So it’s not the fault of TPRS but the darkness that surrounds us. It’s Mordor and nothing less. Orcs are teaching our children. Sauron’s eye still roams our lands, for we have not yet destroyed the ring. There is no Frodo, just us as we walk across the parking lot with the Uncertainty, a feeling that only we can know as we try against all odds to make this new way of teaching, this gentle way, work in our classrooms each day.
There’s just us. Each of us is Frodo. Some of us have already encountered the Balrog, some not. There are Balrog days and some parents, administrators and even children are Balrogs! We hang on on some days like Gandolf and then we let go but like Gandolf we have to get up the next day and teach again, because nobody these days is getting a pass.
It’s what Krishna told his gopis all those years ago would be the age of Kali, the Kali Yuga, the age of suffering, a short age of only three centuries that in my opinion started with the advent of the Age of Reason and will end later in this one, when a new day will finally be born – a day like no other – born from pure Compassion and nobody will even expect it. And I think stories are a part of preparing for that day.