Ignorance has built a bad reputation over
the centuries, but during my 40+ years as a classroom teacher, I’ve slowly come
to realize that ignorance is as necessary to academic success as fruitful soil
is to flowers. Ignorance, you might say, is the bountiful loam of first-rate learning,
for without it no learning would take place. I can’t learn something unless I’m
first uninformed of it – unless there is first a vacant space in my
understanding that is waiting to be filled by awareness and appreciation. It’s surprising to me that so many people
seem to want to conceal their ignorance, or pretend that it’s nonexistent.
That’s as foolish as hiding your flourishing flower garden's soil because
you’re embarrassed by it, or pretending the gloomy and gooey mud at the bottom of ponds isn’t actually the source of every lovely water-lily
blossom. Out of the darkness of night comes the light of morning, and out of
the confusion of ignorance comes the sought-after sparkle of insight. I’m proud
to be, relatively speaking, immensely ignorant, because it means, at 71, I still have a
vast land of learning to explore.
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