edgeblog 18
This is an edgeblog of distinct parts. First, thunderous congratulations to Achilleas for winning the Gold Teeth competition announced in edgeblog 16. It’s true that no one else entered, but I don’t see that one can blame the winner for that, and any fair-minded person referring back to Achilleas’ analysis of the text in question would have to admit, I believe, that he did not hold back in going for it.
The prize can now be revealed to be a signed copy of Edge (2006): (Re)-Locating TESOL in an Age of Empire. Achilleas, I hope you find it worth the effort.
Relocation also gives me a link into the second part of this edgeblog, to which a tiny bit of sociocultural background might be appropriate . . .
You may well not be familiar with an album by The Doors, released in 1967, called Strange Days. Along with Jefferson Airplane’s, After Bathing at Baxters, it was what made British discussions about the relative merits of the Beatles and the Stones seem so very parochial. I note that the current Amazon reviewer writes:
Even darker than their purple-hued debut, the Doors’ follow-up, Strange Days, closed 1967 with an ominous flourish. On it, Morrison railed at everything from organised religion to pollution, and his rallying cry, “We want the world, and we want it now!” became a call to arms for the counterculture rising up around the band.
Oh my. I didn’t come here to tell you about that, but it is true that the opening line of the title track did go through my mind this morning: ‘Strange days have found us, strange nights have tracked us down.’
Or, to start this story somewhere else, my employer, strapped for cash following the government’s withdrawal of funding for the humanities in general, discovered in early summer the need to cut another £28m out of its budget. Now, the quickest way to save money is to get rid of staff, so it introduced a scheme of Voluntary Severance/Early Retirement. I thought the situation through and decided to apply for it.
I have just heard this week that my application has been accepted and I will leave the university’s employment on 30 September 2011. Apart from a few promises to keep here and there, and perhaps the odd occasional gig, that will be that as far as TESOL is concerned. As I have been involved in TESOL one way or another (in fact, come to think of it, most ways), since 1969, there will doubtless be ramifications of this that I have yet to think of. Overall, however, I am feeling very positive. I am, once again, in the lucky position of being able to do what I decided I want to do.
At the moment, my thoughts are beginning to turn towards the part-time Diploma in Counselling that I start in September. I remember years ago reading a book called, ‘Beginner’s Mind’ by Shunryu Suzuki. It was “about” the practice of Zen Buddhism, but/and what I brought away from it was one of those quotations that stays with you: ‘In beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in expert mind there are only few possibilities.’
Well, that quote may not be word perfect, but it’s close enough for jazz and captures the message that I understood. It’s an exciting message, I think, and exciting, too, that I hadn’t thought about it for years, not until I got into that last paragraph. And that, of course, is the connection with cooperative development — learning through articulation — and with counselling.
OK, enough for now. I’ll be back in September with edgeblog: The End.
Best,
Julian
