Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution

Rating:
Summary: Revolution for learning and life!!!
Review: This is such an important book! Walking On Water explores the brainwashing and manipulation we call education that turns our children into a nation of passive workers and citizens. Jensen's insights on how this contributes to our culture of destruction and denial make this a wonderful companion piece to his longer books, "A Language Older Than Words," and, "The Culture of Make Believe," and a must read for anyone in the field of education.

At the same time this book is an inspirational catalyst for self discovery and creativity as Jensen brings the reader into his creative writing classrooms in colleges and prisons. These passages made me angry that no writing instructor (or any other teacher, for that matter) I'd studied with ever had the guts to ask such vital questions or challenge their students to achieve so much. An enormous "Thank you" to Derrick Jensen for sharing his questions and lessons with us! I predict this will rapidly become the new text for creative writing classes across the country.

"If you're willing to ride the wave, and let the wave ride you, if you want to write from the gut, from the soul, then reach deep into the tiger's fur and hold on tight, because we're all in for a wild ride." - Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water

Rating:
Summary: Walking on Water - then writing about it.
Review: Well! Eco-William seems to have summed up all of Walking on Water very nicely. Whereas Jensen touched upon the effects and purposes of formal schooling in A Language Older Than Words (the only other work by Jensen I have read), it is the primary objective of Walking on Water.

I so desperately would like to toss this book to a few people I have passed by in life that have felt they were somehow wrong in their dreams, desires, and actions in life because of how they felt in school. Primarily that they do not like being in school. And thusly are inherently bad people. I myself did fine in school, but the more I distance myself from my pre-college years the more I am able to see just how much of my time was not spent learning, but spent killing my desire to think the fantastic and to stop offering such fantastic ideas to those around me. This is not just conveying ideas in proper grammar and well formatted essays or with the proper mathematical proof and the correct choice out of four on a test, but in being reminded for years on end that we must all adhere to certain "truths" that we are taught in school, and to question them is dangerous to our well being. For example: being an American who spent two of his college years studying abroad with scores of people from around the world I learned the miss-guidance, the nearly subconscious danger I learned in my youth from society (meaning school) that America is #1. Economically, militarily, in freedom, in happiness. These were truths; I felt it in my youth. Now I will not garner controversy to dispute the "facts", but I have since learned that such qualities should not and cannot be quantified.

A proper essay is thesis, argument paragraph 1, 2, and 3, and conclusion paragraph. An O is written from the top in a counter-clockwise direction. Maps of the Earth cut Asia in half. A person with an A in class is better than a person with a B and definitely better than a person with a C and there need not be any more argument to substantiate that. I could go on for pages with examples of how school trains us to "not make waves" and to "ever be complacent" but that is Jensen's job to do in his books. However it is thanks to his writing that I was able to identify this discontent I have with my youth and the time spent in school compared to the experience I have had studying on my own.

Meanwhile, Jensen uses Walking on Water to also tell tales and draw examples from his own creative writing classes that he has taught at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay State Prison. His advice on writing was very edifying and his tales of his adventures in teaching helped me appreciate Jensen the man. Even though A Language Older than Words is arguably a more personal book than this one, I somehow felt I could now meet Jensen in person and have a good chat with him after reading Walking on Water. He not just cares about the fate of our lives and civilization, but also about syntax use and sporting a healthy sense of humor. Very much appreciated.

Rating:
Summary: Walking on Water - then writing about it.
Review: Well! Eco-William seems to have summed up all of Walking on Water very nicely. Whereas Jensen touched upon the effects and purposes of formal schooling in A Language Older Than Words (the only other work by Jensen I have read), it is the primary objective of Walking on Water.

I so desperately would like to toss this book to a few people I have passed by in life that have felt they were somehow wrong in their dreams, desires, and actions in life because of how they felt in school. Primarily that they do not like being in school. And thusly are inherently bad people. I myself did fine in school, but the more I distance myself from my pre-college years the more I am able to see just how much of my time was not spent learning, but spent killing my desire to think the fantastic and to stop offering such fantastic ideas to those around me. This is not just conveying ideas in proper grammar and well formatted essays or with the proper mathematical proof and the correct choice out of four on a test, but in being reminded for years on end that we must all adhere to certain "truths" that we are taught in school, and to question them is dangerous to our well being. For example: being an American who spent two of his college years studying abroad with scores of people from around the world I learned the miss-guidance, the nearly subconscious danger I learned in my youth from society (meaning school) that America is #1. Economically, militarily, in freedom, in happiness. These were truths; I felt it in my youth. Now I will not garner controversy to dispute the "facts", but I have since learned that such qualities should not and cannot be quantified.

A proper essay is thesis, argument paragraph 1, 2, and 3, and conclusion paragraph. An O is written from the top in a counter-clockwise direction. Maps of the Earth cut Asia in half. A person with an A in class is better than a person with a B and definitely better than a person with a C and there need not be any more argument to substantiate that. I could go on for pages with examples of how school trains us to "not make waves" and to "ever be complacent" but that is Jensen's job to do in his books. However it is thanks to his writing that I was able to identify this discontent I have with my youth and the time spent in school compared to the experience I have had studying on my own.

Meanwhile, Jensen uses Walking on Water to also tell tales and draw examples from his own creative writing classes that he has taught at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay State Prison. His advice on writing was very edifying and his tales of his adventures in teaching helped me appreciate Jensen the man. Even though A Language Older than Words is arguably a more personal book than this one, I somehow felt I could now meet Jensen in person and have a good chat with him after reading Walking on Water. He not just cares about the fate of our lives and civilization, but also about syntax use and sporting a healthy sense of humor. Very much appreciated.