All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is the
child. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, and
full of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’t
easy, we have to make our own paths, as teachers
and children and families, in the forest. Sometimes
we find ourselves together within the forest, sometimes we may get lost from each other, sometimes
we’ll greet each other from far away across the forest;
but it’s living together in this forest that is important.
And this living together is not easy. (Malaguzzi)
Noach found grace in the sight of Adonai. (Genesis 6:8)
Literacy risks being seen both as the only pathway to success and at the
same time a punitive boogeyman that scares away children’s joy. Generally,
teachers are as much in agreement about the importance of literacy as we
are about the importance of play, but sometimes we think they are mutually
exclusive—that time devoted to one takes away from the other. Literacy
and play, indeed all learning and play, can go together. They really must
go together; together they can and should be pleasurable and rewarding
experiences for children, and for teachers and parents as well, who clearly
want the best possible for their children now and for the future.
(Gandini)
In it’s essence, language is neither expression nor an activity of man. Language speaks. Accordingly, what we seek lies in the poetry of the spoken word. (Heidegger)
The tangle which is entirely below the level of consciousness can be set right by being with yourself, the ‘I am’, by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
(Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)
… a presence both perceived and not perceived, at once image and model, and hence image without model, neither image nor model, a medium (medium in the sense of middle, neither/nor, what is between extremes, and medium in the sense of element, either, matrix, means). When we have rounded a certain corner in our reading we will place ourselves on that side of the lustre where the “medium” is shining. (Derrida)
From our perception of the world there follows acceptance of a unique First Principle possessing various powers. Pictures of name and form, the person who sees, the screen on which he sees, and the light by which he sees: he himself is all of these. (Sri Ramana Maharshi)
There is no such thing as a “metaphysical-concept.” There is no such thing as a “metaphysical-name.” The “metaphysical” is a certain determination or direction taken by a sequence or “chain.” It cannot as such be opposed by a concept but rather by a process of textual labor and a different Sort of articulation. This being the case, the development of this problematic will inevitably involve the movement of differance as it has been discussed elsewhere: a “productive,” conflictual’ movement which cannot be preceded by any identity, any unity, or any original simplicity; which cannot be “relieved” resolved appeased by any pholosophical dialectic; and which disorganizes “historically,” “practically,” textually, the opposition or the difference (the static distinction) between opposing terms. (Derrida)