Teaching and the Game of Death

So it is the winter months here in China, so as always due to the cold weather, I bury myself in the world of books and film. As part of this mid-winter cinematic binges included the classic martial art film Bruce Lee's Game of Death.
In the film, the protagonist, Hai, a retired champion martial artist is confronted by an underworld gang. They tell him the story of a pagoda where guns are prohibited, and under heavy guard by highly skilled martial artists who are protecting something held on its top level. The gang boss wants Hai to be a part of a group whose purpose is to retrieve said item. Hai, as well as four other martial artists, then fight their way up a five-level pagoda, encountering a different challenge on each floor.

So I hear you saying, what does this have to do with do with teaching? Well, it turns out the school history teacher, Mr Graham is a Bruce Lee fan and when I mentioned that I had seen the film, he mentioned that has been thinking how to incorporate the fighting style that Bruce Lee incorporated into his films as a model for his teaching. Now bear with me, Bruce Lee summarised his approach to fighting in the following quote:

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
Water, as he says, is shapeless. It doesn’t struggle when it’s put into a new container, instead, it adapts and changes to perfectly fit its surroundings. If an object is dropped into the water it doesn’t resist it just moves out of the way and surrounds it. This formlessness and adaptability is a quality that is, according to Mr Graham, a good metaphor for teaching.

So how I asked are some ways we can practice this approach in our lessons? So he asked me to think of all the times I have been forced into a new situation in the classroom. What were my reactions to these changes?
Initially in my career, as I think for most teachers, any change to my routine, no matter how small, was at the very least uncomfortable if not completely terrifying. My natural reaction when I was forced into a new situation was to push back against the change. According to Mr Graham, the energy I was wasting trying to cling to an old way of doing things could have been used to allow me to reshape my teaching to fit the new dynamics of working with the ever-changing learners I was teaching every day.

According to Mr Graham and his interpretation of Bruce Lee, the key to achieving water-like adaptation to new situations which arise when working with unpredictable learners is the understanding the concept of formlessness. The reason water doesn’t push back when it’s placed into a new environment is that water doesn’t have its own form. There is no one ‘shape’ of water, it assumes the shape of whatever its container is.
So I began to try to develop this lack of form as an educator in the last few weeks. I have worked on letting go of my self-created identity as a teacher. This has involved a lot of self-reflection on my identity as an educator. Who is Michael the teacher? I do not see this as completely abandoning my personality, but rather that I have come to accept myself as a malleable being. Once I understood that, like water, my defining aspect is that I am constantly changing so as to easily adapt to any new situations that may arise in my classroom.
Water is also a fluid. Initially, it appears that fluidity and formlessness were essentially the same things since formlessness is a general physical property of all fluids, however, as I continued exploring this approach to teaching, fluidity as a concept relating to teaching came to have a slightly more nuanced meaning that separated it out.

Think of a river, when water is flowing, it’s difficult to stop. You can try and push the water back but it will slip around you and continue on its way. Like all currents, it finds the path of least resistance automatically and follows it without effort or hesitation. If there is even the slightest crack or weakness it will find its way through and keep going.
I suggest that this metaphor could be applied to teaching through the practice of wei wuwei (爲無爲) or action without action also sometimes referred to as an effortless action. The idea of wei wuwei is central to Taoist philosophy and is characterised by releasing conscious control of your actions over to the flow of the universe Tao. In other words, going with the flow.
This may sound a lot like just adapting to your surroundings but it’s slightly different. Adapting to your surroundings means changing yourself to become as comfortable as possible in the situation that has presented itself to you. Being fluid, or practising wei wuwei deals more with how you deal with challenges that arise.

In the classroom, obstacles are usually not tangible. These can be any blocks for you and your student's development. An example could be students talking over each other. Rather than pushing on with the lesson, see it as an opportunity take time to discuss the importance of letting everyone have their voices heard. In essence be what the student requires at that moment. When manifested in your general attitude, it can also be an effective way to overcome mental blocks in solving problems. When you hit a block in your thinking or creativity don’t dwell on the problem, just accept that its there and move on.

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