Craig West and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Our Craig West is a poet. Here we compare his passage about language being a mystery of the universe with a similar passage by the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

Craig:

…hang the research. We don’t need any validation other than the spirit of celebration and peace that exists in our classrooms; regardless of the “method”. …

… I am seeing the language learning process just like I see the universe. We can observe the universe and love it’s beauty and feel wonder as we contemplate it’s existence but the more we scrutinize it the more complicated and inaccessible it becomes. Language is a unique eternal part of the human experience that has existed for as long as man has existed upon the earth. It is a wonder. One that we can make cumbersome the more we scrutinize and analyze it. The more we try to uncover the layers and mysteries of this human phenomenon the less it is a wonder to us. The less accessible it becomes to our students. It is then not a wonder of sincere human interaction. I care nothing about calculating the orbit of a star or wondering at what heat it burns. I merely want to sit back and experience wonder as I observe its eternal beauty, and allow that beauty to uplift me….

Antoine:

…the proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists….

…people have stars, but they aren’t the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they’re problems… But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else… since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!… and it’ll be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of tiny bells that know how to laugh ….