Telling a story...

A Story about a Teacher:

Once upon a time in a small town at the edge of the northern wilderness there was a teacher who was eagerly looking for answers to the many questions that had been piling up as the years past by. Years ago—when this teacher was taller, stronger, and more handsome—he had answers to most every question he heard. When he did not have good answers for the hardest ones he made up responses in order to buy time for his further cleverness. But cleverness didn't help him much...

"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."

"And he has Brain."

"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain." 

There was a long silence. 

"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."1

The teacher had good intentions and a compassionate heart (which some say is still the case), working hard to have answers for all his students' questions, and even answers for the questions they were not asking.  But we all know what road is paved with those intentions, and a compassionate heart does not prepare young men and women for the ways of the world. So one day the teacher grew tired of trying to be Rabbit, and began trying to act a little more like Pooh.  (He-he, that guy said "Poo"). [Sometimes Tigger gets in the way, sorry.] Little innocent ones thirsting for story and attention showed the teacher the need for a better way and he began reading from the beginning again. 

The Beginning.

Pooh somehow stumbles upon the right answers that validate the questions that Piglet is often asking. I am not sure I will go as far as to say that Pooh has "skillful means" like a Zen Master's penetrating koans, or the cutting commentaries offered in something like Samuel Clemens' "simple" story telling, but Pooh stands out, nonetheless, as a greatly quotable sage of the 100 Aker Wood.

Later on, when they had all said "Good-bye" and "Thank-you" to Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent.

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.” 2


So... here I am being silly, looking for wisdom, quoting Pooh, and looking for the history connect to "today". I know it has something to to do with balance; the silly, knowledge, innocence, relevance, what I teach, and how I teach it. The new part of the script for me is to stop relying just on good intentions and a compassionate heart, and to really search for a "purposeful how." 

Rudyard Kipling and Graham Greene have written some things that help to anchor my perspective in how to connect my desire for story with how I am a teacher. Kipling wrote, "If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten." 3 Graham Greene wrote, "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead." 4 My colleague, Drew Gibson—an excellent story teller of his own right, who might be pleased to share company with Kipling and Greene—tells me that you need to know where you want to end up with your story in order to know how to tell it.

Lesson 1. In order to tell history as a good story (I can jump in anywhere, mind you), I need to know where I want to end up before I can tell it correctly.

Thanks, few readers, for allowing me to think out loud in front of you all. Your opinions are always welcome. :)

1. A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
2. Ibid.
3. The Collected Works
4. The End of the Affair