This is my first post for this blog.
Hurrah!
First blog post for this new blog, but
not of course my first blog post in the history of blogs. Since
they've been a thing, I've had my email account linked to some url or
another, or more than one, many more than one. I've joined up when
the new stuff comes up. Spaces are mine, reserved for me. Lots of
people misuse blogs this way. We're tech-timid. To reserve it, to
hold it in potential, a talisman necessary for the ritual work of
dreaming, of projecting yourself into something else.
Blogs are powerful things. Being
largely unused doesn't make them unuseful. As with others among the
21st century's incarnate, they are a shell capacity waiting only for
human intelligence. If no one visits them, what can they communicate?
What's the price on dates in the oasis
no one visits?
Flowers break dirt when no one watches.
When the blogger actually blogs the
usefulness of the blog still isn't assured. It requires readers. I
can't expect any of those just yet, but as the number of posts
increases who knows who might start reading.
To the future reader then, let me
explain why I've created this blog, and what I expect to do with it.
I am what is typically known as a
lifelong learner. This is usually a disparaging way to talk. It seems
that way to me. In August of this year I graduated with my Masters of
Arts in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University. I expect I'll
unpack some of that experience in these pages over time. For now I'll
just say it was one of the great educational experiences of my life.
Sometimes I think it was the only educational experience of my life,
so much of my undergraduate career overtaken by drinking and
pot-smoking and treating everything as a chore. That's really what
this blog is about: education.
Education in two ways:
1. Education qua education. The theory
of education. My experiences of education. Thinking through models of
progressive pedagogy, etc. etc.
2. Class notes. I am actively engaged
in a long-time semi-private (though now I guess semi-public) review
of the so-called western canon. What this means is I'm auditing MOOC
courses through edX and Coursera and Future Learn, etc. Currently,
I'm finishing the second of five modules in the Ancient Greek Hero.
Maybe I'll problematize the canon itself, but more likely I'll
respond to the canonic texts and lectures from a more personal place.
I'll make my own interpretations. And I'll draw to try parallels
between the ancient texts and the contemporary world.
And that's it. That's what I want to
do. If I keep it up, I'll benefit from it. Maybe you will too.
Tom
