Recurring themes from discussions this week:
-Stockpile experiences
- Realize that the worst thing in life is death, and it’s coming anyways. Pretty liberating
- Don’t try to do too much in any given period of time (classroom lesson, life lesson)
- Exude possibility, avoid the downward spiral
- Take risks now. They’re not really risks at this point in life anyways…
Delete delete delete delete delete delete delete. [Start over] Delete delete delete delete delete delete delete [Try again]
What am I writing about?
Just write, god dammit!
Words fly around when I’m lying in bed, slowly morphing. Morph, morphing, murphy, Erick Murphy, E, elevator, elevator pitch, business plan…Son of a bitch I’m about to start thinking of my class again…
What am I doing tomorrow? What do I need to pick up, what do I need to grade, what do I need to plan, what is coming next?
Delete delete delete delete delete [Move on]
Just write, god dammit!
On the one hand, we’re screwed. There are so many more people in this world (or at least this world, however you want to define/confine it) who want things handed to them. They might say they want to think, make their own decisions, “problem solve,” but they don’t. So, we’re screwed. The masses need to be fed, and the masses want people to feed them, so the masses will choose people to lead who will meet their needs… Nothing wrong with feeding people, by the way. But if we’re going to feed everyone and no one wants to create any of the food, we’re going to need some magicians to start emerging from the woodwork.
That’s the incoherent, skeptical thought of the day.
But really, I don’t believe it.
I’ve seen so many of my generation show they are committed to a revolution. A revolution in the education system, for one. A revolution in the political system, another. A revolution in technology, a third. A revolution in the way we eat food, a revolution in the way we read, a revolution in the way we think about thinking, whatever it is, there’s a revolution awaiting.
That’s inspiring. That’s overwhelming. That’s cheesy and naïve and youthful, but why dismiss it? It could be genuine.
And that’s the rub. Some will say this is how it always is. They’ll say the youth always have new ideas, then they become old and realize the old way is just fine. Why is this time any different?
And I’d say it may not be, but why not roll with it?
You’d say it could be a big waste of time and money to blow up things that are alright the way they are.
I’d say the institutions we have are in need of some dynamite.
So to link one rambling piece of nonsense to my earlier rambling nonsensical pessimistic thought-of-the-day,
If a bunch of folks are waiting to be handed their bread, but the rest of us are trying to create a new kind of food, what is going to happen? Are we going to cave in and start making bread? Or are we going to convince those folks that they’ll like our dish just fine.
Let’s fire up the stove.
Guess who’s not been doing an awesome job of blogging?
……
This guy.
I don’t know what it is… I love talking to people and having long conversations about anything and everything. Yet, somehow when it comes to putting those conversations into the permanent archive, I don’t get around to it.
Maybe it’s the fact that once an idea or thought has been explored via the spoken word, it becomes less useful for me to clarify via the written word. Maybe I’ve been viewing blogging as a forum to unleash new ideas to whomever is willing to see them, and once that idea has been shared in any capacity, it is no longer fit for a posting. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m lazy.
I think it’s some combination of many things, but I know that it is essential that I start consistently writing in some form or fashion.
I’ve viewed writing as a therapeutic tool that clarifies the mind when cloudy, but I havn’t used the pen in more lucid times. Writing has been my last-ditch surgery to a wiser man’s preventative medicine.
Additionally, as Steven Johnson’s new book (and Ted video) Where Good Ideas Come From describes, ideas take a while to germinate and go through a slow process before the “eureka” moment that we all hear about. Great innovations are usually the product of collaboration with and transformation of earlier kernels of thinking. If things can get rolling, maybe this blog can contribute to the formation of some cool ideas in some form or fashion!
So… Let the awesomeness re-commence. If you find anything great happening, please tell me about it! If you would like to post directly to this blog about awesome doings, please let me know! And pleeeease if you have any suggestions about how to get in the habit of writing, send those over!!
There will be more on this when I have time to catch my breath. All I’ll say for now is that this first week has taken me from extreme self doubt to moderate self confidence, extreme frustration to elation. I’ve been teaching a summer school remedial algebra 2 class for 3 days, and I already feel like it’s been a month. I am going to learn a whole lot over the next 4 weeks during Institute and I cannot wait to apply all of my soon-to-be-learned skills in my own classroom in the Fall.
I have a new respect for all of my good teachers from the past. The logistical balancing act, physical and emotional stamina, and intellectual and organizational rigor demanded on a daily basis is staggering. No matter how hard I work over the next 2 years, there is no possible way to become a master teacher in that amount of time- it’s possible to be good, but mastery in this field cannot come naturally, only through lots of practice.
So, shout out to all the awesome teachers out there who hold their kids to high expectations and make them work, learn, and love to work and learn. I’m honored to be joining the ranks.
Keep this in mind when you are trying to do awesome. Or at least, keep this in mind when you have those decisions in life that on the one hand could be safe and sure but static, and on the other hand seem risky, uncomfortable, and dangerous but have the potential to widen your perspective in a truly dynamic way.
After all, Steve Jobs said it. If Steve Jobs jumped off a cliff, you know you would too.
hv23:
Source: jonathanmooreCreativity is just connecting things.
The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we have.
Via Kitsune Noir
Thanks for the link from Future Contributor and Awesome-Doer Harish at hv23.tumblr.com:
http://www.kk.org/about-me.php
Check out this guy’s life experience. Instead of taking the tried and true route of school-university-working life, Kelly decided to go a different way and learn in an immersive, fully independent manner. Seems to have worked quite well for him.
As I write this during a short break from Teach For America induction, Kelly’s experience and subsequent contributions to the collective knowledge of the world are making me think about how I can work his kind of creative learning into my “traditional” classrooms. The question I will be asking myself constantly over the course of my teaching career will be “How can I make my students love to learn?” Kelly found this passion, and somewhere along the course of my life, I have too. Now it’s time relay that down the line…
If you guys ever had particularly awesome teachers who inspired you to go beyond the scope of class, who inspired you to be creative, who inspired you to do awesome things, please let me know what they did. I need all the inspiration I can get!
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“Join Airkumar@gmail.com in Doing Awesome”
Yes, Please
Awesome People,
This blog will be dedicated to the pursuit of awesome. Awesome adventures, awesome thoughts, awesome music, awesome beings, and all sorts of other awesome. As you can imagine, just about anything is fair game; we live in a pretty awesome world, and inspiration can come from anywhere.
Sidebar- the word awesome will probably be used more on the blog than anywhere else the english language is spoken. Not quite as much as this post, but still higher than the mean.
Be on the lookout for a real inaugural post sometime soon. And please, if you are doing awesome stuff, get in touch so you can share your experiences with all of us!
