Hello Joan. I read your attachment with real delight and a sense of 'a 
ha!' as you so eloquently put it. I have been reading a lot about quantum 
physics recently, and have recently read The God Delusion by Dawkins as 
well, which I find elegantly written and superbly argued, even if I like 
few of the things he writes about! It has always struck me that the 
deterministic and foregone-conclusion nature of some of the pronouncements 
made about education and human processes just miss the point! Indeed, to 
pronounce (says she in pronouncement!) is flawed because it occludes those 
very qualities that it may be seeking to enhance.I found your document 
very sound, very moving, and extremely cogent.

I do agree it is something to do with the motives of what we do that makes 
a difference when we are engaged with others in meaningful pursuits. The 
observed is changed by being obsered. One only has to watch a child in a 
loving way ad see that child blossom under such regard, or indeed watch a 
child with stridency and see the child react hostilely, to know that the 
contention holds true. The real aims of a teacher become apparent in the 
ways in which the children learn and the nessages they receive 
unconsciously. It is easy to preach love and compassion, but last thing on 
a Frday afternoon with a disaffected and alienated group of children it is 
difficult not to give the message that it's unpleasant. I know that so 
well from my own experences teaching groups of kids who just didn't want 
to know. And it was usually the revellation to them that I really cared 
about them that they learned or gained frm the experience, or that I 
didn't of course - rather than a lot of subject-content.

I love the point you make about the fact that we can be energised by the 
values that others engender in us and we engender in ourselves and I do 
agree with that. I am very interested in the point you make towards the 
end of your thoughts, about having to suspend any imposition of belief-
system in order to be able to test out the hypothesis of the open-
endedness of life and its manifold possibilities. 

I love the way as well that you have left the stipulations (if they can be 
called that) so open-ended. One of the things I LOVE about living 
theorising, is its capacity to reach beyond the postmodern sense 
of 'anything goes' or the chaos of reality. I find, personally, that I can 
entirely agree with your recommendations as to the openendedness of being, 
yet at the same time, I listen to Bach and I am in a reality that has very 
clear architecture. Or I listen to this Chopin nocturne for instance: 
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d2SJz-bMU0Q and it reveals to me the 
impossibilities of ever stipulating anything for certain.Except that life 
is good. That inherent underlying belief, for me, is the container in 
which everything else fits, or has to fit. I don't mean (I hope) that I am 
some kind of ostrich, with my values buried in the sand of other people's 
sadnesses and sufferings, that you movingly write about at the beginning 
of your essay, but it is a belief I hold, and believe it is absolutely 
necessary for me to carry, because without it, then the sufferings I see 
and feel and observe in the world are pointless. And I believe that Being 
has meaning.And that the meaning is good.That doesn't mean that I believe 
that suffering is good for the soul or something like that - I don't - but 
I see a bedrock of something as necessary for human beings to thrive. A 
belief in the void means, as you imply, that the void becomes real.

Your writing really makes me think, Joan. I will come to it again if I 
may, but I just wanted to jot down a few ideas.

Many thanks. Moira x