We’re walking in the Wissahickon yesterday and we start playing what we call the Ninja game, where one person closes their eyes and the others see if they can touch them without being heard. We play for a bit and C. declares the following

I can hear everyone except myself!

I thought this was a perfect metaphor for what we’re trying to do in education. It’s easy enough to hear others and identify their false steps. How do we learn to hear the twigs we break, the sand that we rub off the back of our shoes, or the stones that we dislodge?

As Townes put it:

We all got holes to fill
them holes are all that’s real.
Some fall on you like a storm,
sometimes you dig your own.

Hard to say it better although I think Rocky does pretty well.