Category Archives: Reflections

September 28, 2014 · 7:00 am

Education – past and present…how about the future of it? (Contd. article)

Dear reader, we have finally made it to more recent times when the conceptualization of “education” is concerned…What remained the same in the way of Plutarch’s Ancient Greece, what has changed…or, has anything changed with any significance since? I hope you will stay today and come back for the rest of my article as long as it lasts?!  As usual, you have my best wishes for the rest of your Sunday and for your new week! 

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EDUCATION AND THE 21ST CENTURY

1. Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

albert-einstein-06

[Photo: Free Photos Online]

Einstein’s life and work have been and continue to be objects of concentrated interest to the extent that I prefer to bring to attention some lesser-known facts surrounding the genius about the subject matter. And I will only tend to them through Einstein’s own words – or, as they are commonly attributed to him. The first one of my selection reflects Plutarch’s analysis of Academic philosophy to the core: “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think (“On Education”).” Imagine a speech of this nature meeting a university graduation ceremony in our times. But there is more: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” How about his frequently cited pronouncement: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education (“On Education”)”?

In his above-mentioned State University of New York at Albany commencement address, “on the occasion of the celebration of the tercentenary of higher education in America,” Einstein has much more to articulate on the topic of traditional learning impositions forced on students. Only selected excerpts of highest relevance appear here:

Sometimes one sees in the school simply the instrument for transferring a certain maximum quantity of knowledge to the growing generation. But that’s not right. Knowledge is dead; the school, however, serves the living. It should develop in the young individuals those equalities and capabilities which are of value for the welfare of the commonwealth. But that does not mean that individuality should be destroyed and the individual becomes a mere tool of the community, like a bee or an ant. For a community of standardized individuals without personal originality and personal aims would be a poor community without possibilities for development. On the contrary, the aim must be the training of independently thinking and acting individuals, who, however, see in the service of the community their highest life problem (“On Education”).

At this intersection, I would like to reiterate my earlier contemplation on the two essential elements that our times lack in full, a conclusion I had reached through my readings of Plutarch: ‘Love for noble labor and the works of virtue.’ What Einstein illustrates in the latter part of his speech lays the importance on the same values: “[T]he school and the teacher must guard against employing the easy method of creating individual ambition, in order to induce the pupils to diligent work (“On Education”).” That this task is anything but easy, Einstein recognizes and helps others to acknowledge by getting deeper into the issue at hand:

[O]ne should guard against preaching to the young man success in the customary sense as the aim of life. For a successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not what he is able to receive.

The most important motive for work in the school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its results, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community. In the awakening and strengthening of the psychological forces in the young man, I see the most important task given by the school. Such a psychological foundation alone leads to a joyous desire for the highest possessions of men, knowledge and artist-like workmanship (“On Education”).

The seemingly simple yet demanding challenge in teaching for the future of humanity must be understood outside time and space but also against the backlash of teaching aims to deliver ‘special knowledge’:

I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which [sic] one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible. Apart from that, it seems to me, moreover, objectionable to treat the individual like a dead tool. The school should always have as its aim that the young man leaves it as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist.

In his conceptualization of education, Einstein joins hands with Plutarch and Chesterton, as he also demands from the field a “searchlight” (Chesterton) to be offered to the learners in a delicate balance between their own space and the opportunity to alter themselves into their improved selves:

The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge. If a person masters the fundamentals of his subject and has learned to think and work independently, he will surely find his way and besides will better be able to adapt himself to progress and changes than the person whose training principally consists in the acquiring the detailed knowledge.

Giving students the chance to advance upon their own character is a concept that also Sydney Justin Harris – a far less-known figure of human history explored and articulated with fierce passion.

2. Sydney Justin Harris (1917-1986)

Sydney Justin Harris was born in London, England on September 14, 1917. The Harris family is known to have moved to the United States, when he was five and having settled permanently in Chicago around 1922. Harris was attending the University of Chicago as a philosophy student, when he started his newspaper career at the Chicago Herald-Examiner. Like Chesterton’s service as the editor of his own weekly publication, Harris also was in editorial charge, only of his own magazine The Beacon. Other similarities between Chesterton’s and Harris’ professional lives include Harris’ active involvement in drama critiques. He soon became a reporter and feature writer for the Chicago Daily News. For 40 years, beginning with 1944, he published “Strictly Personal,” his daily column in which he married his background in philosophy to his research in the form of essays on a large variety of issues related to the contemporary world, including “human behavior, religion, hypocrisy, and artistic endeavor” and delving into areas of high controversy of his time, such as “supporting abortion, prison reform, and a less literal interpretation of the bible (Newberry.org.).” Next to his journalistic and literary critique work, Harris delivered lectures – another area of life experience bridging him to Plutarch, the perhaps most important connectors being his philosophy studies, commitment to the essay genre and groundbreaking thoughts on education.

Sydney J. Harris

[Photo: Free Images Online]

For the context of this article, Harris- 1994 essay, “What True Education Should Do” has critical importance and I will therefore include it here in its full length. In his critique, Harris is citing the Greek philosopher, Socrates (c. 470 BCE – c. 399 BCE) – the core influence on Western thought – whose teachings Plutarch includes in his Moralia as well as in his treatises in apparent support:

When most people think of the word education, they think of a pupil as a sort of animate sausage casing. Into this empty casing, the teachers are supposed to stuff education. But genuine education, as Socrates knew more than two thousand years ago, is not inserting the stuffings of information into a person, but rather eliciting knowledge from him; it is the drawing out of what is in the mind.

“The most important part of education,” once wrote William Ernest Hocking, the distinguished Harvard philosopher, “is this instruction of man in what he has inside of him.”

And, as Edith Hamilton has reminded us, Socrates never said, “I know, learn from me.” He said, rather, “Look into your own selves and find the spark of truth that God has put into every heart and that only you can kindle to a flame.”

In the dialogue called the “Meno,” Socrates takes an ignorant slave boy, without a day of

schooling, and proves to the amazed observers that the boy really “knows” geometry— because the principles and axioms of geometry are already in his mind, waiting to be called out.

So many of the discussions and controversies about the content of education are futile and inconclusive because they are concerned with what should “go into” the student rather than with what should be taken out, and how this can best be done.

The college student who once said to me, after a lecture, “I spend so much time studying

that I don’t have a chance to learn anything” was succinctly expressing his dissatisfaction with the sausage-casing view of education.

He was being so stuffed with miscellaneous facts, with such an indigestible mass of material, that he had no time (and was given no encouragement) to draw on his own resources, to use his own mind for analyzing and synthesizing and evaluation this material.

Education, to have any meaning beyond the purpose of creating well-informed dunces, must elicit from the pupil what is latent in every human being the rules of reason, the inner knowledge of what is proper for men to be and do, the ability to sift evidence and come to conclusions that can generally be agreed to by all open minds and warm hearts.

Pupils are more like oysters than sausages. The job of teaching is not to stuff them and then seal them up, but to help them open and reveal the riches within. There are pearls in each of us, if only we knew how to cultivate them with ardor and persistence (The Thoughtful Reader).

That Harris had seen the necessity of lighting the fire for learning is evident in the following quote attributed to him; one echoing the Academic philosophy of Plutarch’s Ancient Greece:

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

To enable a young individual with learning that would transcend the mere reception of knowledge, transforming it into a life experience to give others in the form of one’s improved character, while embracing thus empowering all involved in that exchange, was a life objective of the human ideal called Nelson Mandela.

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(Next Sunday…Mandela, viewed within the context of education)

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September 21, 2014 · 7:00 am

Education – past and present…how about the future of it? (Contd. article)

(Thank you for your visit, dear reader, and for your continued interest in my rather lengthy article on education and its past and present conceptualizations, or better yet: re-conceptualizations. Wishing you, as always, a wonderful Sunday and an equally pleasant new week.)

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GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON AND PLUTARCH’S ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY

Education to deliver service to humanity is not a theory limited to Ancient Greece. There are men renowned for their high intelligence but also those lesser known who with persistent passion stood behind their conclusions as to what education is not supposed to be. In the following, a discussion ensues on an intellectual of modern times whose educational philosophy has been largely overlooked in modern ages: Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936).

  1. Life and Work: Selected Facts

Gilbert Keith Chesterton – one of the most unnoticed thinkers of the 20th century, the English biographer, philosopher, writer, poet and literary and art critic has lived in the United Kingdom all his life. He is known never to have gone to college but to art school instead.

 Gilbert K Chesterton

 [Photo: Free Images Online]

Dale Ahlquist has the following relatively unknown life and work details to report on Chesterton in an article in The American Chesterton Society:

In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Ahlquist also writes about the ease within which Chesterton expressed himself regarding literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology and how this laid-back philosopher “debated many of the celebrated intellectuals of his time: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow.” In an obvious tone of disappointment, Ahlquist adds to say how “the world has immortalized his opponents and forgotten Chesterton,” while, “i]ronically, all of his opponents regarded Chesterton with the greatest affection.” According to Ahlquist’s account, George Bernard Shaw said that “[t]he world is not thankful enough for Chesterton.”

It is long overdue for the world to become thankful for Chesterton’s conceptualization of education, as I argue.

  1. “The Superstition of School”

A significant Chesterton statement resonates the essence of Plutarch’s vision of Academic philosophy, and therefore he is in most appropriate company in this essay:

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

Let us not forget the variety of topics Chesterton has covered in his essays of encyclopedic extent, hence how this particular claim by him is not to understand in isolation but rather in close connection to his sociological as well as political contexts – as in the proposed system to the ‘training of a statesman’ by Plutarch.

In his essay, “The Superstition of School,” Chesterton claims with conviction that “without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman’s education is complete (Classic Essays).” What he demonstrates, when he writes about “the snags of sociology,” is of critical value:

[O]ne of them is concerned with Education. If you ask me whether I think the populace, especially the poor, should be recognized as citizens who can rule the state, I answer in a voice of thunder, “Yes.” If you ask me whether I think they ought to have education, in the sense of a wide culture and familiarity with the classics of history, I again answer, “Yes.” But there is, in the achievement of this purpose, a sort of snag or recoil that can only be discovered by experience and does not appear in print at all. It is not allowed for on paper, even so much as is the recoil of a gun. Yet it is at this moment an exceedingly practical part of practical politics[.] […]

As if to describe our times, he further analyzes the problematic at hand:

The snag in it is this: that the self-educated think far too much of education. I might add that the half-educated always think everything of education. That is not a fact that appears on the surface of the social plan or ideal; it is the sort of thing that can only be discovered by experience. When I said that I wanted the popular feeling to find political expression, I meant the actual and autochthonous popular feeling as it can be found in third-class carriages and bean-feasts and bank-holiday crowds; and especially, of course (for the earnest social seeker after truth), in public-houses. I thought, and I still think, that these people are right on a vast number of things on which the fashionable leaders are wrong. The snag is that when one of these people begins to “improve himself” it is exactly at that moment that I begin to doubt whether it is an improvement.

How in sync do the Chesterton words flow on and on, when one recalls Plutarch’s concern over the ‘improvement of a character’:

He seems to me to collect with remarkable rapidity a number of superstitions, of which the most blind and benighted is what may be called the Superstition of School. He regards School, not as a normal social institution to be fitted in to other social institutions, like Home and Church and State; but as some sort of entirely supernormal and miraculous moral factory, in which perfect men and women are made by magic. To this idolatry of School he is ready to sacrifice Home and History and Humanity, with all its instincts and possibilities, at a moment’s notice. To this idol he will make any sacrifice, especially human sacrifice. And at the back of the mind, especially of the best men of this sort, there is almost always one of two variants of the same concentrated conception: either “If I had not been to School I should not be the great man I am now,” or else “If I had been to school I should be even greater than I am.” Let none say that I am scoffing at uneducated people; it is not their uneducation [sic] but their education that I scoff at. Let none mistake this for a sneer at the half-educated; what I dislike is the educated half. But I dislike it, not because I dislike education, but because, given the modern philosophy or absence of philosophy, education is turned against itself, destroying that very sense of variety and proportion which [sic] it is the object of education to give.

Chesterton delivers the solution to the problem of his diagnosis in no less succinct terms:

What is wrong is a neglect of principle; and the principle is that without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman’s education is complete. […] the truth of which I speak has nothing to do with any special culture of any special class. […] The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. There begins to be a mere vanity in being educated whether it be self-educated or merely state-educated. Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself [sic]. Some improvement may be made by turning equally vivid and perhaps vulgar spotlights upon a large number of other people as well. But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars. (1923)

It is not at all difficult to recall at this point as to how the same thought found its home in Ancient Greece in the writings and teachings of Plutarch:

When the intelligence of the new student has comprehended the main parts, let us urge him to put the rest together by his own efforts, using his memory as a guide and thinking for himself. The mind does not require filling like a bottle (PL MOR 1 P257).

As with Chesterton, the sole genius of the 21st century, Albert Einstein was – though quite under-examined for this aspect of his intelligence – a devoted advocate for education as a “searchlight (Chesterton).”

(Next Sunday, “Education and the 21st Century – Albert Einstein and Sydney Justin Harris )

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September 14, 2014 · 7:00 am

Education – past and present…how about the future of it? (Contd. article)

(Continued article from last Sunday)

3. Treatise on Poetry, History and Education

For Plutarch, poetry and history constitute the integral elements of Academic philosophy. Poetry and education, then, in the view of this ‘humanist par excellence’ (Encyclopedia Britannica), complement one another:

The Spartan, when asked what he taught, replied: I make honourable [sic] things pleasant to children (PL MOR 6. P9).

This way is the one to help pupils take through their learning toward Plutarch’s ultimate aim and accordingly, carries heavy responsibility in their own improvement of their character:

The memory of children should be trained and exercised; it is the storehouse of learning and the mother of the Muses (PL MOR 1 P45).

Young pupils, Plutarch believes, must be given training in reading poetry, though beyond the metaphorical in order to realize this art will impact character formation and development in the matter people desperately need it later in their lives:

Let poetry be used as an introductory exercise to philosophy. Those who train themselves to seek the profitable in what gives pleasure and to be dissatisfied with what has nothing profitable in it learn discernment, the beginning of education (PL MOR 1 P81).

When pupils “pass from ostentation and artifice to discourse which deals with character and feeling[,]” proclaims Plutarch, “they begin to make progress (PL MOR 1 P421).” By becoming aware on the basis of poetry’s selected principles of their own capability to achieve a higher form of themselves, they will then be able to advance upon a state of being where they can materialize those principles, from which point to enter the path to virtue. Once they achieved that state of being they have attained by themselves, he asserts further, they can contribute to the improvement of others:

Menedemus remarked that: the multitudes who came to Athens to study were at the outset wise; later they became lovers of wisdom; later still orators, and as time went on, just ordinary persons and the more they laid hold on reason the more they laid aside their self opinion and conceit (PL MOR 1 P435).

In the statement above, we see once again the essence of Plutarch’s principle regarding the need for the concurrence of nature, habit and reason in order for the education of character to be achieved. Hence, the interrelated components of the concept behind philosophical education: poetry and history as the two irreplaceable cores of the same element that fine-tunes character. How befitting is the following Plutarch statement, when his ideal of training statesmen from their childhood on is taken into consideration:

We should choose a calling appropriate to ourselves, cultivate it diligently and let the rest alone (PL MOR 6. P215).

And how succinct is his definition of the correctly educated statesman:

Arouse a man to emulate his better self (PL MOR 1 P383).

4. Influence

As stressed at the onset of this article, Plutarch, a phenomenon of human history prompted the development and advancement of essay writing and essayist texts. Far beyond such influence, however, he also left his impact on the emergence of the genres of biography and historical writing (Encyclopedia Britannica). His academic and philosophical presence in Europe is said to have stayed at its peak from the 16th through the 19th century the least.

His literary impact on following generations of authors has been immense: Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, John Dryden, John Milton, Robert Herrick, George Chapman, Jonathan Swift, Walter Savage Landor, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Mary Shelley, and H.G. Wells in England; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville in the United States; J.W. von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller in Germany; and French drama of the late 16th and the entire 17th century; Jacques Myot’s introduction of Plutarch to Sir Thomas North, and Shakespeare’s three plays sourced by Sir Thomas North’s English translation of Lives and from then on, the entire English-speaking regions of the world (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

 Plutarch.LivesXYZ

[Photo: Wikipedia]

When compared to other Ancient Greek philosophers, Plutarch is not viewed as a profound figure in the field of philosophy. While he may not have added a new component to the arena of philosophy at large, scholars assert that he was instrumental in enabling his students and the public to comprehend the established systems – and not only in Greece but wherever he traveled. I join many critics who see in him ‘a humanist par excellence’ – and therefore justify the extensive space I reserve in my essay on the discussion of his relevant accomplishments as an educator serving humanity.

 (Next Sunday, Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Plutarch’s Academic Philosophy)

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September 7, 2014 · 7:00 am

Education – past and present…how about the future of it?

My ailments that had their onset mid-July of this year and had continued through mid-August finally left me on the path to my healing process. Before things went out of control for my health, I had worked on an article for the Inner Child Magazine to be published in August, for which issue I was the Cover Feature. The issue has, of course, been published as scheduled. The article was/is about a topic dear to my heart (and of my lifelong dedication as well as commitment); namely, “education.” Today, I will start sharing with you my deliberations on this subject matter but will do so in several installments – as the text is quite long.  I very much hope you will take interest in how I approach this topic and make subtle suggestions for its re-conceptualization/s. I will follow the same principle with my posts as I had done a while ago with my short story: initially, in smaller sections but then once all text is complete, all at once – in case, you may still prefer to have read the entire article all at once. Please stay tuned. I would love to have you visit again. May your Sunday and your new week bring all that you would wish for yourselves.

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 A FIRE TO IGNITE

 RIGHT AT THE ARTICLE'S ONSET.250px-Plutarch

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited.”

[Photo: Wikipedia]

 

RECONCEPTUALIZING EDUCATION

Are we to conclude from the Plutarch statement above, the Greek academic, historian, biographer, and essayist merely referred to learning for the sake of his pupils regurgitating information he delivered to them? Note his emphasis on what the mind is not. With urgency, then, a question rises: How does one provide the flame?

Written history demonstrates time and again to what extent the humankind relies on the knowledge and wisdom of its ancestors. When the subject is as challenging of a matter to a century as education is to ours, we need the access to specific branches of those historical libraries. Hence, the reappearance in this article of a most prominent educational philosopher scholarship has explored: Plutarch of Chaeronea.

To begin with, for me to speak through Plutarch in the present format has everything to do with his documented influence on the evolution of the essay genre. His more than 60 essays of ethical, religious, physical, political and literary contents out of his total 227 works are claimed to have had a strongest impact on his contemporaries but especially on the ensuing generations.

There is a multitude of related areas we can explore, or we can delve into as many details as we could draw from available sources. The fact will remain that all data are incomplete. For, what is known about Plutarch’s life constitutes a reconstruction work. Therefore, we will focus on my point of concern: education as conceptualized outside the term’s modern-day boundaries.

ANCIENT GREECE: PLUTARCH AND HIS ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY

  1. Early Life, Schooling and Family

 

Ancient Greece.Southern Regions

 

 Physical Map of Greece

[Photos: Free Images Online]

 

Plutarch’s birth year is given as AD 46. Regards the time when his death occurred, sources dwell on a date after 119. He is believed to have been born to a prominent family in Chaeronea in Boeotia, Greece (arrow-highlighted in the first picture above) and his immediate family (parents, two brothers and a grandfather) as well as extended relations are described as happy and close-knit people. He is recorded as having received a liberal education at the Academy of Athens, studying physics, rhetoric, mathematics, medicine, natural science, philosophy, Greek, and Latin literature. In his effort to bring his education to completion, Plutarch is said to have traveled extensively in Greece and Asia Minor, with visits to Alexandria, Egypt as well (bio.).

There is not much information about this educational philosopher’s wife, other than her name –Timoxena, and her father’s name. While the dates are a blur, one wonders, if it weren’t the deaths of many of his children that prompted Plutarch to his deliberations on theosophy: out of the four sons and one daughter only two sons survived him and his wife. His letter of consolation to Timoxena is most poignant in its mediation to scholars of this prominent world figure’s life-altering events (see cited work section for a link to the entire letter in translation):

AS [sic] for the messenger you dispatched to tell me of the death of my little daughter, it seems he missed his way as he was going to Athens. But when I came to Tanagra, I heard of it by my niece. I suppose by this time the funeral is over. I wish that whatever has been done may create you no dissatisfaction, as well now as hereafter. But if you have designedly left anything alone, depending upon my judgment, thinking better to determine the point if I were with you, I pray let it be without ceremony and timorous superstition, which I know are far from you.

Only dear wife, let you and me bear our affliction with patience. I know very well and do comprehend what loss we have had; but if I should find you grieve beyond measure, this would trouble me more than the thing itself. For I had my birth neither from a stock nor a stone; and you know it full well, I having been assistant to you in the education of so many children, which we brought up at home under our own care. This daughter was born after four sons, when you were longing to bear a daughter, which made me call her by your own name. Therefore I know she was particularly dear to you. […] (Plutarch Letter).

 Plutarch Bust.Priest

[Photo: Free Images Online]

  1. Work

Plutarch’s life was marked with his commitment to education. He is known to have taught in Chaeronea, also lecturing in Rome as well as in other parts of Italy on philosophy and ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). His Moralia, a collection of his lectures, letters and dialogues offers the reader his treatments of an array of subjects, one of which has my concentrated attention in this essay: Academic philosophy.

It is no irony that a saying, “[c]haracter is destiny[,]” originates from Plutarch – foremost a moralist striving to illustrate the influence of character on destinies of individuals and state. His measurement of character entails conducts in war, in politics, and in love. This key concept of designing the human character stands in direct relation to the discussion at hand. In his ethical prescription for life, Plutarch pronounces the following lesson for his pupils:

There must be a concurrence of three things to produce perfectly right action: nature, reason and habit (PL MOR 1 P9. Ancient/Classical History).

The “habit” to which he refers, reveals the emphasis he places on education’s role in bettering a human being: “Character is habit long continued (PL MOR 1 P13).” His following claim sheds a brighter light on this thought:

So that we might acquire a habit of mind that is deeply trained and philosophic, rather than the sophistic that merely acquires information, let us believe that right listening is the beginning of right living (PL MOR 1 P259).

Where does reason, the third element of Plutarch’s character-building system, then, come into play? He answers as in the following:

When the intelligence of the new student has comprehended the main parts, let us urge him to put the rest together by his own efforts, using his memory as a guide and thinking for himself. The mind does not require filling like a bottle (PL MOR 1 P257).

Any statement he makes in Moralia accentuates his central idea behind the role of education for humanity:

While we take pains that children should eat with the right hand, we take no pains that they should hear the right instruction (PL MOR 1 P23).

The “right instruction” for Plutarch entails character building in his students – candidates for future statesmen. Hence, he fine combs through the conditions of their treatment throughout their learning process:

Children ought to be led to honourable [sic] practices by means of encouragement and reasoning and certainly not by blows or ill treatment (PL MOR 1 P41).

That precise preparation of the circumstances will result in, as he asserts with conviction, the desired makings of history:

Dull minds are content to learn the outcome, or general drift of history. The student fired with love of noble conduct and the works of virtue sees much chance in outcomes and is more delighted with the particulars of history where actions and their causes detail the struggles between virtue and vice (PL MOR 7. P373).

In another section of his Moralia, once again, Plutarch lays dramatic emphasis on what education should not be about – simultaneously, underlining a serious dilemma of our times:

Children must be given some breathing space from continuous tasks; the whole of life is divided between relaxation and application. Rest gives relish to labour [sic] (PL MOR 1 P43).

‘Love for noble labor and the works of virtue’: two vital ingredients today’s educational systems lack at large.

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Next week, Plutarch’s “Treatise on Poetry, History and Education” and on his “Influence.” I hope you will stay tuned for those sections and more to come…

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August 24, 2014 · 11:00 am

…hoping to be back to my Sunday reflections soon…

Balkon sefalıklarım

A view of my balcony from my old flat in Sinop, Turkey 

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August 11, 2014 · 7:42 pm

my Sunday reflections…

Dear All,

In two years, yesterday was the first time I had to miss my weekly post for us. I have been sick for quite some time and have been spending all my days in the hospital since Sunday night, August the third – and an estimation of a particular date for matters to be clearing for me is impossible at this point. Today is the first day I am able to tolerate sitting up long enough to write to you about the uncertainty as to when I am going to be able to proceed with my weekly writings.

Wishing you all a great heath-filled time until we meet here again.

With love and in gratitude.

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July 27, 2014 · 7:00 am

40 cents…

images

CAUTION: DETAILS IN THE PICTURE, SUCH AS AN ACTUAL BOOTH OR A PERSON STANDING GUARD  MAY NOT BE FOUND IN OTHER AREAS. KINDLY LOOK FOR A HELPING HAND ELSEWHERE.

 

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WE ARE SORRY FOR NOT HAVING THIS BANKING OPTION AVAILABLE WHERE YOU MAY NEED IT THE MOST. KINDLY LOOK FOR A HELPING HAND ELSEWHERE. 

 

 

 

 

…

I am on my way back from a trip to Richmond, VA where I had a book reading. All having gone well beyond my expectations…until I hit some more of the toll plazas: I am out of cash. I don’t mean only out of small change: There is no cash left on me! While in Richmond, turnpikes/toll area were offering “Full Service” or there would be a live person inside the booth. Not at all the case around here. (In my own defense for my ill-preparedness: I have been living happily ever after in the lovely small town where I settled about 12 years ago, and haven’t exactly experimented with many turnpike or toll plaza zones since…)

There are only two lanes this time. No multiple “Cash Only”s or “EZPASS Only”s. The image above – minus what appears to be a real person’s hand reaching outside the booth – is quite accurate to describe my reality (in my case, what seemed to be once a booth gave back a rather eerie look at me, from behind pitch-dark windows – there was no movement). My evil-eye small change purse had handed over its last emergency account of 40 cents where that last toll plaza had surprised me (jointly with my dysfunctional TomTom and equally dysfunctional iPhone App). As for all other cents and dollars, they were emptied prior…This one expects 70 cents. I have 30 cents left in another small change purse (who knows why I keep around in my car), though all in pennies but at least, it is close to half the amount needed. I’m off to hunt for my remaining 40 cents.

My car – however small it may be – is now comfortably squeezed somewhere adjacent to the missing booth vicinity, fully blocking the way for other drivers. A motorcyclist zooms by the EZPASS section. ‘Wow,’ I conclude in amazement, ‘how fast can these passes be scanned these days?’ (Have I stressed one detail yet? This area is rather deserted…)

At this point in time, only one car bumper makes a pass at that of mine but soon after another vehicle is heard, one that decides to become intimate friends with the car right behind me. Too close for comfort for everyone…I dare to peek from my rear-view mirror: there is only one person sitting in the car right behind mine, and that’s the driver. I conclude in hope: he will know what I am going through right now. A fellow traveler but also one who goes solo. I get out of my car, approach his driver-side door (at least he rolls down the window, although looking at me as if I were a giraffe or four elephants leaving that tiny car in front of him): not even a question, such as, maybe just maybe, do I need anything, am I hurt (since I look the part, thanks to my family-size eye infection). Not yet discouraged, I explain my situation to him as quickly as I can (if not, he may just drive over my little red and won’t care about leaving any tire prints, I fear…). Still no reaction whatsoever. His eyes on mine, he makes a head gesture which I am left to translate as “see, if I care!” Only one thing is there for me to do and I gather up the courage to follow it through: “Sir, in that case could you please back up your car so that I can get mine out of everyone’s way?” Nothing. No response (he spoke a very clear English with me before – well, it was a mumbling sound but in perfect English regardless…)

I then walk over toward the car behind him (I spot at least two heads – it’s evening hours and the sun is setting modestly, instead of shining directly into my already compromised eye sight…thanks to my infected eye…). The window slowly comes down. No question. No visible reaction. So, I have to speak first again: “I need 70 cents but have only 30 left and there is no full service here, as you can see. No one is in the booth. Would it be possible…” – The man on the passenger side is quick to respond to me but only by telling me how fast he has to … go to a bathroom (though he uses less imaginative words). I apologize for keeping them there and think about offering them a copy of my $22.95 worth book from the trunk of my car in place of their 40 cents. I don’t dare. What if they think I am a nutcase? The driver feels urged to add his few cents worth: “70 cents. It’s only 70 cents!” He is in disbelief that I don’t have that amount of money on me…

I can tell they are both getting upset at the fact that I am so clueless as to not keep a load of change with me – in case another toll plaza decides to appear with no full service no booth-person before the unsuspecting driver that I am that day. I am ready to turn around to go back to my car but have to ask them to please back up their car, so that the one behind me can back up his…etc. They keep waiting for me to finish one sentence after another. Perhaps, until the passenger is capable of announcing to my face with a growing smirk a piece of wisdom anyone should forever be thankful for: “We all gotta go somewhere.” Hmm. Really?

While I act the stupid that I am at the moment, still hoping to hear a word, any word of sympathy or question of concern (perhaps, my eye infection scared them so…it could, after all, turn into a fatal weapon), both drivers finally back up their cars. And I park mine on the far right side – away from any approaching cars, in case my luck changes. To my surprise, the second car’s driver makes a (far far far far far less than half-hearted) swerve toward me, his passenger takes out his hand and shouts at me with an owner-to-unwanted dog-attitude: “Do you want a quarter?”

Thankfully, I can manipulate my face from over-friendly to somewhat of a “don’t mess with me” expression whenever I have to…

And I wait. Making no record of how much time passes. Nor showing any interest whatsoever in keeping such a record. An SUV approaches the booth-person-less booth area. I don’t even need to signal to this driver, the car slows down on its own. Encouraged, I leave my car and approach it. Two people are in it, one man one woman about my age. The man is driving. Before I can even finish my sentence to explain my dilemma, they both reach into a box (or something) and take cash out to give it to me. I thank them – probably, way too many times, so the man gives me a smile with a kind reassurance: “It is 40 cents.”

Fresh in my mind how three other adults treated me in the same situation, I thank both of them several times again. Actually, what they don’t know is how much I want to hug this couple. I restrain myself from doing so for fear that such show of affection could be misunderstood at my age…But the truth is, they found me at a vulnerable mindset, after all,  just when I was feeling abandoned right there and then by humanity at large. As for my ‘please adopt me’ face, that must have seemed to them as something they would prefer not to use at this stage of their lives…

When I asked how I could ever return their favor, giving me embracing eye-smiles, they sent me off to have ‘safe travels’ because that outcome would be my thanks to them.

 

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July 20, 2014 · 7:00 am

Second year of blogging…

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Good Sunday, dear friends of the reading and writing arts!

WordPress.com congratulates me for “flying” with them. I want to resound their note in a modified way, and thank you from the heart for having been here all this time and for still being here. Your visits and comments are what encouraged and inspired me to write on a regular basis, an interaction with you that I have enjoyed so much, and continue to take great pleasure in. Please feel free to let me know, as to what, in particular, you had liked in the past among my writings. I would appreciate your input with enthusiasm.

As always, I look very much forward to your next visit. May you have a wonderful Sunday and an equally remarkable new week!

hülya

 

 

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July 13, 2014 · 7:00 am

Supporting the Written Art and Schlow Centre Region Library in State College, PA

[CAUTION: An unedited text lies ahead of you…]

 

I find the back entrance, park my car where the gate opening gadget used to be, leave the flashers on and unload what I had packed from the night before. Confident that I have thought of everything. I raise my head from my carry-on luggage piece and … am tempted to go right back into my cute red: under the huge tent, every table looks decorated as if touched by a long-time stager, with eye-catching presentation materials everywhere. I pass by the line of tables in slow motion, looking right, looking left, not sure where I am supposed to be heading. Someone who hasn’t skipped a beat to notice who knows what my face looked like, asks me whether I am ____ ( a name other than mine), before I get a chance to answer, a friendly voice rises from the area that I now left behind me: “You are with me!” Her demeanor matches the friendliness of her vocal cords…I make a legal U-turn and am at my table section. She and I will be sharing a table. She has already set up her side, as have anyone whom I can spot from where I am standing. Every time I use the phrase “set up”, please replace it with “donning grandiose details and special effects.” Yes, we have all received the same timely and kind tip as to what to display on our tables. It is obvious: I am the only one who disregarded those well-meant suggestions….Shaking my initial surprised look, I put all that I brought with me on my side of the four-legged multi-purpose platform. “All that” doesn’t amount to much…I see…and can’t deny anymore: I’m ill-prepared. I have only copies of my book and business cards. If it hadn’t been for my dear publisher’s recommendation – my book’s cover as a blown-up poster, stoppers-by or intentional visitors would have easily dismissed me along with those beautiful print products I have my name on. I am petite as it is…

After my initial culture shock wears off (it is my first entry to this part of our world), my two neighboring authors and I start chatting before the crowd comes in: they are both delightful and comforting! It is taking me a while but I begin to stop worrying about what I don’t have with or on me for the potential visitors to my side (such as those attention-getting giveaways, colorful decorations, and prizes all around me). These two beautiful women take me away from my short-lived worries thanks to their calm and calming personalities and their voluntary talks on the genres they specialize in. I learn new things from them also about their experiences in the writing arena. We agree it is a long-time fasting lion-to-unarmed bare-footed-weeks-long-trekking-newborn-place out there. We commiserate – about the state of the various literary genres in our century and how we are subjected to a distinct level of degeneration in the overall interest of the readers (it just wouldn’t do, if we didn’t!) But then we laugh, hard; comment about our expectations for our books’ sales of today – a beautiful day (no storms, not even a mist of rain), critique and analyze ourselves, our passions for writing, and laugh again – best of all, we celebrate. The opportunities we have in our hands; our understanding of and support for one another. Other authors approach our tables and we all communicate, as if we had known one another for our entire lives. At least from my end, this experience is a true pleasure and gives itself in full submission to us as a most memorable time. What display items? What more do I need, I ask myself while no one is looking…

A short while later, my friends arrive and surround me with their “pride” talks directed at “my” event, taking pictures I could not have taken on my own to mark this special occasion in my life (nor would have asked someone else to do). Once again, I laugh – from the core of my being, we hug and (content with how I have been managing myself), they leave to see the rest of the Arts Festival tents and booths. In the early afternoon, another dear friend of mine comes over – despite the fact that she has so much on her tray these days. Finally, my One and Only – my daughter/only child, walks into the tent, pushing my grandson’s stroller, completing my understanding of perfection…

On my way back to my car, my steps feel on water, gliding me away – although I am exhausted from a day quite unusual in its length, intensity and activities. Why my dance-like one-foot-in front of-the other-attitude? For this BookFest hasn’t been about selling books at all! It was rather about exchanging positive energy between people who happen to be readers of this or that genre, making time to meet other people who happen to be writers of such or the other genre. All of whom were ready and willing to connect to one another over one area of their lives, asking and answering questions and laughing together. It was about authentic interaction between people. Period.

My first BookFest.Tek Başıma.July 12.2014

May your Sunday and your new week become a memorable delight for you.

 

 

 

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July 6, 2014 · 7:00 am

My guest blog post…

Good Sunday!

I had been thinking about writing something quite different for my reflections column today. When, however, a guest blog post I had written for my friend, Anu Lal at the The Indian Commentator on the subject of higher education in the 21st century U.S. received attention beyond my expectation, I decided to share with you my quite fresh text (posted on 4th of July). I hope you also will think my deliberations (however lighthearted they may appear to be) on the subject matter to be relevant not only in academia but also in professions outside it – as several of my friends on another platform concluded.

I wish you a wonderful day today as well as a great new week, and, as always, look very much forward to your next visit.

And my guest blog post is at: DON’T THINK I AM AN APP!

 

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