Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem - a phrase that is so inspiring... despite its overuse. The words Carpe Diem, as most know, means Seize the Day. I first learned of the word from that wonderfully inspiring disney musical 'Newsies'. The music, growing up, brought the significance of the words to life for me. I felt that it meant to take the opportunity to not let others decide your fate. As I became older the words began to take on new meaning and actually reflect the real meaning - to not let opportunities pass you by and to get the most out of everything.

I once again came upon the words while reading "Learning & Teaching for Exponential Growth - a Three Person Problem", by Susan Peterson Gong. After seeing the words again I felt like looking the phrase up on Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia isn't really the source of all knowledge, but it's a good source for basic info and collaborated information. The information was quite interesting. Carpe Diem doesn't actually mean seize the day, because carpe literally means "to pick, pluck, pluck off, cull, crop, gather". But who cares what the literal translation means? We twist meaning all the time to fit our needs ("That girl is so hot" - isn't referring to temperature of the body). Jumping back onto subject, Carpe Diem comes from the Latin Horace: "While we speak, envious time will have already fled. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future". As overused as I may feel Carpe Diem is, I fully believe it's a motto every teacher should adopt. One of the things I felt seeing the difference between high school and college is that high school teachers don't seize the day like college professors do... well, in both cases this observation is not all inclusive, but I felt in high school the majority of my teachers taught to throw information out there, not to help students to seize the day and grow. When information is just thrown out there for anyone to grab it, only select students will. As we teachers strive to not just upchuck information, but to increase the knowledge and understanding of each individual student (as opposed to the students as a class), we will see our society become unlike any other.