Philosophy of Education

Sometimes a story says more than an academic discourse:

Life Long Learning

The old man looked down at his rough scared hands, and then beyond them, into the past, remembering. Setting down his chisel, he brushed the long white hair from his eyes and watched the rays of sunlight filter through the shimmering yellow leaves of the soft maple. The tree was an old friend under whose sacred canopy he had lived for many years. The maple was beginning to shed its foliage; floating to the stones, the leaves gathered in the corners of his red sandstone patio. He shivered a moment at the thought of the approaching cold, and he smiled looking at the oak firewood split and stacked as a border enclosing his unkempt yard of wild flowers.

He remembered, how that in his youth he never laid up for the winter. He cut wood as he needed it. Inevitably, he would find himself in the forest, just before a storm, looking to find a dead log to harvest and haul to the cabin in the blowing snow. One log was most often enough to provide warmth through the storm. Now others cut the wood as payment to him. Past students returned each year to see that there was always enough. He missed the old way, when he took only what was needed, when it was needed, and then by his own strength; nevertheless, he was content now to harvest seeds from the past, his physical strength having departed him.

Sitting back on the intricately carved chair, he took stock of the figure struggling to emerge from the block of black walnut on his workbench. The aura of a bear loomed around the form, but there were no distinct features to separate the dark wood from other bears. Distinction would come later, after the block spent more time in the old one's sandpaper hands. The old man understood the relationship between the craftsman's hands and the character in the wood. To bring a living work to completion, something that was more than just a figure or another copy, both character in the material and the hands to bring it out were required. A great sculptor once said that the image was in the block; the artist need only cut away that which surrounded it. His hands still often trembled on the wood. The life in the block could be marred by cutting away too much, or never revealed by cutting too little. When he was young his hands lacked skill, his workmanship produced characters that were flawed by his hands, but also, many times his hands had worked with common material that produced only common work. He had often blamed himself with failure when the shortcoming was in the material rather than his hands.

His gaze traveled across his secluded habitat. His own hands had formed most of the scene before him. The bronze and red swirls of the sandstone that formed the floor of the patio had been warm in his hands the summer day he cut and pieced them together. Today the warm colors were paradoxical in comparison to the chill left in the stone from the night's cold. The rock and timber of the walls and roof of his cottage reminded him of days of vigor. It had taken much strength to cut, hew, and set those stones and timbers. Some of the timbers in his cabin were original inhabitants of the place the cabin now stood. The old man prayed that one day his life would be pillars in someone's house.

Most of the trees that shaded him were the fruit of days prior to his coming to this glen. To replace them a few immigrants had settled in areas of the glen he had chosen for them. The newest settler, a white birch, too small to display any white, would need water tonight he observed. Soon the tender tree would grow from roots that belonged to the soil as surely as the roots of his cottage belonged to this soil. That which had been here before his coming was now intertwined and inseparable from that which he had formed with his hands. He and the glen were one. The scene before him was both forest and his soul.

Secluded in this quiet woodland, loneliness now and then visited him. He never regretted leaving the hustle and animated life of the city; he never seemed to fit there, never able to pursue a career because of his wandering interests. He had always strayed from wealth, which was the measure of success in the city. Instead he had pursued truth, knowledge and understanding; commodities that, though respected, carried little prestige among those who measured themselves against themselves. When he was young he thought that respect would come as he aged; that people would listen to his wisdom if it came from an older man, but people no longer had respect, nor held any esteem for the aged. Youth was now the only commodity people honored other than money, and for the two they would sacrifice anything, themselves, and others.

In those vibrant and turbulent years in the city he had been zealous to change the world, to make it a better place. Visions of multitudes being changed and transformed by the wisdom he could share paraded through his head. He had often declared in those days, "Give me 300 uncommon men, committed to the truth, and we will change the world." He dreamed of a band like Gideon's army and David's mighty men, but men like that are few indeed. He soon wearied of offering understanding and wisdom to those who lacked ears. Later he realized that to the same degree the multitudes lacked ears, he had mistaken his own pride for wisdom. The lines in the old man's face smiled as he reflected on his foolishness. He had instructed so many in right and wrong while being puffed up by their praise of his wisdom, which had been no wisdom at all. The knowledge of good and evil was not true wisdom. The lines of his face saddened as he thought of the bonds he had chained so many with in those days; boundaries established in the name of wisdom, but that shut out the truth he so wanted to give. But you could not give what you did not possess. He now understood that truth and freedom established in one heart was more precious and powerful than all the laws and armies founded by men of vision.

His hands reached for their tools again, when his mule began to bray from the pasture, announcing the arrival of his apprentice. Time for reflection and loneliness were over now. It was time to work, to mold, to awaken - to teach. He had instructed many over the years. Classes of hundreds in churches, schools and universities, searching for the uncommon man, but today it all seemed vain. He had searched for an army of men of truth when he was young, but now he knew it all had only been training so that he could teach this one before his departure.

The one who approached on horseback had ridden most of the day to reach this secluded cabin. The old craftsman set his tools to his bench and rose to receive the last student he would teach. His eyes fell to the walnut bear whose essence was emerging from the character of the block. His head turned to see the slip of a girl atop the enormous quarter horse. He had never imagined that the crowning work of his life, the character he had so long been in search of, would be found in the soft frame of a young woman. Yet, coming alive in her was a bear that would one day leave her imprint on the world. The old man picked up his stick and limped to the great horse. With his rough hands around her waist, he helped his pupil down to where her feet were planted on the soil of his soul. As he met her piercing eyes, another piece of stone was chiseled from the block of his heart. The old master was learning.