I love part of a quote by William Faulkner from As I Lay Dying. It’s about getting down on your knees and praying and ends with “people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.” I realize that because there is the knee/praying talk, and the fact that it’s Faulkner’s South, that many people might look at this as a mere religious sentiment.
To me, words are a big deal. I stand by my word–if I say I’m going to do something, it is done. I would hope that’s the case with most people, where your word is sort of an honor code and you stand by what you say. But I don’t think that’s what Faulkner is going for, for I don’t think many want their salvation to be “just words.” When you’re dealing in words, the result is words, and that’s what education ends up being.
Words are what a teacher worries about, too. Are your students learning, or are your lessons just words? Words can look dandy on a paper, or tick all the boxes of a lesson, but they might only be words and not lead to anything else, like THINKING, or sparking intellectual CURIOSITY.
Bottom line for me–if you’re worried about words, that’s all you’re going to get in return. My salvation has come in the form of letters, food, weddings (former students have let me officiate their marriages), friendships, a current tenant is a former student, and more examples that keep me thinking and spark my curiosity and move me forward.
Faulkner.