Compose & Be Composed (School & Be Schooled)

Dear Colleagues,

Compose & Be Composed

You ARE persistent, Dean McKinley told
me years ago (“persistence”—her newly
accepted surrogate for “retention” --
labeling our concern to hold on:
hold on to students). She was
(explicitly) descriptive.

Implicit?
More colorful & stigmatic terms
for persistence are available.
And less: sustain-ability,
say.

Why does a fool fall in to
unrequited love? Failure!
Failure to connect.
Failure to hit the mark.
Failure to break thru.
Failure to provoke.
Failure to engage.
Failure to set this
house on intellective fire,
hubris & presumption not
with standing in the class
room & out: Failure
feeds me.

Local food.

A bird moves mountains one stone
at a time. Muskrat gnaw off legs to
escape the trap. If at first I don’t
succeed, try & try again. A fool:
persisting in his ways becomes
a wise guy, damnit.

Keith Sawyer’s book promoting Collaborative
Genius urges the benefit of creating environments
that encourage failure & acknowledge the dubious
benefits of clarity: jeremiad to the ears & chronicles
of industrialized education: seemingly diabolical to
best laid plans & planning protocols.. How to
make failure a virtue? Imagine. Alchemical.
A Fools-Rush Inn.

Success stifles.
Pass that attitude on to students.
Encourage failure & the liabilities & limits
of foolish consistency. Persistence and retention
rates will increase. Nothing succeeds like failure:
an infinite resource: windmills in Texas, oceanic
tides: the stunned stupidity prerequisite to the
beginnings of the practice of liberal art.

Anxiety. That too. “Fear looking for a Cause.”
(& a quick fix, damnit: diagnosis & repair.)
Unless I sustain: hold it in obey-ance: my
Friend Fear: against interpretation.
Scapegoat deferred.

Motive power. Organic.
Holistic. Green.

xxxooo, Sam