Some years ago, a friend suggested I ought to read The Power Of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. History does not relate why my friend made the suggestion or whether I did or I didn’t read the book but I do know that we should be grateful for friends. At the risk of preaching to the converted how to suck eggs, let me sum up my understanding of the business of positive thinking and then see if I can make a point worth the candle of your time.
The jury is out on what the whole business actually means or whether it is beneficial at all, so before it gets back let’s have a bit of a go at it. In the briefest of nutshells, the idea is, you sit yourself down and form a ‘positive’ intention, for example to sell more big data or get a 9 in your exam and then you sell more and get the grade because you formed the positive intention. The power of your intention makes the thing you say come true. A kind of transactional prayer for the secular world, if you will.
Which leads me neatly, if I do say so myself, to the Marble Collegiate Church in Lower Manhattan. This was the church that the young Donald Trump attended with his family on a regular basis. It was also the church where the slightly older Donald married his first wife, Ivana. And who do you think was the pastor during those years when the Trump family was occupying the pews, and who do you think was the pastor who presided over Trump’s first marriage? None other than our positive thinking friend, Norman Vincent Peale.
So here’s a thought for you…there’s the former President, absolutely raised on the notion that forming intentions can actually have effects in the world and so it should be no surprise, I might venture humbly to suggest, that his response to losing the 2020 election is to say he won it. Positive thinking in overdrive.
But I digress.
At the start of the week, returning Tiffin Staff were asked as part of our continual professional development, to consider the question, ‘what is education?’ Now I’m sure that you and I share the belief that education and learning are very different beasts. It seems to me that the notion of positive thinking and ‘education’ share a core premise which troubles me. They both appear to be focused on the future. Positive thinking means I form an intention about how I would like the future to be, and education to prepare students for the future world.
I have had a many a conversation with the Tiffinian that proceeded along these lines:
Director: Why are you studying?
Tifinian: Because I want to get good GCSEs.
Director: Why do you want to get good GCSEs?
Tifinian: Because I want to get into the Sixth Form.
Director: Why do you want to get into the Sixth Form?
Tifinian: Because I want to get good A Levels.
Director: Why do you want to get good A Levels?
Tifinian: Because I want to get into a good University.
Director: Why do you want to get into a good University?
Tifinian: Because I want to get a good Degree.
Director: Why do you want to get a good Degree?
Tifinian: Because I want to get a good job.
Director: Why do you want to get a good job?
Tifinian: Because I want to earn a lot of money.
Director: Why do you want to earn a lot of money?
Tifinian: Because I want to buy a good house and a good car.
Director: Why do you want to buy a good house and a good car?
Tifinian: Because then I will have a good life.
Director: Why will that be a good life?
Tifinian: Er…
In such a schema, ‘education’ is about whatever the next thing is. Education, like positive thinking, becomes making plans for the future. Education in this light is regarded as a process of preparation for something. How foolish.
To my mind, education is an entirely different thing. Education in the real sense is not preparation for life, it is actually living. The point of the process in which the student is engaged is not to prepare the student for the future but to enjoy doing the thing today.
“But, hang on, Director!” I hear you roar, “What about progress?! Education is about measuring progress!”
Well, here I would respond in that time-honoured fashion, “It very much depends on what you mean by ‘progress’, my roaring friend.”
And I would defer to Chesterton once again, who wrote, “Progress, in the good sense, does not consist in looking for a direction in which one can go on indefinitely. For there is no such direction… It would be far truer to say that true progress consists in looking for the place where we can stop.” ( Fancies versus Fads 193)
What is it that we are meant to be progressing toward? Where exactly is the ‘there’ of ‘I want to be there’? Stop, look and listen because you may be there already only you didn’t notice because you thought today was about tomorrow.
And here’s the thing, there is no point whatsoever in making plans for the future except for those people who are capable of living in the present. If you are not capable of living in the present, plans are useless because when those plans come to fruition you’ll either be incapable of enjoying the fruits or not noticing that they are there.
Because of course the world is happening now, not tomorrow.
Now there’s a positive thought for you.
Until next time (sic), Happy Reading/ making progress!
Mr Liddy
Director of Literacy and Oracy