What is the Sea

I am running with the poetics left at the end of our professor's emails, which you all should be familiar with by now; "If you want to teach someone to build a boat, don't give them plans;
help them to love the sea." -- unknown.
Beautiful. Yet, as Professor McCrickerd pointed out, quite meaningless for our needs.

By the title you know what I am attempting to do here, but first I will describe what spurred me to attempt this, so indulge me for the moment (or skip it and read John's post which ain't half bad).
Political Economics 2049, a course I took abroad, approached the material and issues involved with economics in a way that I feel could shed some light on what education should be like. When I was asked earlier today if I had an understanding of 'political economics' I answered, "No, I don't think so." But after flipping through the texts from the course I realized how much I retained, and wondered why I answered this way; it was because the implicit point of the course was there existed no definitive understanding of political economics, the title of one of the texts, which was written by one of the lecturers, is Political Economy: the contest of economic ideas. This contest of ideas is what I believe makes up the Sea.

You see, the instructors within the economic department realized the existence of such a disparity of ideas and felt the issues pertained so strongly, and immediately to their students that they felt it a disservice to explicate any one concept over another, even though each argued fervently, almost desperately, in favor of their own view. More concretely, the issues were/are global warming, sustainable economic growth, globalization of the job market, unsustainable ultra-consumerism, and the increasing tendency of nation-states towards what one instructor called 'socialism' and what another called 'social-capitalism.' Rather than forcing one instructor to dilute their beliefs on the subject or skew the education of the students, they collectively taught, giving me such an understanding that I dared not even claim to fully understand the subject when asked. It was as if someone asked me if I understood the sea. How could one with confidence answer yes to this question? No surfer in the world would claim to understand the sea in its entirety, only their beach, only the ebb and neap of their own tides but not the sea in general. But love of the Sea, indeed, any surfer would answer a resounding 'Yes!' No matter how many times they've cracked their head on unbeknownst coral, been crushed by a wave they should never have caught, the love for the sea remains, though they may never fully understand it.

How? Why? What the hell am I going on about? Wait for it.

The course functioned as 2 one-hour lectures, with a 'tutorial' (small group meeting) once a week as well. The lecturers would rotate; one week with an 'orthodox economist,' one with a 'social economist,' and one with what I can only label as a 'radical.' The last one actually lived what he preached. His house was fully 'sustainable' meaning economically sustainable (ie solar panels, wind power, minimal consumerism of reusable materials...etc). He argued that if we did not take immediate action, within our life-times we would experience great catastrophe economically, environmentally, as well personally--as far as heath factors. His hands were callused from working on his home, his voice broken at times, and his evidence and materials were wheeled in on a cart (which I wouldn't be surprised if he rode home to save on the commute).
At the end of the each instructor's lecture, presentation, or seminar, the seated instructor not presenting would banter the other with what seemed to be questions they had encountered in they're own conversations with each other, judging by the responses. The tutorial functioned as what might be called a lab, where we had to demonstrate both proactive understanding of the material by presenting assigned chapters nuanced in favor of one's own economic view, as well as performative understanding through a formal group debate (my group had to defend the Kyoto Treaty as sufficient for sustainable economic growth in Australia, which I did not agree with but none the less had to perform).
This is how I feel we can get students to love the sea--that is, the contest of ideas--by showing them the deep ends and tossing them in the water with only a life-preserver connected to whichever instructor they might feel akin to in case they can't quite swim on their own.

And no Professor McCrickerd I don't have any evidence:)