April 12, 2014

April 12, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

No matter how tired I may be, I always have the energy to write something about our spoken communication, although I prefer to speak about it. This prediction summarizes how I have been and how I am likely to be in the future. I don’t doubt this, I trust in my abilities to bring attention to how we communicate, no matter how dismal the circumstances may be. Last night, in my dream, I was once again a student in the classroom. I didn’t like the discussion that was going on and I spoke about it with my teacher, who smiled at me and let me take over the discussion. Then, I spoke with my fellow students, who listened to me and who agreed with me that there is more to be said than our phony discussion. In this dream, I transformed from being a student to being a teacher.  

This dream became a reality: I am a teacher and I was, but also still am a student. Writing from a first-person perspective is like taking a holiday from the third-person perspective, which in recent times I have endorsed. I have never connected the first-person perspective with being a student and the third-person perspective with being a teacher, but it now makes sense to see it that way. Due to my dream, I am revisiting my first-person perspective, which has become enormously enriched by my third-person perspective. In the dream, I carried a woman on my back. I was sexually attracted to her and I was dancing around with her. To show my strength, I jumped in the air. This made her lift off my shoulders and fall back on them again. I could have easily tossed her off, but I didn’t because her weight grounded me. Besides, she seemed to enjoy my powerful dance.

My public speech has changed because of the inclusion of my private speech in public speech. My private speech has also changed because I understand it as a function of public speech. Likewise, my third-person perspective began to explain my first-person perspective and my first-person perspective began to support and enhance my third-person perspective. My dream, which brought me back to being a student, showed me how I became a teacher. I became a teacher by being a student. It fills me with happiness to know that I am still that student. It helps me to be a better teacher. I became the teacher I never had, but always wanted to have. I also longed to be taught by the teacher who I am for myself. I have never given that thought much thought. At some point in my life, I developed the longing to become a teacher. I became a teacher, because I could become a teacher.

I became a teacher because I know something which others don’t know. It is not my love for teaching, but the fact that I know something, which legitimizes my teaching. The so-called love for teaching is  deceptive in that it hides the lack of knowledge on the part of the teacher. I would never speak of my love for teaching, but I would rather talk about my love for knowledge. My teaching is my love for knowledge. The two-letter sentence “I know” sums up what I am about and who I am. It is not arrogance which makes me say this, but knowledge. My knowledge connects the objective with the subjective as well as the subjective with the objective. The objective can only become closer to the subjective if the subjective is involved in becoming more objective. Self-reflection that doesn’t lead to a more realistic picture of one’s self isn’t worth anything, because it will be against objective knowledge. In the past, I have struggled with those who were into unrealistic types of self-reflection, because they were in essence against learning. Today I don’t struggle with them any longer, but I still remember that those who are too hung up on their own subjective experiences always down-play the natural sciences. I became a teacher because my learning has led to the knowledge of the happiness which is worth sharing.