Comments Make Us More Human

the world in a hand week 2 of student blogging challengeImage: STUBC Translation Authorized by Kathleen Morris

#STUBC week2

 Our Challenge follows its epic course connecting hundreds of young people through the world:1550+ from 27 Countries! 

      Week Two was all about commenting:  the complex blog post that accompanied this task went through all the intricate meanders that distinguish a trivial contact from a significant interpellation, independently of the young authors age.

     Besides, the well-articulated post included differentiated strategies which lay the foundations  that may enable eventual insightful conversations. 

      With time and perseverance, any Student may come to excel in the art of dialogue. This so often forgotten art acts as a powerful tool to build peace at all levels.

     Very different thinkers would agree with the vital importance thus attributed to what may superficially seem to be like “just talk”.

 Take the case, for instance, of the young Philosophy teacher François-Xavier Bellamy, who choose to teach in a difficult public school on the suburbs of Paris. There, he met the suffering of his own Students, mostly coming from unfavoured quarters; as they struggled to express themselves clearly, they would easily get angry and anxious.

      Inspired by his kids, who felt “thirsty for reason” he founded “Les Soirées de la Philo” in a central Paris Theatre, where they would gather weekly, to discuss any relevant subject they would chose and to learn how to engage in real dialogue.

     After the success of this initiative, the sessions were extended online, under registration.

    As Hanna Arendt stressed so clearly: “We humanize what is going on in the world while talking to each other about it; and through this dialogue, we learn to be human”.

Ines

“Close Your Eyes and You Will See”

 

https://getstencil.com/app/saved

Image: Stencil

     I chose this quote as the title to a post dedicated to my student Miguel who was celebrating his 15th birthday last Saturday.

    It seems a particularly inspiring quote, although it provokes perplexity at the same time.

     That’s one of the ways quotes unfold their hidden power: they force us to stop the continuous flux of superficial thoughts; we surprise ourselves just staring at the improbable combination of words; then we start listening to a miscellaneous of unformed meanings, and we try to help, at least one of them, to take shape.

     A new born meaning could be like a little sun shining in our minds, sparkling new insights.

    We seem to live at high speed, rarely enjoying the delight of going for a walk out of every known path.

   After a simple pause to reflect upon how we may improve in coping with our work or study, we usually come quickly back to safer ground, where we stay in command. 

   But just by daring some few steps more into the inner wild, perhaps we could hear the underground water of meaning yet unheard of, silently flowing under our feet.

Ines