Self-Reliance Defined in my Classroom

At the beginning of the school year, we were asked by our administration to come up with a motto for our classroom and frame it somewhere in the room. I have always been a fan of wall splattering, using images to collage and create a meaning, and so when we were asked as educators to make our room thematic, I naturally went with a maxim that is central to who I am and what I believe is the purpose of life: "MAN, KNOW THYSELF."

I do not ever place my beliefs, ideas, and/or thinking onto anyone else. I have already been that kind of person in my more Christian days, existing in an exclusivity that often showcased more ego than the love and understanding found in Oneness, and I have no intentions of returning to that kind of volitional action again. Rather, I try to openly share who I am with whomever the Universe connects me with - intimately or even as spaced out as through a social media platform. If something in my words or actions spawn discovery or understanding for another, then it is primarily on them - organic as it should be. This leads me to the extensional practice of my classroom, one that all students are cultured in throughout the school year: Self-Reliance.  Here's how Self-Reliance is defined in my classroom:


Self Reliance is the individual's ability to provide for himself/herself and to not be swayed or dependent on an institution or another's thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and actions to determine their own. This is a state of existence and way of life that is contrary to how most institutions like health care, education, and big business desires for its itinerants to be... To be Self-Reliant is to take control of one's life and to create develop, and produce as an individual defined only by yourself.

The expectation in my classroom, based off of the above and the class theme.motto, is that each individual must hold their own and learn to think and act for themselves. By them understanding what it means to be self-reliant, they will learn about who they are and in practice come to the knowledge of self, becoming producers and creators rather than mimickers and conformists.

Finding Something to Say... Iron Sharpens Iron

I've debated for a long time about having a blog. At times, I've had one. And then I would stop using it and it would just lay in waste for months at a time. A concern that I have always had concerning blogs is having something to say about something... Admittedly, I call myself a writer and so it's ironic that I would feel and think that I didn't have anything to write about or at least of importance. Nevertheless, I've decided (again) to have a blog and (again) to keep it up - simply because I realized that I do have something to say and hopefully those who choose to read this blog will share with me in the experience and we both will learn from each other. After all iron sharpens iron.

The idea of iron sharpening iron is something that I say a lot - it has a biblical origin. What I realize about the saying is that it carries the understanding that both objects or entities of metal are equal in standing. Now, this equality may not be in stature or status or appearance but in existence as a whole. Iron is iron, the same way that apples are apples, dogs are dogs, and human beings are human beings. We are composed of the same material, same boundlessness, and the same limitations. However, when the same meets the same an exchange occurs and from that exchange growth can takes place. That's what iron sharpens iron  means; two like minded and similar entities, metals (figuratively) coming together, meshing words and ideas to refine each other.

When applied to human beings and words, the sharpening of oneself is an exercise that isn't readily taken on in abundance these days. The days of men and women meeting in bookstores and coffee shops are over, if not extremely uncommon. These meetings were the more modern version of what took place in Kemet, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece when philosophers and thinkers of the day would sit and meet and build on their ideas, thoughts, questions, and experiences. Growth occurred that evolved into enlightenment and that can still occur today - and on a smaller scale it does. I am hoping that I can utilize modernity and technology to facilitate the idea of iron sharpening iron through this blog... That's the plan anyway.