Know Thyself…
Explore, Assess, Reflect & Rethink

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

    If we don’t learn from what we do, we learn little of real value. If we don’t make 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 metacognition’s 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.

Living through the Heroic Cycle

We must let go of the life we have planned, 
so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
~Joseph Campbell

    Nobody ever told me to read The Odyssey—and that was the greatest educational travesty of my life. I first read it after High School while working at Colonial Motors in West Concord. I didn't "get it" any more than the most confused among you, but what I did do is "feel it." I felt its primordial power and emotional bareness; I felt another world, another age, and another human journey come alive inside of me. It made me feel that I was a part of long and unbroken lineage of humanity searching for truth and purpose in a world—especially my world, a world not always blessed with clarity and opportunity. I had always been the kid in the back of the class staring out the window dreaming of a better world—and scheming a way to get there. I liked to read, and we read good books in school, but I only lived in those books for the moment. Good books were like a party with a great group of friends: fun, exciting, and memorable, but not life changing. They died, most of them, the moment I closed the book; but, The Odyssey changed my life.  It showed me that wisdom is not learned, it is cultivated by deliberation and attentiveness.

The Power of Memory

Write what you know.

~Mark Twain

    I don’t always practice what I preach, especially when it comes to the simple, unaffected, and ordinary “journal entry.” Much of my reticence towards the casual journal entry is the public nature of posting our journal writing as blogs that are more or less “open” to the public. It is hard for me as a teacher of writing to post an entry that I know is trivial, mundane, and perhaps of no interest to my readers—but that is precisely what I need to do if I am to model the full spectrum of the writing process. Keeping a journal is more than a search for lofty thoughts amidst the detritus of the day; it is a practice that keeps our wits and writing skills honed for a coming feast by rambling through the meat of the day and drifting and sailing to whatever port is nearest to my pen. Writing is always an odyssey, and so I have to let my mind go and journey (journal) where it will.

Discover Your Narrative Voice

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
~Ernest Hemingway

My Take on the Assignment

     Sometimes I wonder if Fitz even knows what our lives are like. I mean, he gives us weird writing assignments and leaves out things like, well, details. It’s like all he knows how to do is assign work. Oh, yes, and of course, writing is the only essential skill we need to learn, even though in the same breath he says things like, “Nobody cares about you...” That’s just mean on every level.

But there he is right now, leaning back in his rattly old chair, pecking away on his computer, checking the “big brother” app on his iPad that lets him see if we are “irresponsibly” using our iPads. Since nobody cares about us, I guess he won’t even find the time to care about me, so I will just type away and try to get this stupid assignment finished before the due date--which is on a day when we don’t even have class. 

I think I’ll complain to my advisor about him. That will teach him to think outside the box. Maybe Mr. Boonisar will haul him into his office and threaten to fire him unless he becomes a better teacher--one that lets us do what we want. (Only kidding) (actually, no, not really). 

Uh, oh... Fitz just asked me to put my work on the humungo TV in our classroom. How humiliating! Now he is going to point out everything I have done wrong with this assignment. Here it comes. He is even standing up. This is bad...

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. He even said--in front of the whole class--that my writing is pretty good. He even had a few good ideas for how to make my writing piece better.  

Whoa...and look. I got an A on this.

[This is exactly 300 words]

What’s Your Point?

Knowing that you do not understand is a virtue;

Not knowing that you do not understand is a defect.

—Lao Tzu

     Nobody likes to be wrong, and for that matter, most of us “like” to be right. Few of us walk around writing, saying or thinking, “Boy, my opinions and views are certainly shallow, uninformed, and alarmingly trivial—but here is what I think….” We like to be assured that what we know and feel is valid and real and informed, for there is a serenity in knowing that we know—or that we have thoughtfully reached a level of knowingness that is somewhere near to certainty. I admit that a certain jealousy sweeps over me when I hear or read someone say exactly what I already think and feel (and though I knew) but I just never found the words or the way to say it with that much eloquence and clarity.

Create, Collate & Curate

Make your blog a compelling digital portfolio

     Avoid digital damnation by creating, collating, and curating an informed, powerful and positive digital footprint in an increasingly connected world.

   How to be a Writer

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”

—Enid Bagnold

    This is the time—the dog days of summer—when writing can become more of a chore than a pleasure. The hot days and humid nights don't always lend themselves to creative and articulate thought; plus, the day is always full of enticing and entrancing possibilities. Because writing is part and parcel of my daily life, I need to create a time and a place to write that works for me no matter where I am or what I am otherwise doing.

Finding Truth in Words   

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain
 

     I am constantly asking my students (and myself) to reflect on the literature they, and I, read. As I have grown older—and not necessarily wiser—I find myself only reading literature that I am sure will prod me out of my intellectual and emotional torpor, like a lizard basking in the newfound warmth of spring. Right now it happens to be The Brothers Karamazov, a book I first read as an eighteen-year-old literary newbie. It might have been the first time I didn’t turn away from a book because of the daunting length of the text and the panoramic sweep of life it covers. It is now a completely new experience, though it still resonates with the young and restless soul that even now permeates the fibres and sinews of my aging and ageless self. That book made me think.—and forced me to think beyond and into my myopic experience of life thus far.

I thought this essay of mine might be a good way to approach "Tech-Free Day." Though it is somewhat ironic that it is a blog post:)

Yes, your parents are petrified…

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

     They are petrified by the reality that your iPad and phone screens have become the constant and continual portal through which you live your lives. They are petrified that the tether between parent and child is frayed and fraying even more. It is not like the "old days" days that came (with challenges of their own) when parents could look out on the backyard and see with clear eyes exactly what you were doing. When you were in the house, they saw what you watched. When you answered the phone—a clunky box screwed to a wall—they knew who you were talking with; they knew their names and their parent's name and where they lived. They knew what plans were being hatched and where you were going. They knew what book you were reading or what card game or board game you were playing.