Monday, August 30, 2004

Good Reverberations....

One of my former students dropped me a nice note last week, including what the student characterized as "axioms" I laid down in a seminar one night in Florida.

I read them over, and decided it would probably be more politique to describe them as opinions !

As a matter of fact, I can add to them with fuel from the 20-odd years that have passed since this student took his notes.

I'd still embrace every word, and so I'll "put them in a Blog" as the student asked me to. Here they are:

"To be teachable is to be spiritual, and to be spiritual is to be teachable."

"Protecting humans from making mistakes or hurting themselves will produce an overabundance of fools."

"Any so-called Learning Institution which values its teachers more than its students is worthless."

"Most good teachers press for error by their minions. Error is the true source of wisdom."

"Advancing a student because of his physiognomy or breeding is criminal activity."

"Most "failures"in schools are by teachers...not students."

"No one has ever honestly seen and described a political election correctly from within the D.C. Beltway, or from a television anchorchair.
But somewhere, in Missouri, Georgia, Wisconsin, Texas or Colorado, there is a person who just KNOWS in his or her gut—and KNOWS right!
I have met this citizen-voter."

(This last opinion has been dented, but not destroyed by Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report AND Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia)