A List of Ideas

After reading William Cronon’s “Only Connect: The Goals of a Liberal Education” for my Teaching Adolescents class, I have decided to make my own list to organize the ideas that have come into my brain during these last few months. This list represents things I wish I could be (and hopefully one day will be!), and also derives from qualities I find myself admiring, and even envious at times, in others around me. I think everything on Cronon’s list is just as important in being a free and intelligent person, but these traits I not only desire to have myself, but also hope to employ in my future students each year.
The list is as following:

1. They can live without fear or limitations.
I have spent too much of my life being held back by my fears, from public speaking all the way to failure of any sort. In order to make progress in life, you have to really put yourself out there without worrying about negative outcomes. This is not to say you should not be conscious of the possible results or make irrational or irresponsible decisions, but you should never NOT do something just because there is a chance it will not end as perfectly as you might have hoped. People who have the ability to do this have the potential to make great changes in the world and I so hope that one day I am able to join them.

2. They are confident, but not too much.
Obviously a person needs to feel good about what he or she is doing, to feel comfortable and knowledgeable, and overall confident in their skills. The most important part in my opinion though, is to be able to question your own abilities and have the selfless intelligence to know when you need to make changes and/or further your understanding. This way, you are constantly learning new information or adapting new ideas to things you already know, but you still feel worthy and capable enough to use your knowledge to help yourself and others live a fruitful and rewarding life.

3. They take what they know and apply it.
Of course once you learn new things, you have to be able to understand them well enough to know how to apply them to your own life and to the lives around you. What is the point of having knowledge if you do not know how to use it?

4. They can see both sides to situations.
Having opinions is human nature. Seeing valid points from both sides is a little bit trickier. It is hard to see value in something you strongly oppose but I feel like having the ability to do this would make the world a much more peaceful place (cliché but true.) Besides, if you can find good in every side to an argument, it not only makes you more intelligent, but it makes you optimistic!

5. They employ both knowledge and wisdom.
It is one thing to be blessed with brains but it is quite another to have the desire to actually shape and use them. An intellectual individual contains loads of knowledge but a wise person makes the conscious decision to do something with this knowledge and actually try. Too many people in this world waste their potential. How different life could be if this were not the case.

6. They are pillars of inner strength.
It is simply fact that every person on the planet goes through rough times in his or her life. The people I find myself admiring the most are those who do not simply overcome the situation, they turn it into something good. It takes a great amount of wisdom and patience to be able to do this.

7. They draw connections from everything in their lives.
Okay, so this one was already stated in Cronon’s “Only Connect,” but I felt that it was so important it needed reiteration. Being able to see all the relationships between everything in our lives, our experiences, and the world itself is something I wish every person had the ability to do. This is what allows people to discover the purpose of their own endeavors and to me, is the most important aspect of them all in being an intelligent person. I want to be able to show the world how alike we all are and how we are able to create peace within our own worlds even if it might be impossible, or less likely, to do so on the greater scale worldwide.

These are just a few of many traits people could have to help shape a better world, but these are the ones I have found to be the most valuable in my life. Fortunately, teaching these kinds of ideals would be easier to do in English and creative writing then another subject such as math. This, however, might just be because English comes more naturally to me then math so someone proficient in that subject may feel differently. I am confident, though, that as I am exposed to more experiences, influential people, places, and new information I will continue to grow in each of these areas and continue to seek the deeper and ultimate purpose. I plan to be able to also inspire my students to experience this growth as well. So if I have twenty students a semester and work for thirty or so years, there would be about twelve hundred students I have the potential to inspire into fashioning a better world (and I said I did not like math!). I can only hope that they will be as passionate about making a difference as I am so that together we can work to create a better place for future generations.