Standing on the shore with a pile of stones I’ve just collected at my feet, I pick one up. It’s smooth, it’s black, it’s light in my hand. I toss it into the river and watch.
Kerplunk!
Almost soundlessly the stone hit the water and the magic begins.
The water is changing by my action. Ripples begin. Circles of water are moving out from where I tossed my smooth, black, light stone.
I wonder about these ripples in my life as a teacher. I stand in front of a classroom and say a word, do an activity, listen to a comment, and the ripples are sent. In the classroom all looks the same. No waves appear in front of me.
And yet.
The world is changed. An idea, a feeling, a life is changed.
One of the lessons instructors know it that they never know when a ripple has begun. Learning is like that. We grasp a small word or idea and it becomes magic.
Ripples spread out over the water, they continue under the surface much longer than our eye can see. They change the course of the river. The stone has added something new to it. It’s shaken up. The course of the river has changed. A new stone causes the water to go around, to brush it with silt, to absorb the stone into the river.
In my many many years of teaching adults I’ve seen the ripples that fill a classroom after the fact. Linda writes to tell me she learned more about herself. Todd emails that he tried something different at work following the class. Karen walking out of class tells her friend Mary, ‘you know, I’ve never thought of that before’.
Ripples, the simple movement of a stone passing through the water of our lives.
Our life indeed is a daring adventure. Daily we stand on the shore with a pile of stones at our feet. We bend down and select one. We move our arm and let it rip. Our ripples have started. We are not the same.
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