On Teaching: Information or Inspiration?

It’s interesting to consider the difference between informed students and inspired students. I think I have, for most of my teaching career, been far more interested in producing informed students than inspired ones. I have wanted to give my students information that would help them perform various functions, like writing papers and analyzing literature. In a sense, I have thought of my students as “forms” that I could alter and shape to my own design by giving them correct and significant information. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this approach, as long as it is combined with the understanding that students are not actually "forms", but are, in fact, unlimited and indefinable participants in a boundless and indescribable universe. I can certainly continue to offer them information that will be helpful to them in their everyday lives, but I must also see clearly that their minds are vaster and more complex than I can ever imagine. Their minds, in fact, are constantly being infused with inspirations that I am totally unaware of and have no control over. This is where it becomes clear that inspiration is more important than information. The universe, in fact, is powered by inspiration, and all the great things accomplished by the human race have been accomplished through inspiration, not information. Infinitely powerful ideas are pouring into my students at every moment, and they have little or nothing to do with information. My job as a teacher is to continue to inform my students, but to be always aware of the underlying, overlying, and all-encompassing power of inspiration.