Dr Michael Downey
Consultant, Author ,Workshop Presenter, Retreat Leader, & Teacher
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 I love to daily walk my neighbourhood with my youngest grandson in his stroller.
I live on a mountaintop and as I walk, I pass the entrance to a rain-forest and then look down the slopes to the coast and out to sea. One of the reasons I like to walk this walk is that I can’t help but be grateful. I have much to be grateful for: a safe and beautiful place in which to live, the closeness of my family, and the wealth of free time just to be with my grandchildren. These things are the most obvious to me, but there is much more that flows when I “count my blessings”. From this vantage point I notice things and I am intrigued by them. For example, Nietzsche in “Schopenhauer as Educator” (1873) wrote: “…if the future gave us no hope for anything--our own existence now must encourage us most strongly to live according to our own laws and standards: it is an inexplicable fact that we live precisely today, and had an infinite time to develop--nevertheless, we possess only a short-lived today to show why and to what end we evolved” Crises and dysfunction in the environment, politics and a fragmented world easily deceive us into thinking that there is no hope – but there is hope. It comes down to us. That is why Nietzsche encourages us to “most strongly” live by our best lights. After all, we only ever have a “short-lived today”. There is hope for the future. It is us. Our thoughts, words and actions - how “we live precisely today”, is all the evidence our children and grandchildren need.
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“For every complex problem, there’s a simple solution, and it’s always wrong”.
While it’s been a long time since the columnist H. L. Mencken made this observation, it rings true today, particularly when it comes to the endeavour of education. The recent PISA results regarding student achievement have provoked some comment and debate but nothing much will come of it all. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it’s late in the year and attention is shifting to Christmas, holidays and the New Year, not to mention bushfires and matters of economy. By the new year, something else will surface for immediate attention. Secondly, education is complex. In response to the PISA results some rightly point to the place, status, pay and expertise of teachers. Others have commented on the curriculum, NAPLAN testing, technology and Gonski. These are all matters of importance. They need to be addressed but ultimately they miss the point. The solution to unlocking and encouraging good education is relationship. In fact the ecology of relationships needs to be understood. Otherwise any reform will only continue to do damage. In the classroom the relationship between teacher, student and subject is what matters. It determines the outcomes. Understanding this and what affects it is crucial. Too many people who think they know what should be taught, and how it should be taught, have undue influence on the curriculum. Whether they be politicians, business people, commentators or academics, if they aren’t teachers, they need to listen and hesitate to speak. Only the professionals in the classroom have real understanding of student learning. I can’t remember any educational reform being driven by teachers, let alone teachers being seriously listened to. Educational bureaucracy can too easily undermine teachers work before they enter the classroom. Bureaucrats need to be in the service of education. To be in the service of facilitating learning, enabling, supporting, encouraging and recognising good teaching would be a wonderful thing. Too much bureaucracy is in the service of bureaucracy and bureaucrats. Teachers are they key to good education. They need to be better compensated. This is not simply about pay scales. Too many teachers are too overloaded too much of the time. Teachers work needs to be de-intensified, uncluttered and unencumbered. Teaching is demanding. Most teachers love their work and care for their students. Preparation, planning, marking, reporting and co-curricula activities are only the top of the iceberg for teachers. While these things are out of sight, their effect on teachers needs to be front of mind when reforming teaching. Too many important decision makers and influencers either have no real understanding of the classroom or they are refugees from the classroom. Teaching is a calling. Most people don’t become teachers because they are not cut out for it. Teachers have gifts that fit their calling to teach. Teaching is not a just job, it affects students lives for a lifetime. The work is good, noble and honourable as are most of the teachers I have worked with across the country and all over the world. “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.” ― David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World re to edit. About 10 years ago a friend showed me the brainpickings website (www.brainpickings.org) . I must admit that I don’t always get time to read the weekly offerings, but whenever I do I am rewarded. Sometimes I learn something new. Often I am made to think and regularly, I stand back and ponder the awesomeness of an insight.
Today I read the most wonderful quote from Henry Miller, who when writing of the wonder and mystery of the universe wrote, “that we can know so much, recognize so much, dissect, do everything, and we can’t grasp it.” The website’s author, Maria Popova went on to say, “Paradoxically enough, the fragment of the universe we seem least equipped to grasp is the truth of who we ourselves are. Who are we, really, when we silence the ego’s shrill commands about who we should be, and simply listen to the song of life as it sings itself through us?” ”Listening to the song of life as it sings itself through us” is what Formation is all about. , s? I have aspired to good work. I realised early on that in doing so, I was at my happiest. I need my work to have value, meaning, purpose and some sense of accomplishment. When this happens, I feel at my best. It affirms my talents and competence, and my creativity flows. At times, I have had work that lacked these things and I have found myself below par, restless and generally unhappy.
Whenever I have had conversations about this, anywhere in the world, I have found that this is something that resonates profoundly with others. This human phenomenon seems simple enough, but it is not. The connection we make between work and happiness can be complex and confusing. Anyone who has striven for, and abstained, “the dream job” knows how quickly the “shine” can fade when the daily reality sets in. Regardless of which job I had, wrestling with this has been the real “work of my life”. Along the way, I have come to appreciate two key questions. I first remember these being my mother’s constant refrain in my childhood and adolescence. At the time, I had no understanding of their deep and lasting philosophical significance. These questions are touchstones to which I keep returning. They are crucial to wrestling with the mystery of work, happiness, meaning, purpose, identity and more. I hear these questions as clearly within, as clearly as a child I heard my mother’s voice:
Making time to reflect and wrestle with these questions has resulted in finding work that I have loved. For the last twenty years, I have been lucky to share this quest with others across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the USA and the UK. I think I am on to something.  My viewpoint is simply my view from a point. As I look back from this point, I notice something. It’s a recurring pattern of Toms.
My first influential teacher was named Tom. He was an Irish priest and he was tough. However, when he spoke, I was sure he was speaking directly to me. There was something about his gaze as he spoke to the class. I felt seen and known by his words, and his silence. Back then, class sizes were between fifty and sixty. Looking back, I am impressed. He taught me for at least one class in each of my high school years. When I finished school, I got a job a thousand miles away from home. Not long after starting my new life, I was told that Tom was no longer teaching but working in a parish in my new town. I went to see him and we became friends. We kept in touch, on and off, and I was glad to introduce him to my own children. At the time I wasn’t conscious how important it was for me to have him see that I was a good husband and father. Now that I am no longer daily working as a teacher, it has dawned on me how significant it was for me, as a teacher, to let each student, in each and every one of my classes, know that they were seen and known by me. In 1971, I was sixteen and lost in uncertainty and ambiguity. Tom sensed something in my adolescent angst and gave me a book, “No Man is an Island” by Thomas Merton. I wasn’t much of a reader, but I couldn’t put the book down and I have come back to it many times since. This Tom (Merton) has been a touchstone to which I have returned constantly in the almost fifty years since our first encounter. On each occasion, I am often struck by how timely and appropriate his wisdom is in my own particular time, place and circumstance. I used to marvel at the wonder of this. These days I simply appreciate the gift. About twenty years ago another Tom entered my life. A friend gave be the recording of a talk he had given at a conference and thought I would appreciate it. I did. I had previously read something by Tom Zanzig, so I was aware of him and his writing. At a time when the internet and email was just becoming a ‘thing’, I decided to email his publisher and ask for his contact details in case he was interested in a conversation around some of my many questions. As it turned out he was the Senior Editor at that publishing company and he emailed me back the following morning keen to dialogue. (He thought I was someone else, but that is another story). We quickly discovered that we had many things in common. We became friends and I felt I had found a brother. As well as dialogue about meaning and purpose, we spent a lot of time sharing our amazingly similar struggles with parenting. We have spent many hours in conversation pondering “matters of great importance” over the years, and my life is much richer for his generosity, wisdom and friendship. It’s almost a year since the fourth influential Tom has entered my life. He is my youngest grandson. I am fortunate to live close by and see him daily. I love his daily reminders that “awe and wonder” are everywhere. I am lucky to have a constant prodding to be curious about everything. Most of all I love the way that his first response to everything is to smile. I want to be more like that! Four Toms, a coincidence? Or a recurring thread indicating the significance, and the blessing, of having a mentor, an inspiration, a friend, a companion and a reminder to smile. These are the good ingredients for lifelong learning. |
AuthorDr Michael Downey is an Author, Teacher, Consultant, Retreat Leader & Workshop Facilitator. , Archives
January 2020
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