The Holder's of Civilization

Did you lose your keys today?

Almost weekly, an email sent on Importance pleas for finding a teacher's set of keys. Without these keys, we cannot open the mandatory locked doors. When I started teaching, we didn't need to lock the door during the school day

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, while teaching, the Two Towers fell. Our Middle Earth, our civilization was under attack. Looking into the eyes and faces of the young learners, I mourned for their loss. Their lives, their civilization would no longer be the same and would forever diminish until/unless acts of bravery, intelligence, culture and love would be dynamic enough to push back the creeping pervasive fog of destruction. 

In the first Star Wars movie, the Holder of Civilization was the one last Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi. Casting Sir Alec Guiness was a brilliant placement because he was young in the generation of staunch self-sacrifice and bravery. His generation fought civilization's destruction and succeeded.

My Calligraphy Mentor, Don Kunz, taught us, his students to wield the T-square like a light sabre and follow the great Emperor Charlemagne's challenge to ignorance (The Dark Ages) by learning how to write. Our Western book letter forms come from the Carolingian letter hand which was developed during the reign of Charlemagne....the first king of europe who began schools of writing. The students of Don Kunz learned that education was the Holder of Civilization and those who teach have, in essence, a sacred connection to develop growing humans to expand and use themselves to their full potential whatever their life's jobs would become. 

In response to the chaos of destruction, I began teaching more fully, more wholly. Whole Child Pedagogy became paramount. Learning about Nature is not only to categorize the plant and animal kingdom for knowledge sake but to learn how to abstract understanding from nature in a personal raw awareness. This is the process started by all great thinkers. It is the process of learning to create original thoughts. 

This subject of Why Teach came up in a lunch conversation at school. It was when I realized that the point of my life is not to retire but to pass on the wisdom and the creative process and nature to the next generation to Hold our Civilization intact and to lead it to thrive.