 |
EVERY HUMAN BEING WANTS TO BE GREAT
Our
desire to be good is really just the tip of the iceberg. Actually, all of us strive to go beyond "good" - and become "great."
Nobody wants to be average. Try saying, "I want to be a mediocre." You can't get the words out!
Because we want to be great, not just good.
Would you want to be the person to discover the cure for cancer or eliminate the threat of nuclear
war? Of course! We would all love to rid the world of it's problems and unite humanity in peace and harmony. That is the Jewish
concept of the Messiah. He will put the world back together.
I once asked a class, "Tell me honestly. In the secret, innermost part of your heart, do you
harbor the desire to be the Messiah himself?"
The entire class raised their hands.
Now here's a deep spiritual secret: The soul, the divine spark within each of us, craves to
be united with the source of all life - the Almighty God. And for that reason, every human being, underneath it all, would
not even feel satisfied being the Messiah. Our soul desires to be like God Himself.
So why don't we aim for it?
Not because we don't want to change the world. But because the effort seems too great.
The Torah, our Instructions for Living, provides a way to work toward this. One of the 613 mitzvot
is to be like God, to emulate His ways.
We each have the potential to make a significant contribution to society.
The Sages teach that everyone is supposed to say, "The whole world was made for me!" This does not mean that you can plunder
the property of others. Rather, every individual is responsible for the world. Act ac-cordingly - you're here to straighten
it out.
It's a lot hard work. But it's what we truly seek. And in the process, you're going to become
not just good, but great!
WHAT EDUCATION MUST BE FOR
Measured against the agenda of human survival, how might we rethink education? Let me suggest
six principles.
First, all education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded we teach
students that they are part of or apart from the natural world. To teach economics, for example, without reference to the
laws of thermodynamics or those of ecology is to teach a fundamentally important ecological lesson: that physics and ecology
have nothing to do with the economy. That just happens to be dead wrong. The same is true throughout all of the curriculum.
A second principle comes from the Greek concept of paideia. The goal of education
is not mastery of subject matter, but of one's person. Subject matter is simply the tool. Much as one would use a hammer
and chisel to carve a block of marble, one uses ideas and knowledge to forge one's own personhood. For the most part we labor
under a confusion of ends and means, thinking that the goal of education is to stuff all kinds of facts, techniques, methods,
and information into the student's mind, regardless of how and with what effect it will be used. The Greeks knew better.
Third, I would like to propose that knowledge carries with it the responsibility to see that
it is well used in the world. The results of a great deal of contemporary research bear resemblance to those foreshadowed
by Mary Shelley: monsters of technology and its byproducts for which no one takes responsibility or is even expected to take
responsibility. Whose responsibility is Love Canal? Chernobyl? Ozone depletion? The Valdez oil spill? Each of these tragedies
were possible because of knowledge created for which no one was ultimately responsible. This may finally come to be seen for
what I think it is: a problem of scale. Knowledge of how to do vast and risky things has far outrun our ability to use it
responsibly. Some of it cannot be used responsibly, which is to say safely and to consistently good purposes.
Fourth, we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge
on real people and their communities. I grew up near Youngstown, Ohio, which was largely destroyed by corporate decisions
to "disinvest" in the economy of the region. In this case MBAs, educated in the tools of leveraged buyouts, tax breaks, and
capital mobility have done what no invading army could do: they destroyed an American city with total impunity on behalf of
something called the "bottom line." But the bottom line for society includes other costs, those of unemployment, crime, higher
divorce rates, alcoholism, child abuse, lost savings, and wrecked lives. In this instance what was taught in the business
schools and economics departments did not include the value of good communities or the human costs of a narrow destructive
economic rationality that valued efficiency and economic abstractions above people and community.
My fifth principle follows and is drawn from William Blake. It has to do with the importance
of "minute particulars" and the power of examples over words. Students hear about global responsibility while being educated
in institutions that often invest their financial weight in the most irresponsible things. The lessons being taught are those
of hypocrisy and ultimately despair. Students learn, without anyone ever saying it, that they are helpless to overcome the
frightening gap between ideals and reality. What is desperately needed are faculty and administrators who provide role models
of integrity, care, thoughtfulness, and institutions that are capable of embodying ideals wholly and completely in
all of their operations.
Finally, I would like to propose that the way learning occurs is as important as the content
of particular courses. Process is important for learning. Courses taught as lecture courses tend to induce passivity.
Indoor classes create the illusion that learning only occurs inside four walls isolated from what students call without apparent
irony the "real world." Dissecting frogs in biology classes teaches lessons about nature that no one would verbally profess.
Campus architecture is crystallized pedagogy that often reinforces passivity, monologue, domination, and artificiality. My
point is simply that students are being taught in various and subtle ways beyond the content of courses.
|
As TKDTutor commands, “Knowledge is Power.”
How do we gain knowledge? Knowledge gaining is a process that occurs in stages. The following describes the stages of gaining
knowledge about Taekwondo.
STAGE ONE: You do not know what you do not
know. This will get you in a lot of trouble.
You are ignorant, so ignorant that you do not even know you are ignorant. This total ignorance of a subject will cause you to make highly questionable or wrong statements or decisions
because of a complete lack of understanding of the consequences of your actions. This often leads to sufficient embarrassment
to motivate you to move to the second stage of learning. As related to Taekwondo, most of the public is at this stage. They
know nothing about Taekwondo and they know nothing about what they are missing by not knowing.
STAGE TWO: You do not know
what you do know. This is just as bad as stage one
You now have attained some knowledge but are ignorant
of what you know. You have learned a lot about Taekwondo but you are full of self doubt and are biased either positively or
negatively as to your own ability. To counter this self doubt, Taekwondo has belt rank tests where
you can compare yourself against your peers. As you advance in rank, the rank
criteria gets more difficult and number of people at your rank level decreases, so you may find you
are not as knowledgeable as you once thought as you are compared to your peers. Sometimes,
you may even have to drop back to stage two and make reevaluate your progress.
STAGE THREE: You do
know what you do not know. This not as good as Stage 4, but it still keeps you
out of trouble.
You now realize you are ignorant and seek to do something about it. White
belts are at this stage. They realize they know nothing about Taekwondo and have started taking classes to gain knowledge.
STAGE FOUR: You do know what
you do know. This is good; it keeps you out of trouble.
You now have gained the power of knowledge! Your
knowledge of your subject is such that you can make unbiased judgments about the subject.
You understand your subject and are capable of maintaining and improving your standard without
recourse to external stimulus. You are an authority on your subject and people listen to and respect your views and make judgments
in your name based on your views. Above all, you have a realistic appreciation
of your true value and status, a certainty, a self assurance, an omnipotence that transcends the less knowledgeable. You are
now a high ranking black belt capable of sharing your knowledge with others who are still
at stage two.
As you gain more knowledge about Taekwondo and progress
to the master ranks, you find that you still do not know what you do not know. |
|
