Food for Thought

The world was once as flat as a pancake. Or so we thought.

It is the willpower of individuals that buries the past and opens the door to the future. When he set sail, Christopher Columbus had a distinct purpose. He also had papal blessings and the latest nautical technology, the financial backing of a king and queen, and a crew made up, in part, of ex-convicts. There was tremendous risk, but the desire for wealth and truth outweighed that risk: a whole new world was waiting to be discovered. When he set sail, Christopher Columbus was being more than just creative, he was “thinking outside of the box.”

When I first began teaching I heard this term quite often, but could only guess at its meaning. My administrator rarely modeled it and the examples my graduate school professor provided never applied to my students. The most important thing I learned during that first year was taught to me by those I was trying to teach: that different people experience that world in different ways and that these perspectives are not only healthy, they are a resource to be put to use. Unbeknownst to me, I had taken my first step toward thinking outside of the box.

A half-century after Columbus’s arrival in the New World, Miguel de Cervantes created the first modern novel and literature’s greatest idealist, sweetest romantic, and biggest dreamer. Readers still make the mistake of calling Don Quixote crazy when, in fact, he should be held up as an example of reality’s pliability. We each see the world in our own way. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Relating the author to the history of his native Spain, Carlos Fuentes described Cervantes as “caught between the flux of renewal and the stagnant waters of reaction.” The same can be said of our schools. Educators are always looking to change the system, yet we remain mired in a factory-style environment of terminal points and quality control that smacks of political tunnel vision. We are working in the world of the Industrial Revolution even as we live in the world of the Technological Revolution. One aspect of teaching has not changed, though: a meaningful education requires a teacher who sees beauty where others see the ordinary.

We all know that the world is round. We are just now learning how small it can be. Television and the Internet have enhanced, for better and for worse, the background knowledge of students. This home base of information is vastly different from that of teachers, no matter how young those teachers might be. To adjust appropriately requires the initiative of Columbus and the vision of Quixote. And only a Rip Van Winkle (a parable of fear in the time of the Industrial Revolution) would be unaware of the impact that technology is having on learning. If our schools are to keep up, greater capital is required School districts are continually mining, new resources; they must, otherwise teachers, and the tools of their trade, will be antiquated by the time freshmen become seniors. Thinking outside of the box now means signing partnerships with local businesses. It also means creating new opportunities for parental involvement and finding new and different ways to engage the students. We must all continue to think outside of the box.

Teachers have always been creative, just as the world has always been round. And like Don Quixote, teachers will continue to see Dulcinea’s beauty . . . every time we take our place before a classroom full of students. It is a journey just like any other.

Randy Howe