Since this is the time of year when many people are thinking about resolutions for the new year, I've been passing some time considering how resolutions might be important for both my students and me. As I usually do, I went to my dictionary first and discovered, to my surprise, that the word derives from the Latin "resolvere", which means "to loosen or untie". That puzzled me for a bit, but soon it occurred to me that when you make a resolution, you do it because you have "untied" the knotty problem related to what steps you should take in your life. You've "loosened" the log-jam of questions, puzzles, and decisions, and now you know exactly what you need to do -- so you make a resolution. You resolve to take some definite steps. This makes me think of my students and me. In our academic work we often feel utterly "tied in knots" by all the bewildering tasks we face. As a teacher, I sometimes feel as though I'm stuck in a mental traffic jam, with dozens of ideas pushing up against me and causing a numbing mental gridlock, and I'm sure my students feel the same. What we all need to do is make a decision, a resolution, about where we should be going next, but we can't really do that until the knots of our minds are untied and the traffic jams are loosened. Instead of making quick-fix suggestions or mapping out plans for myself and my students, I should be quietly helping them -- and me -- sort out the details of English class so we can "see our way clear" and make some decisions about what to work on next. Instead of being a drill sergeant, pushing us ahead to task after task, perhaps I need to be more of a loosener, an untie-er. If my students and I are going to make resolutions about the next few months in English class, we first have to resolve our confusions -- untie and loosen them -- and then the proper course of action will probably become clear.
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