LIVING DEEP AND SUCKING THE MARROW OUT OF LIFE.

 

See deeply by

Undoing the old and

Creating the new so that you can

Know more deeply.

 

The story of the 10x15 cabin.

In his Walden, Henry David Thoreau wonders why so many of us lead "lives of quiet desperation," always working, sweating, toiling, rarely with any purpose or end in mind.  He experimented with ways to achieve happiness, purpose, and simplicity by building a small hut at Walden Pond.  The cabin was only 10 feet by 15 feet (small enough to fit on Huck and Jim's raft!), but he found joy in the very act of constructing his own dwelling and living "deliberately," not desperately.  For two years, he sought to know his world as closely and deeply as possible:

 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear . . . I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily . . . as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

That, to us, is 150 square feet of living--or learning.  This deliberate kind of learning will happen best when students are R.A.F.T.ing well together and when they are being thoughtful (the "T" in R.A.F.T.) in the following ways:

 

• seeing deeply each text (whether one of our books for study or their own writing or a classmate's writing) as something meaning-full, a story or an argument worthy of response and interpretation, of agreement and disagreement, of possibility and revision;

• undoing the old, whether that's an old or initial way of thinking, an old behavior or habit that isn't respectful, accountable, forward, or thoughtful, a first draft, whatever (this habit of mind, of course, relies on students being open to the possibility of change); 

• creating the new, whether that's a new idea, a new interpretation, a new approach to writing (this will often be done independently, but will also happen as a "raft," as a community of meaning-builders); and

• knowing more deeply each text, each new reading or writing or presentation strategy, each other--and oneself as a thinker and learner.

 

Will it be easy?  No.  Will it take time to learn how to "suck the marrow" well?  Yes.  Will we fail at times?  Yes!  Will we grow from the experience?

 

Yes?