Scriu încet când scriu în romǎna. Nu este ușor. Dar dacǎ scriu în fiecare zi, este bine.
I write slowly when I write in Romanian. It's not easy. But if I write every day, it's good.
And when I say “good”, don't for one moment be fooled into thinking that I've even begun to master this new language. My knowledge of grammar is rudimentary, my lexicon of words is severely limited, and I still can't twist my mouth to pronounce certain phrases without looking like I'm having some kind of stroke.
And yet, for the past few weeks, as a new resident of Romania, I've committed myself to writing a few lines each day. Sitting at my desk, on a train, at the kitchen table, it's like a diary in which I try to describe what I see, do, and feel.
Today is day 17 and I'm up to 1200 words. To amuse myself, I decided to ask ChatGPT to analyse the writing, as my Romanian teacher was still on holiday. The feedback was like reading an old school report twinned with a psychological assessment.
The writer demonstrates a reflective, organized, and introspective personality, with a preference for simple joys and a close connection to family, food, and experiences. Their writing style, though basic, is expressive and reveals emotional depth and sincerity… The writer is clearly a beginner in Romanian, showing effort and determination. Mistakes and a limited vocabulary reflect their early stage of language acquisition, but they are unafraid to experiment and improve through practice.
I still find it remarkable that my AI companion had so much to say about a mere 1200 poorly-scripted words. But this got me thinking about some of the things that I've been noticing and reflecting on throughout this process, and how it might be connected to the way we think about the experience of school, leadership and learning in general.
1. Living in the present tense. We all know, in theory, that life is lived in Moments and that, as Einstein purportedly once said, "the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.” But it's a fascinating, if not challenging, thing to be constrained to write only in the present tense.
Devoid of the skills necessary to narrate the past or propose what might happen in the future, I found myself sitting at my desk, literally, being more present. It was as if the linguistic blinkers in my brain freed me to notice the birds in the trees outside my window, the music playing in the background, or the buildings with red roofs both big and small. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed these things before. But my constraint of only knowing a single tense allowed me, for a short time each day, to be, to notice, and to better understand the world around me, not as it once was, not as it might be later today or in the future, but in the here and now.
2. Putting words to things. There is a school of thought, to which I subscribe, that words don't just describe reality, they create reality. As someone once said in a blog I once read but can no longer find, “Words are collected, owned, held close to the chest, ready to battle, and express our innermost sensitivities.” In short, you might say, words are synapses, constantly mapping our world and inviting us to see the meaning of it.
So what happens when we are limited to a lexicon of, say, 100 words at best? My experience is that, in these moments of writing in a foreign tongue, my lack of words literally meant I was unable to access certain parts of my brain and my experience. I saw trees, because I knew the word copaci. But I found myself blind to the soil in which they grow, because it was, for now at least, out of range.
Yet, despite these limitations, I realised that I could still find my own voice; that tone, style and rhythm that is the way I have learned, over the years, to express myself.
But just to check, I asked ChatGPT for its opinion on the matter.
The tone of this writing in Romanian shifts between light-hearted musings and profound introspection, creating a rhythm akin to the ebb and flow of ancient monologues, where the mundane intertwines with life's bigger questions.
I guess that even short, simple sentences can sometimes get to the heart of things.
3. Reaching and resting. I listened to a poetry reading by David Whyte these days about Zen in which he beautifully uses words to explain how “Zen begins by being the hand seemingly raised to keep us at bay, and then, slowly and imperceptibly, it seems to be the hand that rests on our shoulder, telling us we might be fine just as we are.”
This dance between reaching forward and finding our rest, at the heart of so many religious writings, somehow also described another one of my lessons in learning how to write again; a lesson related to how I should manage the inner frustration of not knowing how to speak and express myself as I would like.
The dance of reaching forward and finding our rest; of sometimes finding my words and, at other times seemingly losing my ability to speak at all, is perhaps a metaphor of life itself; a reminder that, even though I'm constantly pushing forward, I am also fine just as I am.
And what of the experience of school, particularly as leaders at a time of such uncertainty?
Perhaps five invitational questions will suffice as we move into 2025, in the hope that you will find an answer in your own words.
What does it mean to be more radically present for others in our school?
In what ways might we be distracted by our past and our future?
What are the words we use that have lost their meaning?
Do we speak with a voice that is intentional ours?
How are we learning to live in the space between reaching and resting?
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