The Bright Well

Bireactor jets were roaring on the TV set and a red circle, like a ballon was trying and focus on the canopy before a high note get out of the woofer: it was not long before my grey cells connected it to the famous title of the hit  movie of our college years. The hero was quite an arrogant fellow, a wild horse fighting with another ace of the patrol, a blond guy, refrigerator like, with the short brush hair that the waves love so much.  Once is good. Twice is better. They were not long to meet again one of those days of thunders,  big engines, once more roaring  in their hands. Nascar. I just cant remember their numbers.  Nineties were just about to begin.  And it  reminded me the  summer days in Britanny when Mickey, Phil and I used to go for a minigolf after dinner. Minigolf is a children game. Don't need any wood, a single iron could make it for the eighteen holes. It was furthermore interesting because it was after dinner and the light of the day was turning to the big orange halo making the silhouette of the tall pines turn to a dark papercut scene above us.  Mickey was protesting with his belgian accent, giving the little ball, myriads of nicknames we never heard before. Phil, for he was the kind of guy, girls are addicted to, used to laugh and to tell him jokes so as to make it easier. What was so important in this game? In fact, the loser should pay his fellowmen a bottle of Marie Brizard, that is a French Anisette, sweet syrup you drink on the rocks. The beverage is absolutly delicious and also terrible for your head because of the sugar it contains. On the other hand its anise and plants melange had something of a potion and it cures many diseases, excepted perhaps dipsomania golfers are often subject to .

    Born during the year of the Buffalo,  I spend hours of my days in the mud walking the fields.
    Though it is an ascetic job, I enjoy it, and sometimes, I even have some great fun hearing the folks of the cities saying : 'Look a pig, his skin is covered with mud". Children of the country are somehow very different.
 How could folks of the cities know anything else than the words they were fed with? Politicians pandering to the greed of the crowd, media excited by wanton excesses. I've heard, they say, that in a book, or in the Book, which I don't know how it is called, but I perfectly heard they say  "The Book". So in The Book, it is said about the sign of times.
    Millions of computer addicted human beings vicariously living through video games and fantasy tales left the real world.  They even repeat the slogans of dark ages " we own new weapons that will stun the world". Strange love of theirs. Cohorts of gregarious women and men over sixty-five have been called back for "their" last struggle. They claim it themselves. Because they're rationalizing. This word, "rationalize" they love it, for it sounds scientific, the expression of a mathematic thought and for it should excuse all the sins their souls are smoked with. Maudlin souls trying and sublimating the reality they don't accept, the stunning reality of the effete civilization, their obsequious and tainted ways have beard.
    I 'm a buffalo under the clear blue sky, near by the great lakes, baskets full of watermelons on my back. But in their eyes, I am a pig ;) . According to whom?

    A piece of wise advise is given not to consider the public domain as a private sphere where can be published all sorts of staff concerning fool's games young people like to be involved in, during their studies or during sports' third times with the gals  of the support team. It's obvious that nowadays, more than ever before, one shall be discret to be happy.
    Because, later on, one might face someone who doesn't care about circunstances, someone whose sensibility might be puritan, straight or deviant someone who doesn't care about human being.  Late in the sixties and in the seventies, everybody knew body was not an insane thing but the mind of the one's looking might be. Nowadays thins have changed. and though the worst is pretending being in love with someone and spending the whole life looking for others, we can hear here and there the computer slogan "WYSIWYG": What you see is what you get.
    Certainly, more than ever, young people because of their youth don't know anything about the wisdom of older women and men and they feel the world is their oyster. They're to fashion the world.  Not exactly the way they believe it.  And the wisdom is not to respect olders because of their age but because of their behaviors that inspire oneself a good behavior.
    Internet can be a wonderful thing and also an awful one. Like Gutemberg's printing. But even a gun isn't evil. It can save lifes.  The most important thing is : what is in your heart?  A dark heart may hurt someone using a chair or a pen.
    Since iron curtain and Berlin wall have fallen, limes, frontiers have dissappeared in our world and everyone can go anyplace in the world in the minute he decides to.  Back in the eighties, teenagers needed a paper to cross the border even in Europe, taking the Ferry to England or the highway to Germany.  Because of this lack of frontiers, walls are build in the cities to enclose houses, buildings. Inner limits have dissappeared from our souls, and therefore lot of people publish things they would not have dare publish in a newspaper fifteen years ago.
    Internet pages are like yellow pages and for an expert nothing published is out of reach. In fact, Internet is an ocean, where it's res nullius, how many would dare go far away from the coast with their windsurf or canoë? Ocean is a matter of sailors, of fishermen and it's a real good piece of advice to consider wannabes shall always keep in mind how deep and ancient is the ocean.

    A new year is about to begin for our pupils' teachers. They'll go ahead to check the classrooms, get the lists of their new students and meet all their colleagues engaged in the same project.
    And what project are we talking about when we say "teaching"? In fact, it is obvious that one gives some knowledge to youngsters because his past years on earth learned him a lot. So, the older a teacher is, the best he should be for he knows the content of the books he is to 'feed' the pupils with, but furthermore, during the months and years he spent in contact with  his youngsters, he learned a lot about their psychology, the way they behave, the way they understand and the the way they might be taught in a more efficient way, an efficiency that means, they'll be autonom and could work on their own in the spirit of their predecessors.
    So, dare it or not, teaching is not a simple task  which could be the synonym  of  emptying bottles to fill can. The most difficult is to transfer to some new minds the knowledge of our days and the will that inspired them. A wheel is not interesting in itself until we know how our far ancestors were about to build it with pieces of wood.  Youngsters might only think tyres had always been made of black rubber. But never heard about trees providing a syrup we transformed to made the stones of our roads softer when we drove the carriage to the market. Lot of them stil might ignore this syrup is still used to make condoms.
    Teaching is not to be a job for egotists  because there's no glory in the exaltation of knowing things years taught you, if no humility raised in the same time. The first teacher is life and it's good to follow its example. A teacher is always aware.  A teacher always listens to the many questions of his audience and he asks himself how to make 'edible' and furthermore 'assimilable' the knowledge he's giving to hear.
    How can we know what 'taught' is 'known', what 'given' is 'made personal': using questions to check the good reception of the information provided. Words aren't just enough, pictures might help, dialogue should be natural.
    Teaching is an active process.  When you're a teacher, you're also a student. And a teacher shall always consider 'we' are going to discover together, 'we' will walk our own way if you please.
    Not that an authority is not to be. Authority exists when it has not to be exerced. Authority is the weight scale that self manifests in the mind of the people involded in a relation.  Teenager may be reluctent to authority, not because they dislike it, but indeed because they look for it, they try and palp the walls of a dark cavern where they begin walking on their two feet instead of hurting their knees on the floor.  Teacher shall help them to make their way to the outer light.
    Teachers can do many things but the most important is giving the tools, women and men to be, will use during their lifetime.  Nothing to be known excepted this.  A good teacher will always keep in mind he's a ranger followed by a pack of wonderful minds to happen. Cards aren't given forever. And everyone owns a skill that the whole pack will benefit.  And every student shall receive the exact knowledge he desserves, that is, the appropriate information that will make her or him jump to the next step of the high ladder of life.