Sam Harrelson

Of course, you should know that the title of this post is ripped from one of my favorite albums of all time.  However, the title kept running through my head today as I bid farewell to my teaching career at Hammond School.

The last two years have been a whirlwind of excitement, learning, educating and generally being freaked-out at the responsibility of having to direct dozens of young people into the murky, ambiguous and often unsettling world of physical science.  However, I can not think of a better place I'd rather spend two years of my (still!) young life.  I've become a better person and I will be a better parent after having experienced the world through the eyes of over 150 thirteen and fourteen year olds. 

Amazingly enough, I love each one of them and hope for them the absolute best in life. 

Most of all, I hope that I've convinced them to never stop guessing, questioning, imagining and pursuing the facts.  We talk of a "scientific method" in all of our boring science classes, but I genuinely hope that my kids have seen the obvious fact that the method I've been trying to pound into their head is applicable to all facets of life.  By questioning a situation or problem, attempting to find ways to solve the problem, trying out those ways and then evaluating what happened one can geniunely change the world one small problem at a time.

I read this quote from the book that changed my life, Cosmos (by Carl Sagan) to my last classes today…

"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.  Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of a falling from a height.  We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding.  Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.  in a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty.  And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise.  In the last few millenia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider.  They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival.  I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.  

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both.  Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.  But without it, we go nowhere.  Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations.  The Cosmos is rich beyond measure - in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, the subtle machinery of awe."

Amen.  

I only hope that I've inspired the sort of hope and spark of λόγος that Dink, Mr. Kitchens, Prof. Mount and Larry lit inside of my soul. 

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