Ladies and Gentleman, Common Spence is back. And as per my New Years Resolution, I will be posting on her every day of this semester, and hopefully of the year. At least that is the plan. Are you familiar with that saying "if you want to make God laugh tell him your plans?" I hate it. Mostly it bothers me because most of my plans do not work out and I hate thinking that some big guys sitting up a chair up there laughing at me, because I think most of my plans are pretty good.
Now I'm not that paranoid or egotistical as to think that God really sits up there foiling all of my plans on purpose just to assert some sort of power and prove a point. But why is it that these things seem to happen? Why do I spend most of my time planning valentines dates with a girl I don't know will even be interested in me in a month? Why do I stress to plan an entire calender for my student teaching experience when I know you can't adhere to a strict plan of action while keeping the students interests and needs in mind? In Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner's book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, a book which is quickly becoming my educational Bible, they state in the introduction that they are "serious professional educators." They go on to explain that this means that they are "simple, romantic men who risk contributing to the mental health problem by maintaining a belief in the improvability of the human condition through education."
I like this definition of a "professional educator" because it resonates with me; both my tendency to plan and romanticize every aspect of my life and my belief that my actions won't be in vain. That being said, I also am going to take this year to stop planning just a bit. I was recently reminded of a quote from one of my favorite books/movies Into the WIld. The author, Jon Krakauer writes "The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." Planning is great, and I'm always going to romanticize my future, but it's also important to maintain a sense of adventure. To never adhere to a plan simply because it's written out, and miss an opportunity right in front of your face. Maybe that's why God laughs at our plans, not because he enjoys wrecking them, but he can't wait for us to stumble upon something even better. Something that no calender or planner could ever anticipate.
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