For the Love of Knowing
By Dr. Bill St Cyr
I have to tell of the awakening of a “general soul” at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago, the “soul” of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake.
Here is an astounding possibility, if we would believe it, the awakening not just of one soul but of an entire class, not a class of the gifted (socially, financially, intellectually) but rather a class of those who lacked the usual “advantages.” Unfortunately, we find it difficult to believe. Too many of our students are asleep, and we do not know how to awaken them. Perhaps we do not even recognize that their minds are but asleep. We have come to see slumber as the normal state of things. So, we endeavor to prod or cajole, all in a well-intentioned effort to get the students to perform as they ought. Yet too many students resist. They are like the boy who, not wanting to get out of bed, rolls over hoping his parent’s nagging voice will simply go away and let him sleep. “Knowing” has been separated from “loving,” much to the child’s impoverishment.
What does it mean for the mind to be awake? A mind is awake when it is doing that which it is made to do, when it is pursuing knowledge.
Read the rest of this blog post from Ambleside Schools International.