
http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses: Tennyson
Ok, what’s he on about here then?
Well I have been doing quite a lot of reflective thinking recently, culminating in some major think yesterday. I spend a lot of time these days in the company of younger colleagues (not difficult to achieve that really at my age). There is an amazing brimming of ideas, inventiveness and opportunity out there now for those who wish to take it. There is Tom Barrett and others who pick up an idea and run with it as a collaborative exercise such as Google Maths; there is the Gunpowder Plot Tweet Stream of Chris Leach, then there is jet set superstar Ollie Bray. These are just some examples of the amazing stuff that is being done, and the real opportunities to work with colleagues who can, and do, on a daily basis make things happen and push the boundaries of accepted pedagogy.
I was very lucky when I began my teaching career to join a department that was new, a bit ‘off the wall’ and up for asking questions and trying new things. I could so easily have ended up in a reactionary fossilised place (there were plenty of them to go around). Any success I have had since then is in no small measure to the good fortune of my first placement. Others were not so lucky and were ’socialised’ into the boneyards.
Tonight, assuming work is out of the way I may well join a group of others in a flash meeting to look at new ideas, I have had my Twitter stream running all day as I worked, i have bookmarked to Diigo numerous fragments for use another time. I have marked work submitted electronically, I have reviewed collaborative documents, I have looked at new software, that may be a very different way of delivering in a classroom. Its my choice I have done much of this, its not really ‘work’ in the sense of the assembly line, or the daily grind. Its interesting, and its done in the company of amazing people, some of whom I will never meet.
So, how does this all fit with the poetry? Well, Wordsworth recognised a time when he was alive when there was suddenly so much potential, so much challenge, so much of a thrill – and he also spots that those who are young will have the most chance to seize these opportunities. There’s an echo of any decent teacher in this, we are after all projecting forward what the learners will be able to take from this ‘brave new world’. There is also the corollary, that those who are not so young have less opportunity – or do they?
Step to Ulysses, he sits being once more the King, governing his unruly people, having seen and suffered so much on his epic journey back from Troy. He is bored, he recognises he maybe has less energy. less spring in his step than the younger man he once was, but he is faced with a choice – eke out his days in boring administration, or once more jump aboard his ship and set off for more fabulous adventures.
And to jump yet again, how’s about Andrew Marvell?
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
