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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!
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!
