endsthegame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2013-05-13 11:24 am
endsthegame) wrote in fandomhigh2013-05-13 11:24 am
Entry tags:
Practical Philosophy, Monday
Ender had always preferred to teach his classes outside whenever possible. When it became obvious the morning would be a little chilly but not rainy, he posted a note on his designated classroom's door pointing all the students towards the dorm lawn.
He sat down on the grass out there, legs folded. By his side was a bag full of sandwiches, just in case any student had missed breakfast. And there he waited, quiet and patient, until everyone had arrived.
"You'll notice I didn't bring any books," he said, once they had. "Because despite what the title of this class might imply, I'm not actually here to tell you about Hegel or Kant and what they were thinking. They might come up, but if they do, it's because they have had interesting ideas that might be useful to us."
He stretched his legs out. "My name is Andrew Wiggin, though some people call me Ender," he said, "And I don't bring books here because I don't think they have all that many answers. I don't spite them for that, because I don't exactly have a lot of answers of my own. What I have are questions, which are far more useful in the long run. You can keep asking questions as the situation changes - answers tend to be the same thing no matter when you check up on them."
He smiled wryly.
"This class is about questions," he said. "And it's about opening a dialogue with those questions. Everyone here has sat through something in their life that they have questions about - though whether they want to admit that is another thing entirely. We're here to talk about those questions as they come up. No more, no less."
He tilted his chin up - maybe at Cade, maybe at nothing in particular. "Of course, that means I expect all of you to participate," he said. "You don't have to share about yourself if you absolutely don't want to, though I'll have you know that it helps. But I expect you to talk along. If you don't, I'm not going to apologize for the kinds of questions I'll ask. While we're at it, I also won't tolerate shaming anyone in this class for any reason."
Having said that, though, Ender's mouth quirked up. "Enough with the threats," he said. "I don't believe in classic introductions - I think I know what most of your names are, and I'll learn the ones that I don't, and what year you're in is of absolutely no concern to me."
"Let's open a dialogue instead," he finished. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"
"We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. I'm open to talking about anything, as long as you think it's worth questioning. Because you can assume from here on in that I really don't know a thing; but maybe by educating me, you can find something worth educating yourself about."
He sat down on the grass out there, legs folded. By his side was a bag full of sandwiches, just in case any student had missed breakfast. And there he waited, quiet and patient, until everyone had arrived.
"You'll notice I didn't bring any books," he said, once they had. "Because despite what the title of this class might imply, I'm not actually here to tell you about Hegel or Kant and what they were thinking. They might come up, but if they do, it's because they have had interesting ideas that might be useful to us."
He stretched his legs out. "My name is Andrew Wiggin, though some people call me Ender," he said, "And I don't bring books here because I don't think they have all that many answers. I don't spite them for that, because I don't exactly have a lot of answers of my own. What I have are questions, which are far more useful in the long run. You can keep asking questions as the situation changes - answers tend to be the same thing no matter when you check up on them."
He smiled wryly.
"This class is about questions," he said. "And it's about opening a dialogue with those questions. Everyone here has sat through something in their life that they have questions about - though whether they want to admit that is another thing entirely. We're here to talk about those questions as they come up. No more, no less."
He tilted his chin up - maybe at Cade, maybe at nothing in particular. "Of course, that means I expect all of you to participate," he said. "You don't have to share about yourself if you absolutely don't want to, though I'll have you know that it helps. But I expect you to talk along. If you don't, I'm not going to apologize for the kinds of questions I'll ask. While we're at it, I also won't tolerate shaming anyone in this class for any reason."
Having said that, though, Ender's mouth quirked up. "Enough with the threats," he said. "I don't believe in classic introductions - I think I know what most of your names are, and I'll learn the ones that I don't, and what year you're in is of absolutely no concern to me."
"Let's open a dialogue instead," he finished. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"
"We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. I'm open to talking about anything, as long as you think it's worth questioning. Because you can assume from here on in that I really don't know a thing; but maybe by educating me, you can find something worth educating yourself about."
Re: Talk.
She swallowed hard, saying that word. It didn't sit well on her tongue. Even worse was the fact that her sisters had been trapped in her body for days, also convinced that she was dead.
Trapped in the body of their dead baby sister. At least Sholeh had just been, well, dead.
But she couldn't really talk about that now. Of the few people who knew, well, one of them was the guy who killed her. Another was his roommate.
"I guess it happened to lots of people, though. The, umm, dying thing. Not the way I did."
Re: Talk.
His mouth quirked briefly. It wasn't really a smile - just a twitch.
"It's all right to talk about your own hurts every now and again."
Re: Talk.
Which was why everyone else seemed to have gotten over what happened and moved on. But not her. She was still dwelling.
Re: Talk.
"It was obviously real to you."
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
He looked her in the eye. "You're hurting," he said, "and that's okay."
Re: Talk.
"Is it?" she asked in a small voice. "It doesn't feel okay. I feel...weak. Lesser."
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
And then she looked up at him, expression unhappy. "And this isn't proper talk for class. You're going to think I'm mopey and self-absorbed, because the first thing we ever talked about was me complaining about how things are. I'm not like that, I'm not."
Re: Talk.
"And who, I'm sure, can often be special and wonderful and magic, like everybody else. Just not always. Just like everybody else."
Re: Talk.
"Nobody likes burdens," she mumbled, confused. "They deal with them, tolerate them, but no one likes them. And standing out from normal, upstanding people...that can be dangerous."
Re: Talk.
He shrugged gently.
"As for being a burden, that's something we've all done. Try taking it up with the mothers of the world and ask them if they minded. Ask anyone who's had a friend or a lover or a parent or a sibling. If we didn't make time to carry each other every now and again, none of us would get very far."
Re: Talk.
It was the one thing he'd said that she could respond to. His other comment, she was still poking at mentally. If she didn't take the time to think about it, she wouldn't be able to make a cogent point and she found herself wanting Ender to think of her as someone who could speak intelligently about things.
Perhaps it was because he was speaking intelligently to her. Perhaps it was because he was making her think. Either way, she wanted him to feel that she deserved the time and thought he was devoting to her.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
She wasn't sure she could handle that happening with any kind of regularity.
Re: Talk.
The Nothing didn't count as far as she was concerned because that destroyed everything and erased all of existence -- including her. In that dream world that someone named Umbridge controlled, she had been broken of everything, but didn't die, though that version of her longed for death. So, she was counting when she and others were killed in that weird world of black eyes and weird transformations and the dungeons they had all recently been returned from.
So see, twice.
Re: Talk.
"I...guess twice is okay?" Dubious Sholeh was dubious. "I mean, I've only been here a year and I'm at one, so..."
She really wasn't sure where she was going with this.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.
Re: Talk.