Baudrillard, Osho and Final Thoughts

First, I would like to apologize for not having the opportunity to continue to read and respond to everyone’s blogs. My lack of computer access, together with report cards, illness, and the death of my grandfather, has left me quite behind. I do hope to catch up on the reading and hope people are still checking the blogs.

Despite the fact that I haven’t been writing I have been doing quite a bit of thinking, especially in relation to Baudrillard and philosophy. The night after the class on Baudrillard and all the discussion around the real and hyperreal left me thinking about truth, reality and philosophy in general. What is real? What is truth? How does this connect to education and what I do in the classroom (and in life) everyday? Then I went home, and before bed, as always, I did some journaling and meditation.

As part of my meditation I have been using a book of quotations by Osho. Osho was an Indian philosopher and teacher who eventually went on to establish a commune, which became world famous. He has written many books on life and philosophy and was considered by some to be as influential as Ghandi.

That night, after the Baudrillard discussion, I opened the meditation book and landed on the page titled “paradox.” Osho quotes a Japenese haiku and states,

“The beginning is also the end, the meeting is also a departing. One has to understand this contradictoriness, the paradoxical nature of existence. The welcoming smile is also a farewell.” (The Zen Manifesto)

This quotation got me thinking as to how closely related the Baudrillard discussion was to this idea, and so I searched my little book further. I looked up some more of Osho’s ideas and found a couple that resonated very strongly with me and our class discussions.

On “truth” Osho stated,

“The truth means the whole, all that is, the total. All that is- how can you define it? It is unbounded, infinite.” (The Book of Wisdom)

And

“Truth needs no proof, it simply is. It cannot be proved or disproved. It is luminous, it is radiant. Its presence is immediately felt but only by those who have the heart to feel.” (The Secret)

Finally, and most interesting to me, on the subject of “ordinariness” Osho states,

“Once you are ready to celebrate the ordinary life it is no more ordinary at all.” (The Sound of One Hand Clapping)

This final quote, which I have read many times before, really summed up classroom life (and life in general, but that is another blog) for me. Every year, every class, and every day, is a new day in the classroom. Everything I bring with me, as I try to work with my students, counts. Knowing this, I realize that my best efforts as a teacher and human being are good enough for today; I will continue to learn and grow as a teacher and an individual but for today I can accept where I am as exactly where I am meant to be.

In a previous blog I also mentioned that I have been doing some reflecting on old journals (it is amazing what not having a computer gives me time for) and I discovered some writing I had done at a pivotal point in my life. I had just graduated from education but was not at all certain I was ever going to teach in a classroom (I didn’t for almost ten years). In my journal of that time I noted a conversation I had while in Israel. Someone had asked me, what I do and I wrote,

“I am a teacher but I don’t want to teach conventionally. What do I want to teach? he asked. I’m not really sure, but I don’t want to just teach in a room with four walls and screaming kids. I told him I’d like to work with adolescents- what would I teach? I don’t know- everyone has their own lessons to learn which they have to figure out for themselves. I guess I just want to be a guide through those lessons.” (February 1994)

As I read this, I realized, very much to my surprise, that this is exactly what I have ended up doing, though now I realize I can do this in a conventional classroom, with four walls with a group of (sometimes) screaming (maybe not screaming, but often loud) kids.

Whatever the official documents say, this is my curriculum; this is what I guess I would call “the soul of curriculum” that is above and beyond the subject matter, outcomes and everything else.

So what was/is interesting and what was/is useful? Much to my very pleasant surprise I don’t have to think too hard, or stretch the truth, to come up with a response (and even more than one).

The whole process of questioning “What is curriculum?” has been both useful and interesting to me. It has helped me to reflect on my own practice and why I do what I do, in relation to curriculum as subject areas, documents, valid knowledge and everything beyond.

Looking at the 50 Great Educators, though at times tedious, was useful in helping me clarify my own understandings of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, individually, as well as how they are connected and cannot be seperated. Defining curriculum, though not easy, or by any means complete, was very useful in building my own understandings.

Of all of the discussion I found Marshall McLuhan the most interesting, perhaps, just because it helped me finally understand some of his ideas that I had learned about in high school over twenty years ago.

I also found the blogs both interesting and useful (until my computer died); I feel like I really got to know others in the cohort better by reading and responding to their thoughts and ideas. The convenience (again up until the death of my old PC) made this enjoyable rather than a chore. I truly appreciate the opportunity to do this, and the time and effort everyone put into their blogs to make this possible.

To sum things up, I thought it fitting to go back to McLuhan and his tetrads. What might McLuhan say about 21st Century Curriculum and this cohort’s study of it?

Enhances- Communication- convenient discussion not requiring both (all) parties to be physically present
Obsolesces- The textbook
Retrieves- Philosophy
Reverses Into- Good Old-fashioned classroom discussion

And so I will end this blog here with gratitude to Denis for inviting/making me get into this process and the discovery of the blog as a tool of communication, and to everyone for your participation and comments, without which a blog would not be a blog.