ENJOYING THE WATERFALL

Talking with a good friend yesterday reminded me of something I've often thought about -- that my students and I don't really own any ideas. We "have" ideas, and ideas "come" to us, but we surely don't make or own any of them. We're not little factories that somehow fasten together things called ideas" and then use them or store them away like so many manufactured commodities. As we work together in Room 2, we simply try to be the respectful recipients of ideas as they generously arrive at our lives the way leaves alight on lawns in the fall. You might say we observe and appreciate and play with our ideas more than we make them. My students and I should feel lucky to be part of a universe that is such a magnanimous and proficient producer of ideas. We're like drops of water in a wondrous waterfall that never stops -- a waterfall named "Ideas". A drop of water can't own other drops, and neither can we own ideas. All we can do is relax and enjoy the ideas as they fall around and upon us.