Teaching to Stop

Poetry does not invite readers to consume the text as if it were a husk that contains a pithy truth. Poetry is not a window on the world. Poetry invites us to listen. Poetry is a site for dwelling, for holding up, for stopping. 

                                                                                                                 Carl Leggo 

I have been reading about pedagogies of abundance, the idea that education changes, now, when content and access to it is abundant; we are no longer bound to the school, to books, to teachers. We can access courses, journals and books online, now, peruse the blogs, videos and podcasts from world-renowned experts, connect with a network of others who have the same interests. What we need, in this abundance, isn’t a teacher in a classroom, but the capacity to organize, curate, connect, collaborate, keep up to date.

And yet where am I, where are you, dear reader, in this abundance, still swimming through our own lives, heartsore over the death of someone dear and feeling lonely, lonely, lonely, or juggling, juggling, juggling, because I said I’d get milk on the way home from work and I forgot and now I have to go back and that’s another twenty minutes tacked on to a day that’s already too long and I need to plan, still, for a lesson tomorrow, and must somehow inspire students who have come to believe that learning is something to eat and I’d better make it good.

Isn’t there something more than more about teaching and learning?

What would it mean to provide space in schools, not for consumption, but for stopping, for dwelling?