Outside our
new home we have a magnificent black walnut tree, from all aspects of our small
apartment we can see the solid grey/brown of its sturdy trunk, at night we hear
the wind rushing through the leaves and the soft sway of its boughs. Its height dwarfs the newly built wooden
pavilions; it has come from another land, as have so many in the community we
have recently joined.
Lately I
have been reminded on two separate and very different occasions of the power of
the technological advances that have been made over the last decades, notably
in the area of communication which has increased the potential for human connection all
over the world. However, this is not
being mirrored with any sense of change in the quality of human relationships:
wars continue; fragmentation of communities continues; greed and exploitation
abound. In addition to this there is
ever increasing evidence of the dehumanising of much of humanity. Systems, profits, economics and policies are
destroying the lives of the poor, the vulnerable, the weak and the powerless in
all parts of the world.
So what as an
educator can I do? For I must do
something. Years ago, just before
finishing my course in education, I heard some people discussing teachers
referring to that group as ‘a bunch of mischief-makers’. Since then I have caught myself from time to
time being drawn into the mass of people whose view of the young has not
changed much since the Victorian era, finding myself being inadvertently
institutionalised. However, where I am now
this role of the teacher is being challenged and that is why I am here. In a community where the intentions of the
place are explicit in learning about the whole of life, then it is incumbent
upon all of us to explore all aspects of living. However, there is a danger here that in such
beautiful surroundings, superb healthy food, comfortable living, where there is
intentionally no pressure, day to day life slips into a goldfish bowl of
self-absorption and complacency that separates the community from the outside
world: the inner from the outer. So finding a means to connect with the outer world is very important and to explore the conditions where the teacher becomes the student and the student the teacher, and falling back on
the authority of knowledge and experience is not enough. Being a conduit of
expertise to furnish the desire for certainty is no longer the role of the
teacher in a world where living is a process of uncertainty. Interestingly, many of us, staff and
students, have been experiencing moments frustration, inertia, and doubt, typical of the
transitional stage in the movement towards radical change.
