State of the Art Educating

To an Echo Editor Sighing Young

                      METIS.

You mentioned it in your Great Books paper.

Metis is to general and specific knowing  as
Temper and Temperature is to hot and cold.

METIS: a word for combined wisdom and
cunning. considered both a threat to Zeus
and indispensable aid. (Wikiped) 

Odysseus had this frame of minding.. 

METIS: Local  Food-For -Thought-Thinking,
not to be daunted or swayed by either
generalized knowers or the specific-ists. .

You know my educational/pedagogical
Mission Impossible is to build ice cream
parlors in hell without doing injustice to
either hot or cold.

Haven't succeeded, not even close.
An environmental issue and more
than I can accomplish unilaterally.,

In the mean time, I practice a kind of classroom
governance-shut-down, inviting chaos & anarchy
into the inn as a tabula  erasure of standard habit
& expectation.

Born again and again zero-basing and re-inventing
the  wheels of converse-action up from old scratch
to maybe constellate a glitter--some holy smokes
and mirrors.

And so I'm always on the defense offensively
aiming to  lead lambs out of Egypt, through
the Wilderness and into the Promised Land
all at once something like  learning how to talk
out of 3 sides of my mouth simultaneously without
threatening, confusing or forcing the issue.

Unaccountable, No guarantees.
"Are we there  yet, Daddy?"   my daughter
would ask from the  back seat  of the Chevy
ten minutes into the drive, ten hours, ten years...

Indefensible:  what I do  if assessed from normal
standpoint & perspective--grade-gun regulatory
cover-ground, getRdone, say-what-you-are-going-
to-do-do-it-&-say-what-you-done standards.

I have to turn the other cheek. Not out of piety, but
practicality.  No defense possible. "Neither logic nor
sermons convince,"  says Whitman. And  what I can
measure and assess may not be worth measuring &
assessing. We all know that.

But even in it's failure, it's  more satisfying, interesting
& engaging to me than sustaining the status quo which
Ray  Anderson, our Green Graduation Speaker of a few
years ago describes as continuing  to teach and operate in
the system that is destroying the biosphere. Adherence to the
old mind-set, the old curricula,  obsolete pedagogy, and short
sighted planning are producing graduates who are trained to
perpetuate the destruction of the biosphere

It's possible he's overstating. It's possible I'm over-reacting.
As one student told me years ago: "Look Sam, if schooling
was supposed  to be the way you think it should then it
WOULD be."

State of the Art at any given moment.
Aren't we always? Oh, I  could claim
to be doing better if I have to write up
a report --but at the moment, doing the
best I can. No doubt..

My classes (from the perspective of the norm)
are a joke. Always hoping some will Get IT.

IT, I said.

Best, Sam