Here's to the crazy ones and Teachers Day

Here's to the crazy ones


Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

From Apple Computer


When I was in the Institute of Education as a trainee teacher, i was on the committee for freshmen orientation. we came up with the theme for that year (1982) whihc was "You don't have to be crazy to teach but it helps!".

When I saw the article on the advert for Apple computers, I began to think about what it means to be 'crazy'.

I did a one hour one man play in 1986 for Theatreworks called "Diary of a Madman" by a Russain writer called Gogol. I was right smack in the middle of the P6 camp (It ws for P6ers for many years until sometime in the 1990s) but my principal (Ms Ada Ponnapa) let me leave the camp (at Chestnut Drive off Upper Bukit Timah Road) at 6 pm (I was riding a motorcycle then so transportation was not a problem) and come back after the show, whihc was about 11 pm. (bless her!) Did some research on insanity and came to understand it better (or so I hoped) and began to have more respect and empathy for people who had psychological problems.

I read a quote somewhere about the difference between a genius and a madman; both go to unchartered territories but a genuis knows his/her way back!

This led me to a piece of writing or 'advice' from one of my favourtie poets, ee cummings. I'd like to share it with all of you:

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
This may sound easy, but it isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel —
but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling.
And poetry is feeling —
not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know,
but not a single human being can be taught to feel.
Why?
Because whenever you think or you believe or you know,
you're a lot of other people:
but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself —
in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words,
that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine.
Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else.
We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time -
and whenever we do it, we are not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling,
you find you've written one line of one poem,
you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is:
do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world —
unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal?
It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.


I just came across a really wonderful site about a marvellous and inspiring teacher named Albert Cullum. It reminded me about what is important about teaching and learning, when I felt really alive in my classes in the past and also showed me how I have fallen short so many times in my own classes with pupils like you. I hope I can have more days in my classes like what Albert Cullum does.

The post must seem very disjointed, incomplete and rushed. i started on something but left it hanging and went on to something else, or did I?

It was really good to see you all in Rosyth on the 30th August. I was really happy to see you. Thanks for making the effort to come. Its very much appreciated.