Starting When It Ends

While driving over to the school on a Sunday afternoon to see the students' annual spring musical, I was listening to a segment on NPR about a filmmaker -- Philip Groning -- discussing his film, "The Great Silence", a documentary that explored

"a spiritual voyage into the inner meaning and experience of monastic life" at "the Grande Chartreuse monastery, the head monastery of the Carthusian order, high in the French Alps between Grenoble and Chambery."

Subject aside, what really interested me was a comment made by Groning as he tried to explain exactly why he wanted to make a film about silence.

Paraphrased (since I can't find the transcript of the radio show):

"Great films begin when they end."

In other words, he was more interested in a film that sparked dialogue after the film ended, then in one that merely 'entertained' or gave out information' during the viewing process.

Seems to me that if I were a young teacher-to-be, repositioning that statement a bit would be a pretty powerful reminder to me of what will matter most over the longevity of my career...and more importantly, to my students over the longevity of their lives:

"Great [classes] begin when they end."

What matters more when you really do a gut-check as to what drives you:

• Spending more and more time trying to demonstrate to the kids as to what you can do 'inside' the classroom? 

• Or making damn sure that whatever we do is only the beginning of what our students will do from the closing bell forward?

Note: Bias intended.  Zero apologies.

Comments

[jeremiah]

Aye. I watched "the Lives of Others" last night, and thought about it all of today. Reading your post was timely reminder that what is true outside of schools is most often more true within them. A corollary might be that what is "thought about" is not always what is intended, or even taught. One of my greatest learning experiences came as an undergrad as I sat outside a professor's office waiting for some well-deserved critique. Across the hall a seasoned prof was explaining to another why he only took transfers and other "non-trads" as advisees -- he compared them to traditional students. "The kids are walking around here, oblivious, while the non-trads are walking around as if they're catching $50 bills falling from the sky. The other kids are kicking them around like so many leaves." The learning I took from that moment I would stack up against a good number of the coursework I had taken in up to that point.

[Laura Deisley]

All I can say is "amen." Great post. The film-maker gets it, as do you.

BTW, there is a heck of a lot I think we could learn from those monks...