To the teacher |
WHY ?
As soon as the gift of speech is given to a child, one of his earliest words is "why". After "mama", then "papa", it is perhaps the first word a child uses. The word is fundamental to the structure of human thought. From "why" all the other questions are born : "what","who","how", "when" and "where”. But "why” remains the earliest probe put out by the child to touch at the world about him, the earliest probe into the darkness outside.
The need to know is one definition of Man : Prometheus' gift of light was given so Man could push back the shadows and see what they had hidden. And this fire has never been extinguished. We use its light as our minds traverse the vastness of he unknown with its many forms - high or low; external or internal; conscious - or unconscious, etc. All of these forms are facets of he macro- unknown or the micro-unknown. And all of these "darknesses" are intolerable to us; we need light to shine through the "clouds of unknowing"that pass across our souls.
Here, in WHY, is an attempt by the group of "Pleiad of the Four Winds" to dissipate some of these clouds. The attempt succeeds admirably. I can think of no better way to stimulate, to instruct, and to entertain the young public for whom it is intended. In the pages that follow, the most profound of Man's questions are raised again and again in diverse contexts. Music, created specially for WHY moves in and out and around the texts and their questions, prolonging the light, making it m ore brilliant. A world is unlocked with each text; the music is a firefly, flittin through the words, making them luminous with significance. Then come more questions based always on the Question contained in the text; these questions are brilliantly contrived to reach into young minds; they probe and provoke; they criss-cross each other with references that are obvious or obscure---all of them relevant and designed to create a framework within which the student can navigate, find his bearings, perceive the shoals, but at the same time see and feel the beauty of the worlds about him and within him. When the voyage is over he is a wiser man, and not "sadder” for this wisdom as was Coleridge's mariner, but more joyous, more aware of the magnificent complexity of Man's predicament; at once infinitely small and infinitely vast; a speck among specks; a universe among universes.
Through the senses do we perceive the world. WHY appeals to sight, hearing and other senses for which we have no real names, only metaphors. The whole concept of WHY (the presentation of fundamental questions with deeper awareness as the goal) is ultimately an extended metaphor itself, and metaphor is the only way our human minds can begin to grasp, with our named and unnamed senses, whatever we mean when we say or hear the word “infinity”.
WHY (and the Pleiad of the Four Winds who have compiled it) is, educationally speaking, a ray of light in a domain which has been sadly neglected by educators. The “method” here is luminous and profound; young minds will respond to it. Some of the “whys” will have been irradiated. There are answers skillfully and subtly suggested here; the student will enjoy going on this voyage of discvovery to the shores of light.
Daniel Sloate
UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL
'Das
licht der Herrligkeit scheint mitten in der Nacht. Wer kan es sehn?
Ein Hertz
das Augen hat un wacht.' - Angelus
Silesius, 1675.
Some Remarks on Developmental Psychology.
The intended age we aim at is 16 to 19. According to Jung, at this age the adolescent
begins reflecting on questions like identity, the meaning of life, etc. Selfconsciousness is
being developed in the course of these years which are all conditions for development
into the maturity of adulthood. The adolescent is on his or her way to develop a set of
values that will meaningfully interprete the universe for him/her during the years of
maturity.
'WHY' offers a framework for this development.
The Didactical Method and its Parts
Didactical Tips and Suggestions
Carl Gustav Jung: Bewusstes und Unbewusstes. Beiträge zur Psychologie