Hello everyone,Happy Trifecta-Friday (Friday, pay-day, three-day weekend, natch)!
Albert Camus
Until this week, I knew only a little bit about Albert Camus. I've taken a few philosophy classes over the years, so, had you asked me about him I'd have probably told you I recalled him as a French existentialist philosopher from the early part of the 20th century... turns, out, however, that he's not really an existentialist, nor was he really French. In fact, he's not really even a "philosopher" technically speaking.
Nope, not really.
I've got a lot to learn about Albert Camus.
The 100th anniversary of his birth occurred this week, so a lot of the places on the Internet that I frequent were all atwitter about Mr. Camus recently. I enjoyed the chance to read about him, of his many uncommon ideas, of his pacifism which later transformed into his becoming an active member of the French resistance movement during WWII, of his early death at age 46, and, most remarkably, of his Nobel Prize for literature for which he remains the second youngest recipient ever.
And then I came across this on one of my very favorite websites, Letters Of Note (click-through at your own risk; this is a great place to lose an hour or two of your day). Camus grew up poor. Really, really poor. And at a time in history when the poor were commonly disregarded and disenfranchised.
Nevertheless, one of his teachers apparently made quite a difference in the life poor, young Albert, for not too long after he received the Nobel Prize "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times," he wrote a note to a man named Louis Germain, who was one of his former instructors. It read:
19 November 1957
Dear Monsieur Germain,
I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honour, one I neither sought nor solicited.
But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.
I don't make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.
Albert CamusI include Camus' letter here as a reminder of the difference you make each day in the lives of young people, some of whom are just as poor and potentially otherwise just as disregarded and disenfranchised as he might have been, were it not for the role you play in their lives.
Yours is important work. Don't forget.
Calendar
Week B
- Monday, 11 Nov.
- NO SCHOOL - Veterans' Day
- Tuesday, 12 Nov.
- Science Council, 4:00 in the Science Lab
- Site Council, 5:00 in the Library
- Wednesday, 13 Nov.
- Coe @ Elementary Admin., 7:30-10:30
- Coe @ Beyond Textbooks presentation, 2:00-4:30
- Thursday, 14 Nov.
- Exploration Stations! 6:00-8:00
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