Their Gift

It has happened again this term.  It wasn't quite when I had anticipated it, rather late in fact. Nevertheless, my students have once again this year presented me with a priceless gift.

Yesterday, as our conversation worked its way into a comfortable groove, the atmosphere suddenly began to crackle.  With every point/counterpoint, I witnessed a gradual elevation of the discussion into scholarly argument, one that had started connecting the dots from articles we had discussed earlier in the term to the current article by Pierre Lévy on Collective Intelligence. 

Then one student shared a story that narrated a modern day experience of Plato's Cave, a precise mirror ... and suddenly it clicked.  The class got it.  They got the whole idea of the questions the fuel our discussions, they got the point of postulating possibility, the point of contemplating the impossible.

My skin erupted spontaneously into goosebumps of salute as my students continued their debate, transforming before my eyes from my students to my colleagues in the learning community.

It was the moment of trust about which I have written previously, a veritable emotional and intellectual crucible through which they pass and emerge renewed, strengthened, transformed.

After 30 years of teaching, one might expect a certain nonchalance about "one more" moment like this.  But I never cease to marvel at how incredibly proud and emotional I feel each and every time I witness the transformation. 

What a precious gift ... what amazing students.