I knew the line "the urgency of now" from a Smashing Pumpkins song or two (they released a greatest hits album when I was entering college). But somehow I had missed the fact that the line comes from Martin Luther King, Jr's I have a Dream speech. Some of us are culturally illiterate*... which means there's always more to learn.
We are well aware of how urgency spurs us to action. In fact, more than half the orders that came in from our recent Rosetta Stone sale were placed in the last two days of the offer. If it's not immediately pressing, I know I tend to let it fall by the wayside. This provides a huge challenge: How do we get people to act if it's not something they have to do right now?
So we create arbitrary deadlines and set goals and routines. This is true of exercise and dinner time and Saturday morning cleaning. This is, in large part, the idea behind tests and project check points.
This all swirled around in my mind when we were able to extend the Rosetta Stone sale another month. Get your foreign language at a discount now! You only have until September 3. ...meaning, if you're anything like me, you'll wait until then to place your order.
As homeschoolers, the urgency of now can be overwhelming. We can work ourselves into knots thinking of everything we have to get our kids to learn right now. Like pushy sales people, we stress ourselves out. But remember: There's always more to learn. Keep moving forward, and things should work our just fine.
Have you discovered a new bit of cultural literacy recently? Has anything come up that made you think, 'Why didn't I know that before now?'
~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester
* Granted, the ending of King's speech is most notable in my mind because of the clips used in DC Talks' Free At Last album. Perhaps music plays a bigger role in my cultural literacy than I tend to give credit.
