Homeschooling, Othello, Teachers, and so much more
Posted by Ryan Woods
I've missed out on a lot of classics. I have never read Steinbeck. Nor have I read Hemingway or Dickens. I was homeschooled. Whether that is good or bad depends on your outlook on life and love and everything inbetween. I grew up reading biographies of great people like Sojourner Truth, DL Moody, George Mueller, and other Christians who changed the world through their passionate love for Jesus Christ. I don't regret my schooling, though at times I am frustrated by my lack of literature that is under my belt. Rather, somehow or some way, my mother and father instilled in me a desire to learn. I'm not necessarily good at it, but I enjoy it.
I think if I could choose anything to teach a child/youth in all of their school years it would be an eagerness to learn. I would put that above math, science, writing, or literature. The greatest success of a teacher is if they can inspire their students crave more. More biology. More 20th century lit. More finite mathematics. More basics of poetry. More...whatever. If a teacher, someone who has dedicated their life to teaching history, cannot show their students why that subject is so amazingly special to them, then maybe something is wrong. If you want to read some good thoughts on teachers, visit a friends old post here.
In that spirit, this week I read my first Shakespeare play. I read Othello. I read it not because it interested me more than any of his other plays, but because for some reason it was the only one that I currently possessed. Let me tell you that I loved it. It was great, even easy to read. I found myself not understanding whole strings of words and yet knowing the meaning of the paragraph. It was strange, but enjoyable. My favorite line, the line that I desire to leave you with, comes at the very end of the play. It was uttered following the suicide of Othello (sorry to ruin it for you) by Lodovico: "O bloody period!"
With that, methinks I bid you adieu
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