure"We must unpick the colonisation of our minds, bodies, spirit, as children of the slaves and the slave-owners, as mothers, as fathers, as sisters and as brothers."
Distance Learning
“Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Being Here.
"The word content is beginning to feel like a pervasive prison.
We have all the content in the world but we appear to be unhappily self-contained.
I am coming to the impression that the concept'content' hides a distinct world view...the politics, the economics of enclosure, of appropriation, of extraction, of individual isolation/wealth/poverty/identity, of identifiable authors, of 'scientific progress', of superiority over nature.."
Order from chaos.
"An inflexible frame is a corpse"
The Fear of Silence
"Colossal rigidity, whether in dinosaurs or dictatorships, has a very poor record of evolutionary survival."
Carl Rogers
Souk
"Navigating through formatted academic wasteland where orderly discussion is the order of the day,
I soon start tapping my fingers, looking out of the window, find any distraction from the monotony."
Learning is a mechanism.
"We need STANDARDS to stand for.
We need STANDARDS to brandish.
We need STANDARDS to rally the troops."
"There's always some clever clogs who shows off his obsessionally finicketedly constructed plastic scale model."
"non-feeling of being undead one can get when one looks at one's watch every two minutes to see when the working day will be finished."
Time is not money.
"While it lasts...
Take your little paper envelope.
"Now hush!"
I shall not just take."
"While it lasts...
Take your little paper envelope.
"Now hush!"
I shall not just take."
"Critical moments, of connecting with others uncritically, semenly critically, a mass of bodies, a mire."
"The definition of scholarship seems to be open to negotiation.
I prefer to be called Simon anyway.
If that name gives me no authority to be curious and to be heard...why?
Wasn't that the idea of democracy?"
"When I hear 'it is generally accepted that we need to be raising a generation of life-long learners', I fear that what we may be saying is that we need to have a generation who will have to accept geographic mobility, instability, constant retraining, for ever diminishing returns."
Fear of flying.
"I don't believe that we can progress as communities, as societies, without play, without taking risks.
I don't believe that we can work with people as if they were disconnected parts to be machined.
I believe that we are in the dark ages of human social development."
The Fear of Silence
"The degree to which I can create relationships which facilitate the growth of others as separate persons, is a measure of the growth I have achieved in myself."
How on earth can our growth be measured?
Can pedagogy be sustainable if it does not accept change?
Are we really concerned about the growth of others or are we too full of our empty selves?
"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."
Carl Rogers
Ajar
"There were so many silent years.
I am beginning to miss listening.
There are so many unexplored avenues."
Nature, Nurture, Network
"I think my educational world changed when I started viewing myself and my fellow learners as one of these 'little guys', part of a wilder, wider learning ecology."
"They begin to realise that the real interest of the holiday was not the bus, was not the destinations, was not the surf-boards, the bucket and spades and the whole palaver but the shared story.
The man with the umbrella joins them again in St Tropez, they sit down on the beach, they exchange stories around a glowing camp-fire, they laugh about the madness of the venture, the absurd sight of seeing Mildred trying to waterski, they sing songs, they plan new trips.
Finally, those instants spent around the camp-fire make the rest of it all seem worth it.
From afar, young kids hear the laughter, see the glow, and dream."
"Joyfully sow seeds narrowly and widely, nurture saplings, tell stories, share fruit...have a laugh."
"There was a gleam in his eye.
There was a connection.
I suddenly felt a spark run through me.
I suddenly felt a whole lot less tired.
There was a connection.
I suddenly felt a spark run through me.
I suddenly felt a whole lot less tired.
Joy rises.
This is joy.
This is spring.
This is love.
It is infectious."
This is joy.
This is spring.
This is love.
It is infectious."
"People care, people are generous, they would love a better lot for them, for us, they are awaiting a lead not a promise. We are not all maggots."
I thought back to Maxime's lines:
"Let us weep.
These sheets are tagged with our humanity.
Let it bleed my friends, it is that which binds us.
Let us laugh out loud at this madness.
Laughter gives us strength.
While we may..."
These sheets are tagged with our humanity.
Let it bleed my friends, it is that which binds us.
Let us laugh out loud at this madness.
Laughter gives us strength.
While we may..."
"Whatever they had done, however many steps they had taken, however many places they had seen, they had all disappeared into some black hole."
"I suppose that when I am absent other people might imagine or say that I have 'presence'.
Well I suppose I have presence in my absence."
Well I suppose I have presence in my absence."
"I have proof that they have ceased to exist now...of sorts.
They still talk to me.
Maybe I am in touch with the spirit world.
I am still deeply attached."
They still talk to me.
Maybe I am in touch with the spirit world.
I am still deeply attached."
"I am becoming unable to follow their traces. I am now reliant on others who will be able to tell their part of the story, a part in which I am now absent."
"We are unfinished monsters....
We are alone, at the mercy of others, helpless...
What is needed my friends is not passion driven learning but compassion driven learning."
"Perhaps that is the most important thing to try to learn from these courses: how to push ones' own limits and continue to live peacefully with others who challenge them."
"If there is no one 'COMMUNITY' then there can only ever be personal ethics and desires which will vary and fluctuate according to who, with whom and when and where people interact."
Random Eyes
"No matter. I am now looking at this page anew.
It is blank, crying out for a release from its mutism.
It is a dumb waiter.
I am flying down to a basement.
If only the top will keep spinning.
I will write before it is too late."
"No matter. I am now looking at this page anew.
It is blank, crying out for a release from its mutism.
It is a dumb waiter.
I am flying down to a basement.
If only the top will keep spinning.
I will write before it is too late."
"How did my voice escape?
It is living on borrowed time."
"There is power in our silence."
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see."
