Know Thyself…

Explore, Assess, Reflect & Rethink

If we don’t learn from what we do, we learn little of real value. If we don’t create the time to explore, assess, reflect, and rethink our ways of doing  things, we will never grow, evolve and reach our greatest potential or tap into the possibilities of our lives. Writing a metacognition is our way to Explore our experiences as students and teachers, and then to honestly Assess our strengths and weaknesses, to willfully and wisely Reflect on what we did—and did not—do, and to Rethink how to move forward in a positive and more enlightened way towards a better and more applicable and capable future.

A Reflection on Reading & Writing

When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.
Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.

~Laozu, The Dao de Qing

I went to Beijing Teachers College, in China, almost forty years ago. 1981 or 1982. I was not a particularly good student, but I loved living in China—when China was a much more rural country than now. There were few cars on the streets of Beijing and only one high rise building, the Beijing Hotel—that dwarfed the skyline at almost ten stories high—where the few foreigners, business seekers and reporters in the city lived and stayed and drank and dissipated their days and nights away—or so it seemed to me. The Chinese people, aside from the communist party elite, were invariably poor, but incessantly gracious, and few seemed unhappy. One night while visiting a Zhang Hong Nian, a poet, artist and friend of mine, I asked how, in the face of such daily hardship, the average Chinese person maintained their dignity and sense of humor.

Every stone counts...

I'm not ignoring you.
I'm busy building my empire.
~Moosa Rahat

Language is the gift—as well as the tool—allowing and enabling us to appreciate, understand, and express the complexity and nuance of our inner and outer lives. Our language builds upon itself, and it evolves, as we evolve, to breathe the newest air of the universe. The right words bring clarity to chaos and echo long in the halls of existence. Those who listen will be enlightened, and those who read will be entranced by the mysterious alchemy of a shared language. It is this sharing of words that begs our focus. We need to let the words we use bubble up from the broth of shared experience, and as like minds congregate, you will find your audience as much as they will find you.

Read. Write. Create. Share. 
Collaborate. Assess. Reflect.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” 

― Heraclitus

     I am a writer teaching writing and a reader whose life has been, and continues to be, inspired by other writers—including you, you luckless souls who have been forces or coerced onto a yearlong journey with, yes, me..

For better or worse, my text is my life—the rambled gleanings of crafted words and endless wonderings distilled into the home-brew that intoxicates and invigorates my soul. I am not cut from a cloth of pedagogy or a shroud of hubris. I care remarkably little about what’s other teachers do or what or why or how they teach. I am not a rebel in any sense of the word, but maybe a pragmatist who has tried and done, tried and failed, and tried and done again. In the end, like in so much of life, experience and repetition wins the day. I would rather you set sail everyday in  flimsy dories and labor through the rips, tides and fickle winds of actual experience and feel the intricate pulsing of hard wood and soft sails across safe harbors. The tiller is your pen. The lines and blocks, mast and sails, compass and charts will bleed your hands, and sharpen your wits in a sea of enduring humility parsed in adventurous awe—and when the winds are still and your brain is a dark and dull mirror, then unsheathe your oars and row.