Wonder and the Thinks You Can Think

On a recent walk around the College, I noticed a group of Year 1 students walking across the oval. One observant child noticed something that made the entire group stop. “FROG!” someone yelled and the  attention of every single student became fixed on that poor little amphibian. The excitement in their eyes and the enthusiasm and sheer wonder of seeing a green tree frog was contagious. It reminded me of how a sense of wonder is innate within every young person. No-one has to “teach” children to have this wonder, it just comes naturally. It also made me realize how incredibly easy it is to lose our sense of wonder. As we grow older, we can become so “knowledgeable”, so ”educated”, so “sophisticated” that we lose the wonder of life and the wonder of living. A recent study on creativity explored the creative processes of kindergarten children and found that these students scored in the highest levels of creative reasoning and divergent thinking. The longitudinal study then measured their levels of creativity as they progressed through formal schooling and the results were frightening. The scores for nearly all of these children went BACKWARDS through their formal schooling years!

In his current TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson has suggested that our current obsession with standardized testing and congested curriculum stifles rather than stimulates creativity and wonder within our children. He makes the statement that teaching - really good teaching “is a creative profession… teaching properly conceived is not a delivery system… So in the place of curiosity, what we have is a culture of compliance. Our children and teachers are encouraged to follow routine algorithms rather than to excite that power of imagination and creativity”.

On that same walk where our students were discovering the wonder of green tree frogs, I also watched the musical team rehearsing for the upcoming performances of Suessical Jr. The opening song, sung so persuasively by Cat in the Hat, reinforced the importance of this sense of wonder, imagination and creativity that lies at the heart of all meaningful learning. The Cat in the Hat reveals:

Oh, the thinks you can think! Oh, the thinks you can think If you’re willing to try...

Think invisible ink! Or a gink with a stink! Or a stair to the sky...

If you open your mind, Oh, the thinks you will find

Lining up to get loose... Oh, the thinks you can think 

When you think about Seuss...

May we never lose sight of “the thinks you can think” and the importance of creativity and a sense of wonder throughout the entire educational journey. And may we never become too jaded or “knowledgeable” that we cannot learn from a green tree frog, a cat in a hat and a group of excited 6 year olds filled with a sense of wonder!

Teaching and the Overflow of a Full Life

A much loved teacher and leader who had a significant influence on my life and calling, Dr Howard Hendricks, sadly passed away recently. He used to repeatedly say, “Great teachers (and great leaders) teach out of the overflow of a full life. You cannot impart what you do not possess”. Hendricks understood a key principle of leadership and realized that only those who lead out of the overflow and abundance of their lives will leave a lasting legacy in their generation. Effective leaders do not merely give half-heartedly, they inspire others because they themselves have been inspired and this can only come from the overflow of a full heart and life.

Great leaders ensure that their wells are never empty and never stagnant. This does not mean the absence of suffering, disappointment or hardship in the leadership journey, but more importantly the cultivation of character traits and attitudes that endure through every season of life. Sadly, our current generation's obsession with celebrity and fame rather than leadership and character means we are quickly forgetting what it means to cultivate a full heart and life that prepares us for a lifetime of effective leadership and not merely 15 minutes of fleeting fame.

Dr Hendricks life was a testament to this overflowing heart and life, and the intentional digging of a wellspring within his life, ensuring that through every season and every circumstance he had something to give and something to impart to his students. Hendricks was from a broken home (where his parents separated as soon as he was born), and was told by his Yr 5 teacher that he would “most likely end up in prison”. Rather than embracing this destructive pathway, his teacher in Yr 6 Miss Noe, opened his heart to a greater destiny when she introduced herself to him on the first day: “I’ve heard a lot about you… but I don’t believe a word of it”. These few simple, heartfelt words transformed a troubled young man and so powerfully influenced him that from that day on, he desired to be a teacher.

And what a teacher that young man became – for nearly 60 years, Hendricks taught over 10 000 students, wrote 23 books, was the much loved chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and inspired countless lives to teach passionately “from the overflow of a full life”. He was known as one of the most influential and engaging teachers of his generation and his most famous book “Teaching to Change Lives” is given to all our teaching staff at Heights College. His firm conviction was that “if you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow” and his life over six decades of teaching and leading embodied this conviction. John Maxwell has succinctly stated that “leadership is influence”. In the life of Dr Howard Hendricks, it is clearly evident that his enduring legacy to teachers all over the world has been his influence in inspiring them to keep the wells of learning and living filled to overflowing – for out of the abundance (the overflow) of those types of hearts, comes the most influential teachers and leaders in every generation.

What an enduring legacy the "prof" has left on his generation - enter into your rest good and faithful servant...

525600 Minutes

There is a song from the Broadway production Rent which goes “Five hundred twenty-five thousand Six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year”. For Heights College senior class of 2011, with whom we will celebrate their graduation and final day of school next Term, these five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, seem to fly by at break neck speed. Their hopes, dreams and aspirations for 2011 have quickly been transferred to memories and legacies and choruses of “I’m glad I dids”, “I knew I coulds” and perhaps even some “I wish I hads”. The journey for these senior students are about to enter an exciting new phase and a new chapter awaits them all as they continue to paint their life-masterpieces and pen their epic biographies. We, the Heights College Community, will continue to cheer them on as they find their place in this world and their point of influence and impact where their identity and their purpose are forged together in fulfilling career pathways. We wish our class of 2011every success and pray that they will hold onto the promise that each and every one of them has a hope and a future that has been ordained and blessed by God.

It has also been with great excitement that a new class has now had the baton passed to them – the class of 2012 – and I look forward to seeing their leadership gift and abilities develop as they take their place as leaders of our college. The class of 2012 will have five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes (give or take a few minutes here and there) to contribute their own legacy, to carve out their own impact and influence upon our College next year, and assume the many and varied roles that each one of them will fulfil as an indispensible member of the senior leadership team of 2012. I am excited by the calibre of leaders who will make up the seniors of 2012 and am enthusiastic about the coming year and the potential for character, leadership and influence to be further developed in each of their lives as they achieve breakthrough in so many unique and specific ways.

The song mentioned earlier reminds us though, that in the midst of all the “measuring” and of all our “years” the one thing that matters most is suggested as How about love?

How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

May the upcoming Christmas season remind us all of the power and influence of love – true, unconditional and freely given love – that came into the world in the form of a baby, lived five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes each year as He grew in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and with man, and who ultimately showed a broken and dying world that love really is the only measure of a life and the only hope for a lost and hurting humanity. May you all have a blessed and love filled Christmas break where He really is the reason for not only the festive season but how we measure our lives both this year and every year into the future.

Education as Nurture

Students in Year’s 3,5,7, and 9 across Australia have recently sat their NAPLAN tests. Yet again the media have sensationalised the testing regime and the debate regarding the validity and reliability of such tests has again divided the nation. Unfortunately in the midst of these hotly contested debates and political point scoring agendas lies our students - eager, impressionable and full of hope and expectation regarding their learning and their futures. It has been rather cynically said that children enter our schools as question marks but leave as full stops. This should not be so!! Learning should be a journey of wonder and discovery yet in all our clamouring to become a more learned nation, and our efforts to make sure students are being measured and assessed, we reduce such a complex and essentially developmental process as learning down to a one moment in time test score. By doing so I believe we all too often forget that at the heart of education lies an education of the heart.

The experience of international benchmarking of academic performances across OECD nations has been that those nations who consistently bombard students with standardised tests like NAPLAN without building understanding and who ignore the relationship between reciting an answer rotely and genuinely understanding a given concept or theory invariably fail to succeed on any measure within these benchmarks. Significantly, Finland, a nation that has been regularly placed at the very top within these measures, has a very different approach to their education programs. Firstly, Finland do not place high value on standardised tests and prefer to build understanding and evidence of mastery across a range of subjects through more authentic and problem based assessment tasks. A Time Magazine article described their aversion to formal national testing by declaring:

“The Finns are as surprised as much as anyone else that they have recently emerged as the new rock stars of global education. It surprises them because they do as little measuring and testing as they can get away with. They just don’t believe it does much good”.

Furthermore, the training of Finland’s teachers is rigorous and requires that EVERY teacher undertakes a Masters of Education program. The Finns term this degree a masters in kasvatus, which translated derives from the same word they use for a mother bringing up her child. Quite literally, Finns believe that their teachers need to have a master’s degree in the “art of nurturing and caring”. Dr Howard Hendricks, author of the best seller “Teaching to Change Change lives” (which every Heights College teacher was given as a gift at the commencement of the year), stated that “No one cares what you know until they know that you care”. Successful learning therefore needs to be based upon this relational foundation - an ethic of genuine care for each and every student that we teach. NAPLAN tests and standardised measures of performance are necessary indicators of a child’s progress and reveal an important chapter in that child’s educational journey. However, may we never fail to understand and appreciate that it is the intangible, hard to define, difficult to describe but impossible to deny “connectedness” between a student, a teacher and the subject matter that lies at the heart of all learning and all growth and development throughout the educational journey.

May we therefore celebrate that our students are “works in progress” and not isolate their identity to a NAPLAN footnote or a paragraph - but rather see such measures as part of a contribution to the much fuller epic story that is being woven together that represents their life’s journey and destiny. May the nurturing in all our students continue!!

Character or Popularity?

We live in an age where character is increasingly devalued in favour of popularity. Where once a person’s character was the defining mark of who they were and what they stood for, contemporary society has made celebrity rather than character the true test of a person’s worth and importance. We are confronted with this distorted message every day and this can lead to a misguided view of what is really important in regards to the development of character and living with integrity and honesty in our society.


The ancient Greek artisans and sculptors used to take great pride in finishing a sculpture without any flaws, blemishes or imperfections. Any “flaw” would be covered by a process whereby wax would fill the flaw and then, once painted over, the finished product would appear complete and “perfect” from the outside. However, discerning artisans of these sculptures were able to identify these blemishes by shining a bright light against these sculptures. The light would reveal the wax and therefore the flaws in the craftsmanship.

A great sculpture was therefore one that was “sine-cera” or literally “without wax”. This is the root form of the word we know today as being “sincere”.

The goal of building Godly character is to be sincere – to be seeking to live a life without wax. This does not mean we have to be perfect and free from all blemishes, but honest enough to make sure that the outward, external appearance that others see matches the internal motives and intents of our hearts. This can often mean dealing with those very things that don’t match up and having the courage to allow the Light of truth and God’s Word to reveal those areas.

Someone once described good character as what you are like... on the inside... when no one’s looking. In an age when the external matters more than the internal and where celebrity and popularity matter more than doing the right thing, it is important that we seek to develop character that is “without wax” and cultivate lives that are sincere and honest in every respect. Whilst the process can at times be painful, the final product is a person “strong in character, ready for anything”! (James 1:4 NLT).

Beliefs and Breakthrough

Popular motivational expert Tony Robbins suggests that “All personal breakthroughs begin with a change of beliefs”. Changing deeply ingrained habits and ways of doing things is a challenging task and sometimes such changes feel like they are almost impossible to overcome. The long list of broken New Year’s resolutions are an example of the reality that with many things, the more we try to change, the more things stay the same. This is particularly relevant within learning. I remember as a new student to Secondary school, with books neatly covered and resources well organised, resolving to make a new beginning with my efforts in school and my behaviour in class. Despite my best intentions, my resolution only lasted as long as midway through the first day. The reason for this was that although I hoped to change and thought such a change was necessary, I did not actually change my beliefs, attitudes and default habits about discipline and working to the best of my ability. Furthermore, I still sat next to my best mate from Primary school and whenever we were together, making each other laugh was far more important than any new year resolution!

I learnt through this experience that breakthrough only comes about when we change our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and our circumstances. Willpower is never enough on its own to change our situation, what we must have is a change in mind and heart attitude that leads to changed actions, behaviours and consequences that we actually prefer. Therefore for breakthrough to occur, there needs to be necessary changes that may be needed to overcome whatever challenges and difficulties we may face within learning and we mustconstantly seek ways to change those deeply ingrained beliefs regarding what is the “default” actions and behaviours that we are accustomed to, and replace these with preferred new actions and attitudes.How I long for a breakthrough in acheiving breakthroughs!!!

NAPLAN and Diffendoofer Day

The current debate surrounding NAPLAN and the possible creation of league tables for Australian schools shows no signs of diminishing. Teachers, parents, government agencies, school administrators and union representatives are each offering different perspectives on this issue and each argument is seemingly well reasoned leading to much confusion surrounding the “right” perspective. At the heart of this and indeed all education debates is the central question of what we really value. Andy Hargreaves, a world leader in education, wonderfully summed up the current debates regarding standardised testing and ratings according to test scores by stating that when we don’t “measure what we value, we end up valuing what we measure”.

A well balanced “Education Revolution” should value excellence in all of life’s dimensions – academically, physically, spiritually and socially; and should seek to provide classroom environments where learning in all its fullness can be celebrated and encouraged. In highlighting this emphasis, I am reminded of the excellent Dr Seus book “Hooray for Diffendoofer Day”. As the father of four children, Dr Seus was a regular favourite at bedtime, and this particular book, whilst not as well known as Green Eggs and Ham, or Cat and the Hat, contains some of the most revealing and accurate comments on schools and education that have ever been written. The book, in typical Dr Seuss style, humorously tells the story of Diffendoofer School, and the wonderful teachers there (including the highly creative Miss Bonkers) who make learning “come alive” within their students. Such a celebration of learning is treated with cautious suspicion by the serious and sober looking principal, Mr Lowe, who feared that students may not be learning “much at all”. The nervous Mr Lowe then announces to the school:

“All schools for miles and miles around must take a special test

To see who’s learning such and such – to see which school’s the best”

If our small school does not do well, then it will be torn down;

And you will have to go to school in dreary Flobbertown”.

Flobbertown was a very dark and scary looking school where everyone does “everything the same” without any life, joy and creativity. Miss Bonkers tells the students to not worry about the test because “you’ve learned the things you need to pass any test... and something else that matters more – we’ve taught you how to think” The story ends with Diffendoofer students achieving “1000000” percent and the entire school celebrating their outstanding achievements.

Surely our goal as educators should be to cultivate an environment where students learn how to think and where the joy of learning is celebrated in all its many dimensions. This is what all great teachers and educational leaders aspire to and what they desire for every student in their schools. This is therefore what we really value and what determines our measure of excellence in all that we do. I’m certain Dr Seus would heartily agree that to do anything less is to put an end to the dynamic art of teaching and turn it into a paint by the numbers profession.

NAPLAN and a New Kind of “Average"

Recently I uncovered an old primary school report that had been kept in a file of papers nestled in an old shoe box. This tattered report card instantly brought back memories of 1977... the odorous smell of my cardboard school “port”, the seemingly endless days of playing cricket and footy, my best mates and the matters of life and death that were related to games of handball or red rover, and even the after shave of my teacher Mr Briggs and his glass eye (which he would remove every so often and put on the desk with the warning “I’ve got my eye on you!!).

Whilst I may be showing my age, the report card of the 1970’s was a personal document that was disclosed to only the student and their parents. Handwritten (in impossibly perfect Qld cursive), the report provided details of my all round development as a Year 5 student - socially, personally, physically academically. In short – how I was progressing throughout the year. In fact that is what they called reports back then, progress reports. They were essentially about a journey, an unfolding development across a range of subjects, skills and interests that made up the entirety of school life. My report card for 1977 was unremarkable in many ways... I was a “c” student – average at most things except sport where I excelled both within the subject and at representative level. One other result stood out on that report - a “D” for English with a comment that read “Darren shows great potential in English but needs to develop more consistent home study habits”. Put simply, I was a somewhat average kid who was more or less like most other kids in my grade - albeit with an aversion to homework – and this was evidenced not by one missed day of homework but by a series of poor choices regarding my home study habits!

In 2010 however, we have a new kind of “average”. The dramatic changes that have taken place over the past few years with school reporting through NAPLAN and the My School website have meant that the progress report has now become a one moment in time measure of success or failure not only for students, but also for teachers and schools. The progress report we once had that measured our development throughout the year and over a series of tasks and exercises has been replaced a new kind of average that places tremendous pressure on students to perform in one test, on one day, and that one mark is then used to determine whether a student is “average” or not. To allay any fears, Heights College students will definitely be undertaking the Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 NAPLAN tests, and the College has traditionally performed extremely well in all of these measures. NAPLAN tests are not to be feared and can be used as a great tool for improving learning and identifying areas in need of improvement. But it is important for us all to remember, one mark, on one test, held on one day should not ever be seen as the net result of a student’s achievement or worth. This new kind of average, in my opinion, falls well below a passing grade and replaces the emphasis that should be upon meaningful learning to a raw score and a percentile rank based upon one test held on one day. At Heights College, our focus is upon celebrating learning in all its dimensions, and through this focus, our results in ANY test will be merely a representative snapshot of a far more important emphasis – a lifelong learning journey.
I have one final report to give you on the progress of that “D” level English student in 1977 – he now has four degrees and is nearing completion of his PhD in Educational Leadership from the University of Qld. This “D” level student “progressed” to win three scholarships across two universities and has recently been published in an international journal with a book publication deal pending. The lesson to be learned is to ensure that our focus must always remain on the journey of learning and whilst one moment in time results may reveal our present proficiency – they should never be assumed to be our final destination... That is why at Heights College our desire is to produce lifelong learners who are journeying towards something extra-ordinary, and not simply complying to a new kind of “average”.

Vulnerable All-Knowing

Apologies for the tardiness in the blogosphere... life just seems to happen whilst we're busy making other plans... In lectures recently, we explored the contours of an existentialist worldview. This generation for all of it's post modern posturings still pangs for the existentialist ideal and deep down I intuitively sense is deeply pessimistic of the po-mo excuses that arise from being defined as a fragmentation of social constructs. Perhaps this has been existentialism's enduring legacy...inconspicuously flying under the radar of the post modern juggernaut, yet establishing a foothold in the hearts and minds of an entire generation mistakenly labelled "post modern" when in reality their existential longings to be defined and transcend the mundane prisons of empty existence are perhaps the real motivators for the plethora of choices at their disposal. Existentialism at least stands unashamedly honest in its complete reliance upon the onus of responsibility for one's actions. Condemned to be free as Sartre would say, this age longs for the transcendent leap into the fullness of anything that will give meaning and purpose, however irrational... the "one thing" of blind illogical abandonment that takes us into the mystery of the "other", be that God or just our daily "distractions". I caught the last glimpse of the British series "Life on Mars" the other night - what a vivid representation of classic existentialism that was!

Straylight Run encapsulate the existential quest so poetically in their great song "Existentialism on Prom Night":Sing like you think no-one's listening... you would kill for this, just a little bit...sing me something soft... sad and delicate.... loud and out of key... sing me anything... Vulnerable all-knowing... Or what about John Mayer's classic existentialist declarations - I want to run through the hall of my high school, I want to shout at the top of my lungs. I just found there's no such thing as the real world... just a lie you've got to rise above. I'm bigger than the my body gives me credit for... Ahh Transcendence... the quest to "rise above" is embedded deep within us all. We crave for otherness, with every heartbeat we long for something to transport us from the miry clay of our empty, earthy existence.

But we don't talk about existentialism any more, do we?? As a young Christian, armed with my five volume set of Francis Schaeffer, I quickly dismissed existentialism and its upper story dualism. But the more I observe my own generation, the more I see that whilst po-mo rules the rhetoric, the existential longings remain deeply ingrained as the veiled zeitgeist and the desire to "bleed just to know we're alive" (Goo-goo dolls) , and "to wake up kicking and screaming and know our heart's still beating... still bleeding...we're awakening" (switchfoot) have not been diluted by the plethora of po-mo choices available to us. Perhaps it is time for our own re-awakening and to re-read the morose musings of the melancholy Dane with fresh new eyes and new ears in our current generation... and perhaps, re-discover that existentialism is far from dead - but kicking and screaming and beating and bleeding in the most unlikely places.

How We've Lost Our Story

Today in one of my worldview classes, I touched on the issue of how we have had "our" Christian worldview story distorted and how it has somehow become "lost in translation" to this generation. If meaning equals communication then so much of what is represented and communicated currently as the Christian story has become meaning-less. Of course not only the christian story has become meaning-less - the whole world has somehow lost its story, both individually and corporately, in our generation. We search for someone to blame, someone to vent our anger at, but the story's been lost and all we can do is plead like Neo in the Matrix- "Can you please tell what I am to do"... Ivan Illich once commented that "if you want to change the world - you must tell a different story". A meaning-full story...Meaning-full stories are those that capture our imaginations and take us to other worlds. Meaning-full stories transport us out of our mediocrity and into a world of uncertainty, risk-taking and daring adventure. Meaning-full stories make heroes and heroines out of the ordinary and the everyday. Meaning-full stories inspire us to live lives of significance and purpose. Meaning-full stories have powerful resolutions to even the most complex of problems and obstacles... and meaning-full stories have a redemptive climax that always sees good triumphing over evil in the end. The dialogue between Sam and Frodo in the The Two Towers wonderfully encapsulates the desire to live the true Christian story in all of us: "We shouldn't be here at all [Sam says to Frodo], if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way... in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually ... I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?"

I wonder what tale we've fallen into... and what our response will be to watching generation that is unknowingly longing to find meaning in the greatest story ever told?

Alert and Orientated Times Zero

Matters of the heart intrigue me. Whilst tomes of text have been written on the subject, there remains something elusive about that phrase "whole-hearted". Perhaps it has been my life experiences that have fuelled this fascination but one thing is certain - out of the heart flows the wellspring of life. I was born with a congenital heart defect. You could say I've been "broken and half-hearted" since birth. I learnt from an early age to conceal this defect and covered my deficiencies remarkably well. I became very successful in a range of sports, ignoring the warning signs and pushing myself to be the very best on the playing field. But despite my efforts, I was living with half a heart. That's the first thing I learnt about heart matters- Broken hearts often don't even know they are broken. A life of half-heartedness becomes the norm before we know it... John Eldredge suggests in his excellent book entitled Waking the Dead that such a life is like being alert and orientated times zero - a reference from the book "The Perfect Storm" and the para rescue code whereby the injured seaman's understanding of the world is reduced to the fact that he exists and nothing more. Tragically, so many people live lives that are alert and orientated times zero, aimlessly meandering through life without direction, purpose and intensity - put simply living life with half a heart. We get up, go to work, go to school, perhaps go to church (when convenient), do the stuff, read the books, see the movie, grab the CD but never really embrace the magnitude of our strategic role in His unfolding grand story. The tyranny of mediocrity sets in and before we know it we forget how broken are hearts actually are.

But inevitably every broken heart needs to be repaired... and every broken heart needs a healer... I have experienced this twice - that's right 2 open heart surgeries and I have just turned 40 - but when hearts are broken, when life is lived half-heartedly, we need to have them "fixed". I've also learnt that getting a broken heart repaired is a long, lonely and painful process. There are no quick fixes, no pills or panaceas to make things better quickly - just patience, dark nights, long, lonely days and a dependent, childlike trust in the healer.

The one thing that gets you through the pain... the lonely nights, the limited movement, the frustrations of the road to recovery is that someone else shares my pain, someone else knows the feeling, and someone else bears the scars... Four times in scripture three words are written that put this whole heart process in perspective - "His heart broke".

Another lesson I've learnt is that broken hearts always live with their scars despite their healing. I love teaching Christian worldview. But Christian worldview can at times become so "heady". That is why I regularly view my scars; they remind me not of the pain of my past but of the promise of my future. What a miracle of transformation it is that broken hearts can be made whole. There is hope for the broken hearted, hope for the half-hearted, hope for those who are alert and orientated times zero... just gaze upon His scars - touch them, see them, feel them, accept them, embrace them... For out of a truly whole heart will flow the full wellspring of life. That is why, in Christian worldview as in life, - the heart matters more than anything.

Is anyone out there?

Welcome to my very first attempt at blogging. The title of my blog reflects my own hesitancy in writing in blogworld... Writing of any form can at times appear to be such a narcissistic activity. Is anyone really interested in what I have to say? Will anyone really care about my inklings and musings? Indeed, who am I to voice my perspective? An author must, after all, possess some inflated sense of self-importance to even contemplate putting words to paper or in this case bytes to blogspace. Of the writing of books there may be no end... but of the writing of blogs there appears to be no shame... we part of the "express yourself" generation - where personal opinions are the opiate of the masses. I would like to think that my intentions for commencing this blog are far more noble... but my own awareness of my predilection towards self-importance suggest otherwise.

But sometimes things have to be written. Sometimes ideas must be questioned, sometimes differing beliefs need to be challenged, sometimes we really do have something to say and sometimes the only person who can articulate it quite like me is well... you know. The title for my blog also is a reaction against my own vocational compliance to audiences and readerships. Academia and higher learning is so much about writing to please others, appease others, placate others, refute others, impress others. Rare is the scholar in this or any age who actually dares to write truth that flies in the face of his mentors and editors. So perhaps this blog will be somewhat cathartic for me - writing for no other purpose but to express those passionate, resolute, creative urgings and personal longings for a voice in this scholarly sea of semantic syncretism.

We are sometimes told to sing like no-one's listening, to dance like no-one's watching, so why not write like no-one's reading? It is a paradox, I know. Isn't the whole purpose of writing to be read? Isn't the task of the truly great writer to know their audience? All true... But perhaps, in this seemingly paradoxical process, this writer could discover and truly know himself... finding authenticity and voice in new and novel ways... I'll keep you posted on the journey...