Sunday 23 March 2014

More on patience...or is it action?

Patience alone consumes itself in mere prattle; impatience alone consumes itself in irresponsible activism. Virtue, then, does not lie in experiencing either without the other but, rather, in living the permanent tension between the two. The educator must live and work impatiently patiently, never surrendering entirely to either Freire (1998: 44)
I'm beginning to see how our intentions flow into actions, through the mechanisms that guide our thinking in the social sphere. In his collection of letters to teachers, Freire (1998) talks about the progressive educator having the foresight to stay with the tension between patience and impatience, as he describes in the above quote.

Patience clarifies our thinking (intention), while impatience sparks our actions.

Is it that we must grow in our wisdom to know when one or the other is needed?

I think my quest for patience needs to expand into a quest to tolerate uncertainty!
Being tolerant does not mean acquiescing to the intolerable... Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different Freire (1998).


Image: Etienne Valois (Flickr)