voice – Mrs. Cliff Notes

Most can agree that Jesus was one of the greatest teachers of all time. He started with 12 pupils, and his words are to this day still quoted in red.

But Jesus didn’t live in fanfare. He didn’t walk around telling people what to do, or announcing himself at the door. He was all about invitation, and collaboration, and telling stories.

I’m attempting to read the Bible in one year (because let’s just do all the things this year), and today’s reading in the book of Mark is a peek at yet another challenge Jesus received from some priests who felt their power structure was being threatened. They want to know by WHOSE authority Jesus was healing people and issuing forgiveness and other such radical proclamations.

Why didn’t Jesus just tell them who he was? He never comes out and says “I AM THE SON OF THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE YOU NINCOMPOOP.” He was never the sage on a stage.

In this portion of Mark, he answers the priests’ challenges by telling them a story about the owner of the vineyard sending a servant to the farmers of his vineyard. The farmers kill the servant. And the next servant. So the owner of the vineyard sent his own son.

Jesus was into creating significant learning environments from The Beginning. He knew then that we all need to make a choice. We can’t own what we are learning without speaking it. Maybe that’s why he kept asking “Who do you say that I am?” He wanted us to have a voice.

Who do you say that I am?

And who is more authentic than Christ?

Ernest Hemingway’s wife once left a satchel of his rough drafts on a train in Paris. Try as she might, she was never able to retrieve them. I would imagine he was furious at having lost them. But as a writer and a learner, I have discovered that most of the ideas I have are still inside of me, as evidenced when I am forced to re-create them. He may have lost his satchel, but I don’t believe he lost his words.

I have been asked to consider who owns this eportfolio. Is ownership the same thing as “having” something? Ownership can be an abstract concept. When I earn my master’s degree, I will own it, even if I don’t have the paper it is printed on.

I have ideas.

I have hope.

I have dignity. I have words that I string together like pearls to create a story. If I put that story on paper, you could take the paper. But the words are mine.

In this learning environment towards earning the master’s degree, even if the creation of my eportfolio is used as assessment (or *for* assessment), the act of creating the eportfolio is an act that forces me to acquire knowledge. Learning is happening as I think and write, even at this moment about what I am learning while typing.

So in the question of who owns this eportfolio, it isn’t important what happens to the domain or who owns the site. What matters is that it functions as a tool, as a catalyst. It is a space that demands thought. It draws out the words that I have. Those words and thoughts and abstracts will remain mine. I own them now. So take the domain, you might own it, but I have what’s inside.

Tag: voice

Jesus and COVA+CSLE

Would Hemingway say I own my ePortfolio?