"Excuse me, Ms. Apple, I found those bolt cutters you asked for."

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If Jack Kerouac can describe his religious practice as "catholicism mixed with gin", I guess I'd say my approach to education is Buddhism mixed with psilocybin.

See, I think liberation is the core principal of becoming. And that we are always in a state of becoming, especially within the walls of a school, and within the walls of adolescence.  People are in a constant state of untethering from limitations to expand into spaces previous unexplored. I also think the wheel to which we are chained and often, unfortunately, chain ourselves represents a great beginners guide to our constant need of liberation.

However, as an idealist, I see things that maybe aren't always real but represent what I hope for, what should be, or just what the possibilities are, if we can just be a little more free. These hallucinations recognize the potential, symbolism and, on a bad trip, disaster that can be my approach to education. 

Which leads me to music. (If you don't see the connection, read On the Road.)

Music has always been my jam. It congeals things floating in my mind and spirit that aren't quite thoughts or identifiable emotions yet, but want to be. It often unifies the torrents of the mind with the oceans of the soul. Music resonates in the space between losing oneself and becoming oneself again but differently. 

Lately I've been listening to Fiona Apple's pandemic album Fetch the Bolt Cutters. It's a remarkable pandemic gift, full of stories of becoming, liberating, celebrating, reflecting, advising and recreating. 

Also, it's awesome. 

The album has replayed again and again in my car and in my head. I'm struck by the fact I'm listening to a woman about my age seamlessly occupying multiple times of her life. Apple expertly represents this time-less quality of the mind whereby we can be the 42 year old professional teacher, husband and father of three and be the nervous 13 year old starting a new school year. What really fascinates me, though, is the thrust of the album. While there is bitterness, regret and shame present and accounted for in the album, Apple demonstrates the maturity of recognizing those feelings as liminal states that can sometimes chain us, but ultimately only have the power we allow them to have.  

So the feel of the album resonates in my mind in the lyrical time-less-ness and in the liminal presentation of formative physical, mental and spiritual experiences.

I know quoting an album and saying its great is an unsatisfactory experience, so go listen to the album. But the eponymous song has a verse that nails the nature of high school education.


While I'd not yet found my bearings
Those it-girls hit the ground
Comparing the way I was, to the way she was
Saying I'm not stylish enough and I cry too much
And I listened because I hadn't found my own voice yet
So all I could hear was the noise that
People make when they don't know shit
But I didn't know that yet

Without getting full on exegetical, I want to comment on a few things. Notice our speaker is looking back, but the details of her memory are emotionally vulnerable enough to elicit the continued presence of the feelings of embarrassment and inadequacy. But the verse finishes with "I didn't know that yet", the second time our speaker cuts herself free from the chains of those present memories by recognizing her empowerment and personal growth. Our speaker is bigger than moments, short term feelings and vulnerabilities. Since the time of her memory she has seen the chains of "the noise" and has cut loose.

Education should aim for this liberation of the mind, body and spirit. It should aim for realization of full personhood, personal agency, happiness and freedom. It should focus on the tools for self reflection as well as actualization.

I'm not making my case well; I'm not bringing all the points together, following all the rules of persuasive writing. I'm too jumbled, blathering. Sometimes that's how we get to...

the power in the eureka moments. In education we tend to think of those as intellectual experiences with well-defined learning targets, measurable and repeatable. But we need to see things that aren't there. We need to hallucinate a little and imagine the other possibilities. Possibilities like identifying our chains and fetching the bolt cutters.


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