Surprises

As most of you know, I decided to 'drop' in on the 11th as a surprise visit for my mom's birthday. Everything went exactly as planned. My sister and brother-in-law picked me up from the airport, brought me back to our house, and just as my mom was lighting the candles on Cassia's birthday cake (she's my cousin's daughter who happens to share my mom's birthday) I walked into the house, covered in tissue paper and a bow!

Usually, my mom always gets a 'whiff' of these sort of things and spoils the surprise. At Christmas, she manages to find where we hide her gifts, or she 'accidentally' picks up the phone while we're secretly devising our master plans to shock her. This time though, nothing was prematurely uncovered, and we finally succeeded in genuinely surprising her (and my dad!). I was really fortunate that my brosin (brother-cousin) Darin, his wife Sarita and their baby were also able to be there and we celebrated her first birthday together.

All in all, it's been a very lovely trip. The sun has been shining all week, it's been relatively mild (compared to Leeds!), and I've spent some much-needed quality time with my family. I was meant to fly back to England this evening, but due to the volcanic ash over most of western Europe, that is not happening anymore. To be honest, I'm not sure when I'll be able to leave. Luckily this time I flew in through Manchester, which is near Leeds and as such a lot more north than London. They are more optimistic that flights to the north will resume earlier than to the south, so hopefully by Friday or the weekend I'll be on my way back. To be honest though, being forced to stay for a few extra days has been a nice little gift. I've also managed to get quite a bit of work done here as well. Something about being back in my room, at my desk has been conducive to working. I brought all my marking with me and finished it, and now I'm working on my upgrade document (which is not quite as simple to finish as the marking!).

I have to say that I am so impressed with the progress of the students I have taught this semester. The first essays they submitted in February were very poor quality. When I realized how much help they needed, we started to go through essay writing tutorials during the seminars. Just basic tips with referencing, paragraph structure and argumentation. While marking their second essays these past couple of weeks, I was shocked at how much their writing had improved. They really paid attention in seminar and applied what they had learned to their own work.

It just goes to show you what little it takes to make a difference (and how enjoyable marking can actually be when you have good work to evaluate!). I've always believed that education is the answer to so many of the problems we encounter. But not really because of any amount of knowledge or material you may come across in your studies. There is an endless amount of knowledge to gain even within a single subject, and it's impossible to try and absorb all of that material in a lifetime. What is most valuable in education is not all of the information it provides access to, but rather how it cultivates one's ability to understand that information. And maybe you've experienced this too in your own daily lives, where someone is trying to explain something to you, or you're reading a book and suddenly it clicks, and you figure out what is being said or how something works - and you shout "I get it!". We derive so much satisfaction from 'understanding' rather than just 'knowing' information. It's the moment when we finally figure out how to operate our DVD player, or how to write a good essay that we feel a sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes in academics, we get so caught up in the content, that we forget about the importance of understanding. It can often feel like a big race to see who can absorb the most material the quickest. One of my favourite quotes from Malcolm Gladwell, who has authored The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers (all must-reads), states: "The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter". I couldn't agree with him more.