It's just a semi-colon...

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin…” is to learn

something. That’s the only thing that never fails…”

- T.H. White: The Once and Future King

School is out – the semester is done. In the words of Sergeant Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Well King, this case is closed.”

 “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon” was an American series in the mid to late nineteen-fifties set in the Canadian Yukon (actually filmed in Colorado). Played by Dick Simmons, Sgt. Preston, accompanied by his faithful Huskey, King (actually an Alaskan Malamute), solved weekly mysteries and crimes. At the end of each episode, Preston would look at the dog, rub his head and say the  “Well King…” tagline.

Over the years, I often used that phrase when something was coming to an end…school, a job, holidays, and lots more. I suppose it was the comforting familiarity, that whatever was ending, there would be another episode to look forward to in my life. As the years slipped away, so did the phrase.

Yesterday, I gave the last final examination of the year. Thanks to the marvel of electronic grading, by dinner, final grades were calculated, downloaded and archived to an invisible cloud somewhere in the land of Oz – both the land and the wizard continue to elude me.

As I hit the ‘send key’ pushing all those electronic ‘zeros and ones’ to a clandestine electronic archive, I found myself quietly saying, “Well King, this case is closed.”

The closing adventure…

As with the mystery-solving, crime-fighting Sergeant Preston and King, this semester has ended.

Aristotle said, “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”  The proverbs say a similar thing, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding.”

Understanding is a pretty high bar, but I have come to appreciate the shortest route to that end is teaching another person.  Over the past year, through a multitude of students, I’ve had the opportunity to discover what I don’t know well enough. As Plato suggested one may never reach the fullness of the big ‘U’ understanding, but
a mass of little ‘u’s can be acquired along the way (virtue is actually Plato's topic).

When unable to explain something clearly the opportunity to ‘…shore up the ramparts of my mind. ’emerges.  If a question is asked for which I don’t know the answer, it becomes mine, and the process continues.

My students think they are learning from me, and that is probably true. What they do not know is that I am learning much more from them. Each time we interact, they buff and polish the tools in my kit, encouraging better preparation for the next round.

This semester may be closed, but like Sgt Preston, there will another adventure to look forward to. 

- ted