In the wake of the now-infamous video of a police officer casually pepper spraying peaceful student demonstrators at UC Davis on November 18th comes a beautiful plea to college presidents: let your students change the world.
I would go even further: encourage your students to change the world. Invite them into dialogue about issues that matter, and empower them to take control of what they can. School at all levels should not occur in a vaccuum; what happens in the classroom should apply to what happens outside of it, and if it doesn't there is something very wrong.
It is easy for cynical adults to forget the protests of the 60s and 70s, the marches and demonstrations that resulted in (more) equal treatment for all citizens. It is easy to be complacent and stick our heads in the stand - easy and dangerous. Don't you remember righteous indignation at a wrong? Haven't you ever been moved to action by something monstrously unfair?
If you stand for something you will fall for anything. Don't you want your kids to stand for something?
Showing posts with label Encouragement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Encouragement. Show all posts
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Persistence
Three syllables. Four vowels. Plenty of consonants. Synonyms: constancy, doggedness, endurance, grit, indefatigability, perseverance, pluck, resolution, stamina, tenacity . Antonyms: idleness, indifference, indolence.
Grit. Endurance. These are hardscrabble words; they make me think of westerns and coal mining, the kind of noun that gets dirty and works hard, drinks plain beer out of a can and only wears Levis and T-shirts. Stamina, pluck, resolution and tenacity put me in the mind of Pippi Longstocking and Steve Jobs - quirky words for quirky people.
No matter what the words sound like or seem like, the message is the same: not stopping when things get difficult; bending, maybe, nursing wounds definitely, but never breaking and always charging back into the fray. Resilience. The ability to somehow talk yourself into getting back up, dusting back off and continuing along, maybe with a course correction, but continuing nonetheless.
This is a hard characteristic to cultivate, and I say "cultivate" because to learn persistence in the first place is hard work and requires the very thing that one is trying to acquire. It is a diabolical catch-22; one must be persistent to develop persistence. Hmmm. Circular logic, the Gordian knot. Pick your mixed metaphor.
And yet we none of us get out of here alive, so we might as well press on, yes? Hopefully with some diginity and ethical being intact; an it harm none, do what thou wilt, to quote the pagans. No sense in trampling someone to get to the end when we all backpedal once there.
In the words of Thomas Carlyle, “Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”
Let's strengthen our souls, shall we? We are now living the perennial Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." These are certainly interesting, so let's us away, into the fray, and make something brilliant. We owe it to ourselves.
Grit. Endurance. These are hardscrabble words; they make me think of westerns and coal mining, the kind of noun that gets dirty and works hard, drinks plain beer out of a can and only wears Levis and T-shirts. Stamina, pluck, resolution and tenacity put me in the mind of Pippi Longstocking and Steve Jobs - quirky words for quirky people.
No matter what the words sound like or seem like, the message is the same: not stopping when things get difficult; bending, maybe, nursing wounds definitely, but never breaking and always charging back into the fray. Resilience. The ability to somehow talk yourself into getting back up, dusting back off and continuing along, maybe with a course correction, but continuing nonetheless.
This is a hard characteristic to cultivate, and I say "cultivate" because to learn persistence in the first place is hard work and requires the very thing that one is trying to acquire. It is a diabolical catch-22; one must be persistent to develop persistence. Hmmm. Circular logic, the Gordian knot. Pick your mixed metaphor.
And yet we none of us get out of here alive, so we might as well press on, yes? Hopefully with some diginity and ethical being intact; an it harm none, do what thou wilt, to quote the pagans. No sense in trampling someone to get to the end when we all backpedal once there.
In the words of Thomas Carlyle, “Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”
Let's strengthen our souls, shall we? We are now living the perennial Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." These are certainly interesting, so let's us away, into the fray, and make something brilliant. We owe it to ourselves.
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