Wok and Roll and lots of laughter

............................................................... This Friday night the students,some colleagues and I will sit down for a Chinese dinner and reflect on those almost five months of teaching and studying - were we ( was I with English as my subject ) able to motivate them? Did we cover enough material?Have their skills improved? When will the better ones move from our present rather mechanical conscious competency level to the more magical unconscious competency one? None of this "serious stuff" happened..instead there was a lot of laughter,good food and easy togetherness and a few guest joiners as well.


It seems and feels like the atmosphere in the class has gotten a bit "rougher" and a bit less inviting.....maybe the more difficult tests are to blame for this heating up? Or maybe the students know more of each others' knacks and neurosis(es )and have they not also figured us out - their teachers by now? Again - no heaviness here - just a lot of sympathetic good will!Whatever - school shuts down on December 18th and we won't come back until January 5th,2009.

There is a nice Christmas tree in our building and I hope you will enjoy the embedded John Lennon Happy Christmas ( War is Over ) song as well.

Thinking or sinking: my resolutions for 2009

The young coast guard cadet in the embedded video has a hard time to be precise with his English prenunciation....I,too would like to improve on my up to now rather diffuse 2009 goals and desires.....So what changes do I truly want to bring about in 2009?

1. I definitely would like to continue teaching beyond the summer vacation of 2009- the tricky part here is that on this one I am dependent upon outside readiness or hiring willingness.

2. I plan to remodel my downstairs...new carpet;new lighting;much less clutter and maybe a wider bed as well.

3. To throw away some of my books and magazines - a painful process - but necessary.

4. To drink more tap water during the day.

5. A good idea would be to control the volume of my outgoing emails.

6. It would be wise to eat even less meat products and to allow for two 5 to seven days fasts in 2009.

7. To clean my car and to check it on a more regular basis.

8. To accept "what is" in form of the "present moment" much more often and in many more situations i.e. a restaurant or crowded places.

9. To soften my facial expression - so that my gratitude and goodness will more readily shine thru me.

10. To stay away from impulse buying of books or DVDs especially at Amazon.de by reflecting if I really do need that particular product.

11. To find a certain number of motivational speakers for my/our Paderborner Gesundheitsstammtisch.

12. To create situations where I can generate this feeling of I AM more often and thus to deepen this sense of knowing.....

Especially the last resolution will help me to stay well afloat throughout 2009 - thus no SOS signal and no sinking scenario will be necessary.

No longer just YouTube - here is Yappr

The opportunities to practice our English have never been better....and now there is this new service called Yappr...just watch the video and see if Yappr provides additional possibilities for you...for me as a teacher the best parts would be: to see and read the text and the ability to hear the last senstence again...let's try it out at school real soon.

In English - please!

When I came home from school around noon today - I saw this new poster with its picture perfect message - easy morning - and only my students will understand why this image cheered my up!

Presents or Presence

What will the coming holiday season bring you: presents or presence...if you watch the attached video it will be an easy answer...and you wonder how folks at the end of 2008 can still be so "unenlightened" - or is this satire? Not when you look at their bodies.

If - Second Category: Past and Conditional I

I just discovered this short song plus text by Beyonce - it is not only a nice melody but the text is also a great way to deepen our understandings concerning our second category if-sentences..who next will discover a song for our class where the third category will be used??

Obama is ONE with us

Here is another new word - I learned it today: edublogger

Edubloggers are mainly teachers , educators or students who blog about topics that relate to the vast field of education...so here I am: Jay - the edublogger....if only more folks or more colleagues took an interest in my/our writings.....hallo! We need your feedback...is there anybody out there??

Stuff-Lust and Road-Rage

As a teacher of English it is still fascinating to learn new words...stuff-lust is the latest one - I came across it yesterday while I was reading about the Black Friday shopping spree and the trampling ( killing ) of a Wal-Mart temp worker on Long Island the day after Thanksgiving at 5:00 in the morning.Another word I learned some time ago is road-rage and it suddenly dawned on me that there is an underlying connection between these two nouns.

"Stuff - lust" ( die Lust nach Zeugs ) describes the desire to get or buy more THINGS and "road-rage" ( im Verkehr in Rage sein ) refers to the anger and frustration that occurs within you when another driver doesn't conform to the way you would like that traffic situation to be...and there too - killings have taken place - all based on and triggered by road-rage.

What then seems to be causing these two conditions? Both are centered on and created by a fictitious sense of self - like: if only I had this flat screen TV (i.e. from Wal-Mart ) on my wall before Christmas I would and will be a 'better' or at least a happier person than I am now....road-rage happens when I base my fictitious sense of self on the amount of horse power or the dimensions of my car...like: watch out - don't stop me now - I am driving an Audi 8 and I am entitled to a high-speed driving style on any lane not just the very left one!! and especially so when I drive up the three lane hills of the Bielefelder Berge.....in both cases I am trying to derive my sense of self-worth from an object: the flat screen TV or from my powerful car - what a strange world!!

Why am I writing about this? I am thinking about my daughter and my students and their attempts to establish their sense of self through MORE...how do they go about defining who they are?As their parent and teacher I of course encourage them to pursue and to succeed in their schoolings - in other words: to pass their Abitur.And there is nothing wrong with this - except: what if my daughter and my students derive their sense of self from this endeavor as in: I have now passed my Abitur - I am therefore more 'complete' now - I am thus a different or 'better'person than my friends - whose schoolings stopped a long time ago etc. etc.

If they searched for their selfhood in this dimension they would do so on the same level where stuff-lust and road-rage manifest themselves...so the real question is:what school subject ( Schulfach ) would allow my daughter or my students to hear and be exposed to a different message or method of finding out who they really are or where to look for an answer in this daunting quest??

Paris - je t'aime

..................................................... Have you ever been on a train that travels at 318 km per hour during most of its journey? Well - that is the constant speed of the Thalys TGV once it leaves Brussels.From there it takes less than ninety minutes to reach Paris Gare du Nord...very impressive technology - although the German ICE may look more stylish and it may have more room inside its first class coaches than the Thalys - it can't measure up to the power of the Thalys! Plus in their first class they serve free drinks and a delicious cold meal - all included in the price..and you are even handed a printed menu card as a souvenir!! An adventure and a great start for my fifth trip with my daughter to the city of love and lights.

Our main intention was to visit the European Education Fair - see photo.I had hoped to get my daughter excited about some of the institutions that she may want to consider once she graduates from Highschool.... it worked out ok but the many booths presented quite a challenge for both of us.

We had much more fun in front of and on top of that famous Eiffel Tower.I had a chance to speak some French while exploring the sights - and it was my daughter's job to navigate us through the City using the metro - the cost for ten rides is only € 11,40. We plan to return in May/June 2009 when it is warmer and more inviting.

When I arrived in Paris for the first time in 1963 with my girl-friend from Kiel I had a one year contract with La Librairie Hachette on Boulevard Saint Germain as a stagiaire...and we lived not too far from where our hotel was this last week-end...so I pretty much felt at home in "my" 15eme arrondissement! My daughter had fun to revisit with the American owner of the Mon Bon Chien pet shop near by....see its home page at: www.mon-bon- chien-paris.com

Monkey Business

They say times are hard for restaurant owners in Tokyo - that may be true for most places but apparantly not for this dining place - they found a gimmick: a monkey who helps bring out the dishes...wouldn't it be nice to have such a helper at our school..how would we dress it?and what would we ask them to do:HOMEWORK!!!

The Art of Lurking

WOW! I have just discovered a great new blog for myself and my students: it is called:Think and Dream in English. It offers tons of new ideas and examples that we will be able to incorporate into our lessons.Just click on URL address on the top at your right. Here is a six minute video from that blog on how to best learn the Present Perfect tense....and there is - built into it - wahrscheinlich unbemerkt - a glitch...the demonstrating teacher is first using present perfect regular and then without notice he switches to the present perfect continuous!! That can of course be quite confusing to the learner! So - there are new resources out there on the Web - and yet: we need to be careful and cautious.

Life is short

In late May 2004 my present and cherished author Eckhart Tolle conducted his Findhorn Retreat at Findhorn a small spiritual community in Northern Scotland.These lectures are on DVD and on CD - I own both versions and while driving to work I am listening to these CDs - great materials to beat traffic.

Towards the end of the seminar he mentions a 45 seconds film: Life is short...and he is puzzled about the intention of the film..he speculates that maybe people wanted to sell more beer thru it - nevertheless it is a remarkable film about the human condition at this day and age: we seem to be hurtling through life on our backs ( to avoid looking at the misery we have created in the world of form on this planet ? ) and screaming in pain all the way - right into our grave!! What a crazy journey - and I wonder what role the field of education plays in this......and am I making my students "scream" as well by encouraging them to be future-oriented instead of grounding themselves in the present moment? Good question.

Free and Easy in New York City

The photo was taken exactly forty-four years and one month ago - it shows me in front of the famous Lorelei Dance Bar and Restaurant in "German Town" on East 86th Street in Manhattan......Steuben Parade.....I am standing next to the Lorelei owner Mr. Schröder ( sunglasses ) with my beau-tie and suspenders.....everybody is watching the parade and drinking in public is still permitted.

At that time I had two jobs: a day - time one at Ungar Publishing Company - we published dead serious books and Erich Fromm was our best known author. My second and more interesting job was at night at the Lorelei.I never got home before midnight and it was my duty to seat the customers and to sell them the so-called minimum cover charge tickets....3.00 USD dollars during the week and 3.75 USD dollars on weekends.These tickets could be redeemed for food or drinks - that way every guest was "forced" to spend at least that minimum.

I received tips, free meals and one glass of free German beer.I loved both jobs - the day one stretched my brain - the evening one was good for my body.New York was an electrifying place for me - the City had only one big drawback: it was impossible for me to meet "the girls" I mean real American girls - although the Lorelei was well known as a meeting and pick-up place - I never scored!! In the end I considered myself quite lucky - for it was as the song goes: no woman - no cries.....I was meant to be free and easy in Manhattan.

We are almost there

Good news: There are 22 students in my class and as of today 21 of them have started on their blog writing adventure....You are invited to click on their names for their interesting contributions....the idea is to report on a regular basis and thus witness the individual progress - so welcome to blogspot and to our new platform: the world of bloggers.

You are also encouraged to click on the Voice of America site....it provides us with lots of articles. A learner can not only read and print these texts...many of them are also available in audio format - in other words: it is not only possible to READ them but also to HEAR these documents in clearly spoken and authentic American English - what a great opportunity for all of us to improve on our present skills......I told my students to be proactive and to GO for it! They heard me say this many times - it was even on the blackboard under Habit number 7: Sharpen the Saw .....but who of them will follow through?? In other words: who will be ready...?

Yes - we can friends be

Ja, wir können Freunde sein - so why can we not just say: yes - we can friends be?? Or why couldn't we just say: where live you? Why do we have to struggle with: where do you live?

Someone told me that Mark Twain wrote a short article once on how to improve the German language - and apparantly one of his suggestions was to put the verb pretty close to the subject like: we can be friends ....so instead of saying : wir können Freunde sein he proposed: wir können sein Freunde. So let us not just be friends - maybe we should also become more flexible in how we use our mother tongues...

Letting go of "the story of me?"

Over the last weekend I - Jay - ( Dozent ) flew to Graz to finally meet with my Austrian friend Ernst( Jurist im Bereich Umweltschutz ) and my German friend Rainer ( General Konsul der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ) - it was a reunion of three "oldies" who originally had first met in the Fall of 1969 at the University Aix - Marseille in Aix-en-Provence.

I hadn't seen Ernst for about 37 years - and he and Rainer had said good-bye to each other almost 38 years ago.It was through the Internet that we rediscovered each other in 2007.Now about almost a year later Ernst warmly welcomed us at the regional airport of his home town.We shared nice memories and enjoyed an uplifting reunion.

The purpose of this entry,however,is not to reflect about our special weekend in Graz as an event - but rather to become clear what my present spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and others before him advise about how to deal with one's life story or "the story of me"....we all have a story ( Dozent;Jurist;General Konsul ) and most of us seem to derive our sense of who we are from the contents of our individual story.... I certainly did and it was easy because my life story has been a rather positive story and I get positive strokes when I talk about its highlights...so up to now I saw nothing "wrong" in equating the "story of me" with my own identity.....those experiences are mine,they helped to create and shape the person I am today - I thought they made up my personal beingness...

Now I am learning that there is nothing more beautiful than a failed human story - yes dear students: a failed story.....because a failed story makes it much less appealing to cling to it - easier to let go of it, to not even try to derive a sense of self from that failure....well although mine wasn't a failure I nevertheless are invited to let go of it and to look elsewhere for my true self - for the underlying essence,for the consciousness out of which my "story" has unfolded.

It makes sense to me for I trust that a far greater intelligence arises out of that formless consciousness than the world of forms could ever produce ......like our trip to Graz, our professions or a successful Abitur etc. etc.

I will shortly try to relate these insights to my students by discussing Karsten's second posting - and in the meantime you are invited to click on his link for that text.

Congratulations - Mr. President

We now know who the next President of the USA is going to be: Barack Hussein Obama - a black Senator from Chicago,Illinois.This is good news for all of us here in Europe as well - and the next time he will speak in Berlin there will be even more people listening than the last time...so my original Berliner Bär of the Steiff Collection extends his greetings as well - the question I wonder about is - how will this new President affect human consciousness? Will his presidency help so that more and more folks will begin to wake up and thus break out of humanity's vast negativity? In other words - will Mr. Obama and the rest of us find new ways to begin to live together on this planet - in harmony and peace?

And the winner is....

Today Americans will finally cast their votes....the two year campaign will have come to an hopefully happy end.Tomorrow - Wednesday morning - we will know which party will govern for the next four years.....I hope for the Democrats to not only get a huge majority in both houses - but to also show the Republicans that they are - indeed the party of "yesterday"...

And I believe none of my American friends will have voted for them anyway....when I was a college student in Ashland,Oregon I had joined the Young Democrats ( see photo ) - not a large group on campus then - but we had a brilliant history professor as our advisor.

At times I felt odd sitting there with my fellow American students talking politics - afterall I was NOT allowed to vote although I had that magic green card.The good thing was that nobody seemed to mind...I was accepted in their small group and I felt that I had "arrived".

A personal mail from the future President

I am so pleased to have twice donated money for the Obama campaign - now Barack himself !! - is writing me again for even more money to help him with his final push - indeed there are only six/five more days to go until November 4th....

Let us hope that enough of our American friends will be motivated as never before and vote for their first black President - we will soon know the result - did you see the line where Barack tells me that his campaign is (also) in my hands...isn't modern mass email a wonderful tool - just ask the spammers!!

How to build trust:Pace,pace,pace.

Last week we talked about job interviews and the concept of pacing.We agreed that in order to create rapport and trust between two or more persons it would be very helpful to engage in the act of pacing.....and we did some exercises with this as well - mostly by pacing body postures and breathing rythms.

By the way - over the weekend - I began to wonder if I am still in good rapport with my 1A students - or has the process of "losing" them inadvertently been started and would that mean that I - Jay - needed to go back and pace them and their needs?

In any case - today I brought a "gadget" to class in order to demonstrate the concept of pacing more clearly almost metaphorically and to give a few students a chance "to feel" what it is like to be in good rapport.Basically I handed them two flexible metal rods that are about three feet in length.There is a handle on the one end and some sort of wooden container box ( similar to the head of a medium size tobacco pipe ) on the other end.

The idea is to tranfer a small round ball from one of the wooden container box ( the provider ) into the other box ( the receiver ) - it sounds simple but since these rods are highly flexible they swing back and forth and need to be stabilized and brought closely together in harmony - to then try to successfully achieve the desired transfer.

I explained that the one person could be called the "teacher" - and the person on the receiving end would then be called the "student". ..and the ball would symbolize i.e. the grammar behind using do/does/did when asking certain questions in the present or past!! And it would take trust and rapport and closeness and some balance skills to bring the "ball" ( the grammar ) home into the "bucket" ( the student's brain ).......or as in our initial role playing exercise: how to pace the interviewer well enough to get that sought after job offer.

After we had played with the rods and I had done my explaining part - I was unsure ( and I still am ) if the students truly understood the concept I had intended to get across. ??

Who are you really?

On my Sunday afternoon walk through the nearby compounds of Germany's second largest Rudolf Steiner Community ( Waldorf Schools ) I came across this hand-made road sign.The English translation might read as follows: "we perceive so little ( we are conscious of so few things ) because we lost the ability to truly rest our eyes on the item at hand"

I completely agree with the statement.We usually take one or two seconds in which we look at someone or something and then our mind takes over and sticks a label onto the "thing" like: grey cat; cracked egg;or dead bird - just to name three items I came across during my walk.

And that's it.Done and finished.The mind took over, a label was given and on to the next piece....and the same process repeats itself. At school it is not much different....a quick glimpse at an unknown student, at a new face in the hallway, a fast label and on to the next person or encounter.

If the message on the sign is indeed correct - what can we do to break this limiting pattern? How can true in-depth perception be restored? Do we need to get "high" on certain drugs to enhance our senses - our so-called doors of perception?

They may and DO help as a start but soon the effect will wear out and then what? I think the best way to restart my ability to truly perceive is to begin with the right perspective....for it is the perspective that shapes my perception.So what would be the optimal perspective from which to look at any "object" or person? I would say the best one can do is to come to the scene with an open mind and a loving heart.These qualities will definitely influence and enhance my perception.

I would now have a far greater chance to see through the outer form of my subject and perceive its hidden essence,its beingness at a deeper level - I would begin to relearn to truly rest my eyes - and this new"wahrnehmen" this new perceiving would be beyond the world of thoughts.

Will it be that easy? Tomorrow at school I will have lots of opportunities to test the above!

Hans im Glück - an early German Forrest Gump?

Last night I felt a need to re-read an old German fairy tale: "Hans im Glück " and in case you can't quite remember the plot let me refresh your memory.Hans had been away from his village for seven good years and he felt it was time to go home and be with his mother again.His Master had been very pleased with Hans and to compensate him well he gave Hans a nice lump of gold - almost as large as the young man's head!

Hans was delighted and at once began his journey home.Soon the gold became too heavy,he traded it for a horse;the horse was too wild and Hans agreed to trade it for a cow;when he was unable to milk the cow, he exchanged her for a pig.The pig - it was suggested - may have been a stolen one and Hans was happy to let go of it for a well fed goose.Finally a con artist relieves him of the goose for two ordinary coble stones letting Hans believe he could use them to sharpen folks' knives and scissors thus making good money for the rest of his days...and of course they soon became heavy and during a short pause at a drinking well Hans accidentally pushed them off the wall and he saw them hit the deep bottom with a splash.

Hans wasn't bothered - he was happy to be free of them and with light steps he finished his journey home.

After I had finished the story I was puzzled about the ending.....for each time Hans had been trading one "object" for another I had hoped he would hold on to the next - and especially after he had "lost"that big lump of gold....why did he exchange gold for an untrained horse etc.?? and then I flashed over to Forrest Gump...was Forrest not also being led from one episode to the next,to the next and letting go of the former each time?

And this then maybe the deeper message for my students and myself: it is most likely quite wise to not hang on to or to identify with objects that the world of forms presents us with - in the end they will only burden us and make us "heavy".... but that is only one aspect - there is another far deeper bond that Forrest and Hans share...and I will get to that at a later date.

The acceptance of the present moment

Yesterday my daughter came home from school - frustrated.Things didn't work out the way she had hoped they would.She went upstairs and logged on to the Internet.That did not help her to get out of her stuck-state.She then came downstairs once more and tried to change her poor mood by watching TV.That did not help her either.

Finally she grabbed our cat,sat down on the couch with her and started to pet and caress the one year old animal....and since the cat was reluctant at first and wanted to jump off the sofa - it took awhile until the two had bonded and then settled into a very,very relaxing "dance"...The cat purred,the daughter caressed and made soothing sounds,the cat stretched and responded and my daughter started to breathe deeper - and ever so slowly both became more and more present and even facial muscles started to relax and to flatten...what a nice and positive change of state.

I watched both of them from a distance pretending to read the daily paper at our dining table and there was a certain tenderness emanating from the two - and when it was time for them to let-go of each other - my daughter got up, smiled and asked me kindly if I wanted to join her for some tea and "Stollen".

So what is the lesson here? Now that I am studying the teachings of Eckhart Tolle I would say stillness arises when we learn to inwardly align with the "drama" of what this very moment has to offer - to say yes to the "is-ness" first ( "I am in a bad mood - things didn't work out" ) and then to proceed from there but now on a deeper level to make the needed changes.

Needless to say - my professors did NOT teach me these things while I was at college in Oregon - or should I better say: I was NOT ready for that type of message - and as far as I know we still don't teach this at my present school either - and I wonder if there is even a subject ( ein Unterrichtsfach ) where it would be appropriate to teach these insights.

And I guess I needed "the time" - these almost 40 years - that separate the above photo and the one on my post of Sept. 25 - to finally begin to truly hear and experience this wisdom - and I can only hope that my students will take less time to experiment with the workings of their Minds.

To act or not to act

Only two days after I had expressed my worries here about what to do with my so-called financial nest egg,this wonderful cartoon was published in the October 10th International Herald Tribune....I clipped it and faxed it to my bank - asking them whether I should do the same thing as this years nobel prize winner for good economic judgement? Their reply came back within minutes: please, don't you worry - about your deposit with us - if it wasn't safe we would tell you!!

Over the years I have learned to trust my intuition - and my inner voice is still telling me to withdraw all my savings and to keep them at home for awhile until this global financial crisis has been overcome - and I wonder why I am so hesitant to act accordingly.....what advice will I get from my students this coming Monday?

And then one day.....

More than three years ago I clipped this cartoon from my International Herald Tribune newspaper....to be exact - it was on March 16,2005.

There was a sense of "the US housing bubble might soon burst" in the air - but apparently nobody wanted to notice the coming dangers.....that very same year I visited friends in Oregon and they asked:"jay,where are you coming from?" and I smiled thinking that this was a rather odd question-for they all certainly knew where I was from.

Then they specified the question: "Jay, what we mean is: do you come from scarcity ( Mangel Ecke) or from abundance ( aus der Fuelle )?" Well,that was a good question I had not heard before and it made me think....and I realized that I do have a sorting system in my head that lets me often come from scarcity...like: not enough of this,not enough of that;this is also lacking and that is still missing as well...etc.

And now that the major global financial crisis is here I seem to again be coming from scarcity: I fear for the few savings I have - I am worried that I may lose what Americans call my financial nest egg ( mein kleines angespartes Fiananzpolster ) - because NOW the REPO MAN ( reposession man - der "Pfand"abholer ) has arrived - in the USA first ( see cartoon ) and will he soon be standing at our European door as well - wanting it all back? So I wonder and worry what that would do to my students, our school and my/our future plans??

From Here to Riga and Back

What do most language teachers love to do? They like to travel.....I definitely fall into this catagory.....in addition I seem to be a "show and tell" type teacher...I like to discover new things and then to talk about them.....so it was a great pleasure to fly to Riga in Latvia and stay seven nights in Old Town Riga and to explore its eight hundred years of history.

On my many walks I discovered this giant poster of G.W.Bush and Putin and I thought of how they had used English as their means to communicate - so one might even say that teaching and learning English helps to maintain world peace....in other words I am not just teaching The Tenses to my 1 A class students - but am I not also helping to bring about and foster the concept of our interdependence on planet Earth.....will this then qualify me for a pay raise??

There are no coincidences - es gibt keine Zufälle

After I had just posted yesterdays text, the doorbell rang and a package from Amazon.de had arrived.....it contained 2 DVDs and it is called: Eckart Tolle Findhorn Seminar "Stille inmitten der Welt" - this then was the visuell edition of a remarkable event that had taken place at Findhorn - in the North of Scottland in May 2004.

I went to Findhorn for the first time in May 2005 and took part in a retreat with Neale Donald Walsch - another well known spiritual teacher....so this then was a video recording of an event with the German born teacher Eckhart Tolle....when I thumbened through that small book that came with the 2 DVDs I stopped at this text on page 28 ( kein Zufall !!) and it is in direct relation to what I had just posted... and since the book is a German translation I will quote the text in its German form:

Es gibt eine schöne Geschichte von der Frau,die Ein Kurs in Wundern geschrieben hat.Sie hatte eine Vision,in der sie in einer alten Kiste eine Pergamentrolle fand,eine sehr alte Rolle,und als sie diese Rolle auseinanderrollte,sah sie Zeichen auf der linken und andere Zeichen auf der rechten Seite und sie hörte eine Stimme sagen:"Wenn Du liest was links steht,kennst Du die Vergangenheit,und wenn Du liest,was rechts steht,kennst Du die Zukunft".

Sie betrachtete die linke Seite und die rechte,und dann rollte sie zurück zur Mitte und da stand:Life just is.Da sagte die Frau:"Das ist alles,was mich interessiert.Etwas anderes will ich gar nicht".Und die Stimme sagte:"Herzlichen Glückwunsch,Du bist angekommen"

Die Fau hatte es geschafft,sich ganz dem gegenwärtigen Augenblick - ( jenem NOW auf der Mitte unserer Zeitachse ) zuzuwenden.

This story fits nicely with what happened to me during the test. When my students wrote their first test on September 24 I had the occasion to somehow sit on top of an empty desk nicely in their midst and as I was stilling myself I suddenly began to notice each one of them in a different way......these were no longer just the Jenny, Bobby,Taylan, Katarina and eighteen others.....somehow something else about them had become visible - some sort of aura or light spot had appeared and I immediately felt a deep affection for the group....this lasted for about 30 seconds - maybe 60 seconds at the most but " it" was there - "it" was around them and "it" was felt within me! Being in the moment I had briefly overcome my usual perception of separation.How wonderful this felt - so free and easy.

And I guess we as teachers all long for these special moments when a sense of Oneness with our students re-energizes our heart. This then is what I had meant to say when I spoke of the AHA! effect that can occur when we center ourselves in the NOW and seeing the left part and the right part of the time-line axis model for what they are: nothing but thought based constructs.

Begin with the end in mind

One of the many teachings my mother tried to get across to me was the idea to think things through - to begin with the end in mind.....so where will writing this blog take me to?And what about my students? When they started their first semester this August - did they think their decision through? Did they have the end in mind? Did they wonder how they will be or might be different once they graduate in a few years?Did they envision some form of academic studies thereafter?Did some future job related visions cross their minds?How did each of them structure the BE DO HAVE paradigm?

And will they be able to mentally align in the here and now to achieve what they may have set out to achieve? Will some of them even begin to become aware that searching for a sense about who they truly are in the realm of good grades and college diplomas might ultimately be a frustrating enterprise ?What has my role been in this process so far?

In some of our early lessons we drew a horizental time line and and marked the point in the the middle of the axis THE PRESENT...everything to the right we named THE FUTURE and the line to the left of it we called THE PAST and then we entered six different tenses at their appropriate spots: going to future;will future on the right and Present Perfect,Past and Past Perfect on the left - what a nice and easy to remember model - and yet so very much misleading. It graphically deepens the idea that reality can be divided into these time slots - totally ignoring the fact that these tenses are nothing but thought constructs that always find their ultimately fulfillment only in the Here and Now - for the NOW is truly the only moment that really is......and so did I deepen this illusion by writing and even testing for the appropriate key words on the board:soon,tomorrow,next year,in the year 2010, and their counterparts for the past: ago,when I was,yesterday,in the year 2001,last year?

So where will this preoccupation with the various tenses lead us to....will there be the added joy of some sort of AHA! awakening ( in some or even in all of us ) or will our efforts with the tenses simply end with certain grades as a result of yesterday's first test??

In today's lesson we watched the first part of: The Whale Rider and ended where Paikea calls out to the whales for help - does this mean she is thinking things through until the end? Well,we will certainly find this out after we return from our well deserved Fall break!

Second thoughts

Now that my first post has been successfully accepted by the program I begin to have some second thoughts about the project...will the students go along?Will they see any benefit in blogging?Will the learning curve become too big of a challenge? Who will be encouraged and motivated and who won't? How will their English entries be formulated?

Only Two More Days

It feels very good to be back as a blogger......my adult students and I are only two days away from our Fall vacation and when we get back we want to start on our blog-writing project.I have a few ideas about where we want to go with this and in the end we will be positively surprised how well we all did and how nicely our writing skills will have improved...this will be fun and I can't wait to get started...it is as the old saying goes: when the student is ready...the "right" teacher will appear - in this case it will be a program called blogspot!