A Passion for Pi and for Pie

Pi

"Maths Tutors Needed - Want to earn money sharing your passion for Maths?" says the banner ad from time to time on my FB page.

Yes, to be fair I'd love to. I'd love to have some extra dosh to procure some more abaci, or supplement another of my passions - learning.

There’s just one thing wrong, as I see it. My passion for Maths is old school. The way I learned it is outdated. Not the Maths itself, of course, but the way I learned it.
Now here’s the Thing - out of that way of learning came my passion.

Hacking Education

Now I’ve been privileged enough to work in schools for the last eleven years coaching another thing I’m passionate about – cricket.

And I’ve noticed this, as I share the domain and the environment of up and coming young people. Compared to my schooldays there are many things different now, in terms of the subjects taught as compulsory and optional, the facilities and equipment available, and the almost endless range of opportunities. Everywhere there is Knowledge – oodles of it. I am amazed and marvel at how much more Knowledge there is compared to 50 years ago.

Yet Knowledge is rather like money. It can be amassed and put in a bank.
“Look how much I’ve got! I’m rich, I’m clever, I know all these things.”
Now Knowledge we learn and amass in our vaults actually earns no interest at all – until we spend it. When we spend Knowledge we solve problems, arrive at solutions, gather more knowledge, we earn some interest, etc. We make Gains. And the biggest gain of all is ...

Now there are two crucial words missing from the last couple of paragraphs.

Passion

Understanding

No matter who we are, or how clever or intelligent we are, or, how many certificates we might have on our walls that bear witness to how much Knowledge we have in our bank  - none of it proves that we have any Understanding.

Understanding is Non-certificated – and the special ingredient, the catalyst if you like, that turns Knowledge into Understanding is Passion.

“Can’t buy me Love” goes the song – yet “Can’t buy me Passion,” needs to be acknowledged as being right up there too. And we certainly cannot “buy” passion.

What got all of us from our horizontal baby posture, to sitting up, crawling, walking, and running. Did we go to school and learn these things? Did we acquire the Knowledge from a book, or a manual? No – our loved ones showed us and encouraged us over and over again, with a passion. And we gained Understanding. If our parents had shown no interest in our learning how to walk, then we would have never encountered Passion. And we would have got to walk probably much slower and over a longer period of time; and without passion we’d have gained Knowledge but no Understanding.

I’ll just dwell on this idea of “Can’t buy me Passion” for a moment, too, for it comes into Coaching. In terms of performers and coaches and teachers, I know some exceptional and brilliant people – people who have allowed me to stand close enough to them in order for me to catch alight, come alive, as a result of their Passion for their subject, which is (for them) their Life. 

If I was to do a time-line map of my life and populate it with the stand-out, passionate people I have known, then there would be some in my schooldays, very few in my early 20’s to late 40’s and then hundreds upon hundreds in the last twenty odd years. And it is these people, in my latter years that have driven me on, kept me feeling alive, young, vibrant, motivated, and above all - passionate.

We don’t and we can’t learn about passion – it just RUBS OFF on us from others, and then it gets into us. And it got onto and then into them by the same process. I have been, and still am, exceptionally fortunate – not lucky, just fortunate – in associating myself with people who don’t just LOVE what they do, they are PASSIONATE about what they do.

Pie

Another of MY passions is music, as any of you who know me well will attest to. Now, long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had that chance that I could make those people dance and maybe they’d be happy for a while.

Of course there will be some of you, dear readers, who recognise those words as being more than a little familiar! And I’d like to finish on this particular note.

Whether it is about Pi or about Pie or anything in between, I would entreat you to bring passion into every part of your Life. Give yourself the chance to make others dance – even if only for a while. For when others see your passion setting alight everything that YOU do, they will want some of that – they will want to stand close enough to catch some of YOUR flame, let some of THAT rub off onto them. Passion is infectious!

And it stops the music – our music - from dying.