Big Picture - Happiness?

This Monday I am delivering a workshop to Sumana's school. I feel the right amount of 'excitement' for doing it, without undue nerves. 

I have had many testing conversations about schooling and money this weekend, saying perhaps more than I should. It remains to be seen what the impact of that might be.

Two colleagues are aiming to quit schools for new self-employed jobs. It made me wonder this: why do I get annoyed at things that 'are not my business'? 

1) I perceive their attitudes or actions as actually affecting me, or at least the communities in which I operate. 

2) It challenges me to assert the attitudes that I prize. 

3) It challenges me to consider whether I do believe in some of the values I supposedly prize. 

4) Because I have a concern with the communities and organisations of which I am a member. 

5) I believe that financial injustice or social inequality should be challenged where useful. 

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The workshop went well from my perspective. Today I am to do my PDP. 

Falsification is not possible. 

'This is just my opinion, but...'

1) Every opinion is relative...

2) What is the utility of my opinion? 

3) Does my opinion correspond with any external sources? 

4) Is my opinion cogent with other opinions I hold? 

  

Imagination?

 Hi folks, 

Today I have the chance to experience imagination: that isn't to say the experience will be enjoyable or even easy. Instead, it is an experience that can be intense, of a stomach in revolt, the organisers of stomach acid putting down tools and leaving the lining to be overwhelmed. 

Do I have the physical strength to do this?  

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When I close my eyes to be with myself and my breathing, what do I experience? The experience of closing my eyes to be with myself has been difficult. I will swim now. 

The swim was decent. 

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If I had choice about where I would live, and what I would do, what would I choose? Is there a RPG game where I can min-max?  

a) I would be overtly tall, standing out. Supremely handsome etc.
b) I would be immensely articulate. 
c) I would have an upper-middle class family with social connections and much property.
d) I would have a dynamic wife and easy, fun kids.
e) I would have extensive savings and a wide and rich international network. 

As I typed more than the first one of these, I realised that this task becomes more of a: 'what does my culture recognise that I do?'

 

I never chose my culture, my family/nationality/race/class. 

Seeking to achieve in these various fields feels contrived. For a long time I have struggled with 'ambition', and what I 'really' want, or who I 'really' am. 

In reality, I think that I overgive. I step too far towards others in the need to 'survive in this world'.

I think perhaps a far better approach to realising 'who I am' is to consider some of the darker psychological and political truths out there. 

1) People are concerned with their own survival and self-interest above all. It takes some spiritual and social reckoning to be different and subvert self-interest and survival. Even then, the self-interest of your family or chosen spiritual affiliation will take precedence.

2) Social capital is underprioritised. Social capital controls what we recognise through our chosen culture. 

3) Underpinning the finer things I enjoy in life is actual coercion, the threat of violence once enacted, from the state or others. 

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What culture would I want to experience from others? 

NATE. Schooling. Do I enjoy schooling? Is it about me? 

I have three distinct groups in my HL class. They can connect in ways I cannot imagine. 

Does NATE help me? I am not sure. 

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The problem with drinking and eating junk food is that it impacts me for a long time afterwards. 

Bacon? Aggressive Finances?

I sit here and write a day before students return to campus. 

My approach to education really might change. I never grew up being a teacher, and derided it as a failure, as submission to a system I do not respect. 

I still feel the education system has huge issues. It is a cartel. 

I am finding myself slipping into a more relaxed stream of what could be. My savings increase by an appreciable rate, and I wish for a better life that is also relaxed. 

I have completed all my tasks this week, or good enough. 

I am resisting the culture of aggressive finances at the moment. I do not feel I want them. 

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If you take socio-historic trends as a framework... that makes sense. 

Can I nurture my imagination once again?  

 

 

Managing Expectations

Yesterday the director of education visited my classroom and commented on my passion. I spoke about Hughes' Jaguar, and the ability to feel free whilst being trapped. It was a seminal moment in my career because the recognition will stay with me for life. 

I woke early today, rising from the pool of a vivid dream, its heavy feelings soaking me still, dragging me back into memories once lived, of a school experience suffered. 

The dream saw me teaching a class from the UK again. The room had been changed and I was waiting for the students to meet me at their new destination. One boy, small and wiry, was clearly a handful, eager for fun and sniffing for mischief. I had to pursue him into an adjacent room, before giving him the benefit of my wisdom. He slowly calmed his frantic search for distraction, letting me return to the classroom, ready to welcome my new charges. 

The room was filled already with the heaving waves of violent childhood, the students having entered early and ready to cause mayhem. Crashing again the walls were several students playing some fighting game. In the middle were two young men, hands whipping two long black leads stretched across the room, two dark snakes threatening to snap against others.

I woke up at this point, those old feelings of energy-sapping naughtiness remained. 

I watched an episode of naughty and antisocial boys. Blimey. I am blessed to not swimming in that treacle of social casualty anymore. Those memories will stay with me for life, making me appreciate the ease and kindness of the students I teach now. The difference is between a bucket of scorpions and a massage from a goddess. But that difference is one that I sought and nurtured, a niche that will appreciate for life.

Each morning this week I have woken early and ventured to the pool. I will do that again. I wake up and I experience the cool breeze of a tropical morning across the water, the gentle waves brushing my beard, washing the sleep into the dark past. I walk to school, the easy commute a deliberate choice.   

The heroic teacher model is limited, the idolisation of romantic poets is difficult.