Socratic Method

I was googling the web for schools that adopted the Socratic Method for teaching. I was appalled to find that there were hardly any. Even not many colleges use the Socratic Method (barring laws schools and a few liberal arts college like St Thomas Aquinas College…which by the way is a pretty 'cool' Catholic college in California that has no textbooks except the 'Great Books' of great men, where there are no majors or minors or specialisations for the four years of education). Honestly! I mean, sure, Socrates can be a pain lots of times. Reading the Republic beyond Book 4 gave me a splintering headache. But, just reading his dialogue teaches Logic and Rhetoric that are no longer taught in many schools as subjects.

 

I found this interesting experiment a volunteer conducted in a Grade 3 classroom. It's pretty awesome how he simplified Binary Arithmetic to the third graders using nothing but questions (aka SM). I wish someone had taught me permutations and combinations in the SM :-(

 

Family Pride

Should we be proud about the achievements of our fathers and forefathers?  Don't say 'of course' right away. Give it 2 seconds of thought.

I first had this argument with a couple of pals on a train. Without reaching any particular conclusion, we changed the topic after a bit, as it raised a lot more ideological differences than were necessary when embarking on a vacation. Recently, it surfaced again. So, I posed the question to a eight or so people. Most, including Mom, felt along the lines of, "Of course. But not to the point of haughtiness."  There was just one who, said, "No. Maybe happy, but not proud. Because you didn't contribute to their achievements." My take exactly.

Personally speaking, I have numerous reasons to be proud about my grandpapa and even my great grandfather. But, I am not proud about them. I view their achievements with gladness and admiration. But not pride. I wonder if this is just me being the fundamentally emotionally distant person that I am. But, then again, hear me out - I have a very valid point.

How can I be proud about their achievements, when I had no relevance, not even a jot, no part, not even an iota, to play in their greatness? My soul hasn't changed for the better, nor has it struggled to achieve their greatness. I have a right to be proud if, and only if, my soul was involved in the end result.

Of course, I am 'proud' when India totally screws Pakistan in cricket. But it's a different kind of pride. This one's a superficial emotion, something that disappears after a couple of days. Something that hardly stirs my innards and glorifies my soul. Let's call this superficial emotion, Level 1 Pride.

The same rule applies to my personal achievements. I am only Level 2 proud when I have struggled. I hardly value my academic achievements (the paltry few). They have come easily. However, I am proud (Level 2) of myself for having chosen the 'ethically/morally right thing to do' instead of something I wanted to do badly during many instances of my life. I am, also, incredibly proud about the fact that I led 4 years of my life honourably, in a way that lived up to my and my parents' moral standards even when there were no social or parental restraints. Let's just say these werent as easy-as-ABC choices. I am sure, ye all have such instances too. Such instances as these are what contribute to my innate love for myself. My great grandfather's legendary generosity to the poor doesn't contribute to that.

Anyways, I digress (I am not proud (level 1 or otherwise) about my garrulous verbosity). Bottom line, I am proud (level 1) of my family.  If you say I have to be proud (level 2) of my family, I say I don't have the right.

This is my take. A lot of you out there will disagree. That's okay. Let's just agree to disagree.

Note: I am still wide-eyed admiration when someone tells me about the wonderful things about their family. It's just that, I am more admiring when they tell me about their own achievements. 

Fading Arts

My sister, who lives somewhere in an undisclosed town in the Great Mid West, usually gifts me a sack full of beauty products every time she visits me. Subtlety was never her forte I suppose.

A week ago, I opened this exquisitely packed set of 'body butter' that she gave me this Feb.(Note to all boys who are reading this post: body butter is a schmanzyfancy name for moisturizer, which is something we women rub on our skin to prevent it from drying among other things) There were six medium sized tubs packaged in pastel colours and sleek black lids, quaint seeming words printed in fonts evocative of a bygone era. Each tub had a separate name, for e.g, the tub I first opened was labeled "Warm Ginger Bread".

Other labels were, "Vanilla Pound Cake" "Caramel Something Something", "Crabapple Eatable Thingie" and "Vanilla Yada Yada". And, just below the label was an old school recipe for warm ginger bread or vanilla pound cake or caramel-something-something with simple directions.

I was amused by the pretentiousness. That was before I opened the tub. After I pried the lid open, the whiff of warm ginger bread wiped the cynical smirk off my face and my rolling eye balls faltered mid way. For a micro-second, I was back in Georgetown Mercantile, a tiny store in the sleepy town of Georgetown tucked in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. It was right after Christmas and the store was awash with Yuletide decorations and brimming with mouth watering freshly baked candy/goodies on sale. There was holly everywhere and the warm store smelt of heavenly warm ginger bread . If you haven't already guessed, more than sights and sounds, the olfactory senses trigger memories better. (read this)

I quickly ripped open the rest of the tubs. And sure enough, each one smelled like those grandma's recipes from some mid western town or the Old Country.

While, I was impressed with the marketing genius of these products, a thought occurred - isn't it plain awful that we no longer smell ginger bread baked in their grandmother's kitchen? Instead we have to settle for smelling in a wad of moisturizer? Do any families, Indian or American, have recipes handed down through generations of mothers and daughters, anymore? Or have we begun to get them off a tub of moisturizer too?

Remember those beautiful miniature wooden ships inside these old glass bottles as kids? Do you remember being fascinated by them as a kid? Couple of years ago, during one of my trips to Walmart, I saw a cheap plastic ship-in-the-bottle. Worse, the plastic bottle had a latch at the bottom which could be flipped open and voila, the ship slipped in and out. It was like discovering there's no Father Christmas, or that the Tooth Fairy is really your dad. The beauty about those ships-in-the-bottle is that you are supposed to marvel how the ship got into the glass bottle in the first place.

Auden By The Window

Auden is to be read sitting beside your window, during the silence when the creaking crickets pause for breathe on a moonless night, with a golden lamp lighting the page and a green snake twirled around your neck for company -

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water
Plunge them up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed."

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
And Jill goes down on her back."

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless."

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

Pope John Paul II

You should read this - whether you are a fan or a critic of the last pope. Even if you couldnt care less. Read it.

Skip the first 20 paragraphs and begin reading where you find the B&W picture. The first few paras are dripping with a little too much Polish nationalism for my taste.

Noticed?

Noticed how people are generous only when their comfort isn't
threatened, courteous only when in good humour?

At Hadleigh Castle

John Constable is often relegated to the back benches when we talk
about great painters. I like him. I don't care if his settings are
usually parochial or too country-ish. I rather spend an evening
looking at his works than getting nightmares over Picasso or Dali's
work. Constable, is a marvellous painter.

To illustrate my point, below is one of his best paintings (imho), At Hadleigh Castle:

Can you hear the gulls cawing? Sense the clouds gliding across the
evening sky? Hear the sheep bleating? Hear the hollow whispers of the
wind in the ruins?

Well, if you don't, its probably because, you are looking at a low
resolution image of a cheap duplicate that I stole from some site.
When you actually stand in Tate Britain gazing at the huge painting,
you shall hear them all.

An Overrated Virtue

Recently, a couple of pals accused me of being uncompromising and that I do not make exceptions. (This was in the context of how if I didn't want to do something, I wasn't going to do it for anybody's sake).

But isn't compromising an overrated Asian virtue?  If one begins to compromise on the small things, can one live life the way one wants to?  Too often we give up things for our foolish-rational-twin, for the brats, for the bosses, for the pals, for the partners, for the folks (this is forgivable I think), for society. I am no rebel, but must I really compromise for the little things, and one day wake up to find that I am an unfulfilled person?