The Lesson Plan

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

The end is near and we’ve barely begun. This is the sole thought running through my head these days as we head towards the 2nd Quarter Periodic Exams. Suffice to say, a lot of my plans for the quarter did not push through due to all the disruptions in classes. Thus, let’s put our accomplishment rate at around 60%.

Our discussions of Eastern philosophy haven’t been as whole as I hoped. We’ve covered Hinduism and Buddhism, but touched barely a hair of Confucianism and Taoism. We weren’t able to touch on The Tao of Pooh at all which I originally devoted one whole week to — and thus option C in your long test, for those inspired by the book.

After philosophy, we would have jumped to history and see how and why these systems emerged. After a survey of the histories of India and China, the rest of the quarter would have been devoted to watching a series of films that bring to life the life and times of Buddha, Qin Shih Huang and Genghis Khan.

By the end of the quarter, we would have seen how societies behave and how empires rise and fall. By connecting our introductory discussion on the Asian Character with philosophy and history, we would have derived lessons for our own government and society.

I shouldn’t be too hard on myself however. After all, desire is the root of suffering, and if there is one person who expected to accomplish as much, it is I. But I don’t control the weather. It changes all the time, and so can we.

As Bruce Lee said, “Be like water.”

Question: What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?
Bruce: There is no opponent.
Question: Why is that?
Bruce: Because the word ”l” does not exist.
A good fight should be like a small play…but played seriously. When the opponent expands, l contract. When he contracts, l expand. And when there is an opportunity… l do not hit…it hits all by itself (shows his fist).
Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.

There is no denying that we teachers have to hit certain targets. And since I am not the only teacher teaching this subject, there is the added impetus that we cover the same topics per quarter.

However, I have long thrown the syllabus out the window.

Sure, I’m guided by it. It gives me the focus I need to present anything coherent, but I’ve never felt bound by it. I distill it to the basics in order to see what more can be done. I identify what the syllabus wishes our students to learn from a certain lesson and then I figure out a way to teach it so that they (a) learn well and (b) actually take home more than what the syllabus requires of them.

In the end however, I become the victim of my own mindset. As Bruce Lee said, “Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.” And standard syllabus or not, time is the grand equalizer. I always aim to give my students more, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine how much I lost given the less time we’ve had.

“When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style.”

So where next?

With the little time we had left since the end of Humanities Week, I decided to at least give my students an overview of the major topics, particularly the histories of India and China. The most I could give them now is an understanding of where the philosophies we discussed were rooted in, and end the quarter there.

Along the way, I decided to give them a relatively lighter experience by watching the Simpsons episodes we should have seen a month ago, going through with the film on Qin Shih Huang, and present my PowerPoints as more of a tour and lecture. And together with these, they busy themselves with their Great Wall.

The big question now is how I pick up the 3rd Quarter where Imperialism is the major topic. I’ve already set up this quarter to revolve around the theme of cultural diversity and I may go with that. The challenge is in weaving a discussion of the history of India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia with the over-all theme in under 6 to 7 weeks.

I am confident I can pull it off. It will definitely be an intellectual challenge but given the time constraints, I may have to gloss over a lot of the details in order to weave and focus on the big picture. While that is right up my alley (I’m a macro-thinker), our cool project for the quarter will hopefully make up for the stories we’re bound to miss.

There we go. Be like water. There is no I. We fit any style.

And next time we have extra time, I’ll show the actual film clips where Bruce Lee said these.