As a motivation for my industrial
arts pupils, I did a simple arithmetic on the amount of water lost due to a
leaking faucet and I translated this loss into money. I hope they get an idea
of the amount. I think this is a good way of motivating them to learn some
simple maintenance job in their homes.
Hmmm…this is weird really. While
doing the math, my mind (the other one that is because the other part of my
mind is engaged in teaching, does not mean I have schizophrenia or something)
wandered off to looking at the pupils, looking into their eyes and thinking of what they were doing and at the same time thinking of how their minds process the
motivation that teachers (and parents) throw at them.
I am not talking about motivation
that teachers use to prepare their pupils’ interest to the lesson at hand; I’m
talking about the motivation thrown at the children about what they do, why
they study; the things that fuel or nudge them to strive.
Got me wondering…
The norm for graduation or
special events is to invite successful (most of them financially successful)
people to talk to inspire, to challenge and to share their experiences on their
way up to achievement, to share the challenges and how these challenges were
overcome and, of course, the meat of the speeches the secret/s to their
success.
Of course, the audiences are all
ears, taking note and processing the speeches with the thinking that maybe they
could duplicate in whole or in part some of the successes achieved by the
speaker/s.
Hmmmm…but this got me thinking…
Let us take for instance Manny
Pacquiao.
The press has been building a myth around the
man as an icon of success. He is being hailed as a paragon of a successful
sports figure, businessman, politician (though personally I think this is not
his court), and even that of a faithful family man. This is beside the fact
that he has sired a child at least with one woman. I mean his action like
manipulating the mother of his illegitimate son into agreeing into a
disadvantageous settlement showed Pacquiao’s insensitivity and irresponsibility
by denying this son the right the child should have enjoyed as a son, even an
illegitimate one, both financially and emotionally. Never the women who I think
took advantage of Pacquiao, it’s the child.
Anyway, just
shows that Pacquiao is not the Bible toting and Bible quoting person that he is
supposed to be. He is a human being after all.
Anyway, almost
most of the leaders and motivational speakers I have heard (not necessarily listened to) have used Pacquiao as a model.
Nothing's wrong with this, per se, but I still believe that there are more better
person to idolize than him. But is it possible to duplicate MP's sucess?
How about Bill
gates? How about the late Steve Jobs? How about the cousin that became a
millionaire? How about Lady Gaga, How about Alvin
I don’t know
about this…but I think when a person starts to have idols, or models to look up
to, they, somehow, lose something in them. Of course, it can be argued that by
loosing something in themselves, they, in the process have gained something in
themselves. This is like nature abhorring vacuum or the principle that no two
things (or entity) could occupy space at the same time.
Anyway, aside
from the parents and the teachers who are inevitably the firsts people that
directly influence the primary development of an individual’s identity, these
idols or icons (pop or cultural or intellectual or religious or cartoons
characters or what have you) have great influences on the further development of
an individual’s identity including his/her understanding of the world or
reality (going way over my head here).
Of course, in
the development of an individual’s self or identity, it is impossible to happen
without the influence or interference of factors, this is inevitable. It is
impossible for an individual to come into his self awareness without the
influence of everything around him/her.
What is, I
think, happening is that when looking up to someone as a model, the self has to
give something of its own. In the development of the self, there is the
tendency to think that the mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa, but there is
the thinking that this is not necessarily so. The mind is not exactly blank but
it has built in or aprio ri transcendental something that makes the mind an
active organ and not just a sponge or passive organ where information or
experiences are inputted.
Anyway, where am
I?
Having someone
to look up to both positive or negative, means that a part of an individual’s
identity is lost or if one is an admirer of the tabula rasa theory, some how
the individual’s self awareness is redirected outside. This is not necessarily
bad nor is it necessarily good. Like I said before, this is just inevitable.
Anyway, as the
individual age this influences or models or icons start to assert its supremacy
over the individual. There are then tensions that happen in the person’s self
awareness. There are parts of an individual that rejects this invasion of the
self, by these influences, while there are parts that fights for its
assimilation.
To the artists,
as is true with development, the first stage is imitation. Anyway, (my-co teacher
interrupted and I lost my already disorganized train of thought) there will come a time when the self, somehow, need
to assert it’s own self, it rebels and wants to eject this influences to
establish its own identity. I don’t know but maybe this is similar to what is
called the identity crisis, maybe it is. Who cares…
Got me thinking,
somehow, to the listeners of these motivational speakers, or when looking up to
someone as an ideal or a paragon, most of them want to duplicate the success but
most of the time they lose themselves.
Blah,blah,blah,
gosh, my one hour break is over and being called by my pupils…how time flies!
If you got this far and maybe wandering what in the frak (got this word from Battlestar Galactica Reimagined) am I talking about, I congratulate you...really I'm just passing my break time :-)
But if you're looking for Freudian slips...do have fun :-)
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