Exhortatory

It struck me the other day that you're never very far from some sign or something similar exhorting you to be something or do something or aspire to something in this part of the world. This came home to me particularly strongly earlier this year when we took some students to an army camp on a visit and they even had messages printed on the blocks around the running track. I can't remember encountering quite so much of this back in England, even in schools there, but who knows times may well have changed over there.

The thing is though, does any of this actually work? I know there's a whole school of thought about being positive and the like but eventually it seems to me people either become dead to constant exhortations or the whole experience just grates on them. I mean there's actually a building on the university campus just up the road that carries in big bold bright letters the injunction CREATE. Whenever I see it I feel distinctly less creative. Similarly I suspect that telling others to listen rarely inspires a desire to do so, or an understanding of how you can become a more skilful listener.

My other worry in any educational setting is that the exhortations might become in themselves a replacement for actually educating people. Telling students what they must achieve without some clarity about how exactly, or broadly, to achieve it strikes me as potentially counter-productive.

The problem is, of course, that I do as much of this as everyone else, so preaching on the matter is more than a little hypocritical.