Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution

No seriously, this book is phenomenally self-aware, and self-critical, while also making a strong case for totally dismantling institutionalized education. But Jensen doesn't simply condemn a system built to squash the human spirit, he goes far, far beyond that. For every page explaining the horrors of the traditional educational model and his problems working within it, he provides ten pages of real life examples of how he answered the toughest question of all, "what would you do instead?" The fact that he gives us a peek into his fantastic classes is tempered by his constant reminders that there is no one answer. Instead, we all must constantly probe our innermost depths to find our own answers. How will we confront systems of conformity and discover how to be ourselves?

"Walking on Water" is filled with insight, wisdom, and humor by Derrick Jensen, one of the most important (although, sadly, not well known) thinkers, visionaries, and leaders of our time. This is a fascinating book -- provocative, intriguing, informative, entertaining -- albeit a bit scattered at times. Given what I know about Jensen (I have read several of his other books and belonged to his Yahoo discussion group for a while), my guess is that "Walking on Water" is a bit scattered because it is in part an interlude, almost a palate cleanser, for Jensen as he authors his next great "Radical Environmentalist" jeremiad. And what will THAT book be about? Here's a hint: it's Derrick's third "R" after Reading and Writing. Or how about the following quotes from "Walking on Water": "I hate industrial civilization...[it] is killing the planet" and we need to "change the whole system." In other words, "Walking on Water," while excellent in and of itself, is most likely something of a warmup for Jensen's "bringing down civilization" book -- the book that will represent the culmination of Jensen's thinking, activism, and life work to date (I can't wait!).As a warmup, though, if indeed that's partly what it is, "Walking on Water" is important because it focuses on the critical role played by our "industrial education" system, and the damage that this system does to to our souls, our communities, and our ecosystems. In other words, training people to think and act like unthinking, mindless, interchangeable parts coming off an assembly line may be a politically effective, cost-efficient way of holding together the industrial capitalist economic system. But, treating people like this is certainly not conducive to their well-being or to the well-being of the planet, which is being rapidly destroyed by human greed and stupidity even as we sit here. This is why Derrick Jensen's "Walking on Water" is important, because it attacks this system based on Jensen's tremendous knowledge and insight, his deep personal experience with the education system (and with fighting the worst of the capitalist system), and his skill, passion, and courage as a writer, thinker, and activist. At the risk of oversimplifying, what Jensen is (correctly) arguing and demonstrating here is that our education system is first and foremost designed to produce good worker bees for the capitalist economy, bees who will accept authority and "won't question country, God, capitalism, science, economics, History, the rule of law" or anything else, really. In other words, bees that collect honey but don't sting.What Jensen is also arguing --and showing, through his own leadership and life example -- is that it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. Thus, we see Jensen teaching ("Principles of Thinking and Writing") in a very different way than most of us are accustomed to, both at an actual prison and also at a metaphorical one (a state university in Eastern Washington). Some of the most interestin

I really think Derrick Jensen is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Walking On Water is another Jensen masterpiece that has reaffirmed this belief! Jensen asks his students and readers to think the unthinkable and do what we think could've never been done. After reading Walking On Water I can only imagine how different our lives would be if as children we weren't coerced into participating in the industrial school system. I ask myself how different things would be if students were loved and accepted by their teachers like Derrick shows love and acceptance for his students. I wonder: would most of us be going to jobs we hate everyday? Would we be captives of a civilizational system that compels us to destroy the very ecological system that we depend on to keep us alive? Would the U.S. taxpayers be spending 400 billion to make war? Would we EVEN put up with this corrupt economic and political system? "If one of the most unforgivable sins is to lead people away from themselves, we must not forgive the processes of the industrial education." Pg.216 D. Jensen. In this book Derrick has truthfully spoken to my experience in our industrial education system. I can remember sunny spring days, (I'm sure you can too) when all I wanted was to be playing outside with my friends, and having my mom and dad close by. But instead I was forced to sit in a hard seated desk in a block building with few windows. They call this a classroom. And this memory of my past experience is part of the unforgivable process of leading us away from ourselves. It's really sad to think that most of us have memories like this.Time is short! And if you've been forced to sit at a desk wishing away your time(the most precious thing we as human beings have)waiting for that bell to ring, you will love this book. Once again Derrick has showed me things really don't have to be this way.

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 he

Jensen cuts to the heart of the matter: "As is true for most people I know, I've always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?" Although I cannot presume to speak for others, this was certainly true for me. School sucked. It was like torture, five days a week, eight hours a day, seemingly without beginning or end. And yet the end does eventually come, with much cap-throwing and fanfare, only to be crushed with the prospects of our work-a-day world and the ecological destruction it enacts on a daily basis. Along with Jensen, I would have to agree that one of the primary reasons we put up with this system is because we have been trained to do so, both bodily and mentally. "Throughout our adult lives, most of us are expected to get to work on time, to do our boss's bidding...and not to leave till the final bell has rung. It is expected that we will watch the clock, counting seconds till five o'clock, till Friday, till payday, till retirement, when at last our time will again be our own, as it was before we began kindergarten, or preschool, or daycare. Where do we learn to do all of this waiting?" The answer, of course, is school. School is the "day-prison" where we learn to be "a nation of slaves" - and servile slaves at that. To some, these statements might seem too extreme. To be sure, many of us enjoyed moments of school here and there, encountered truly inspiring teachers, and experienced enthusiasm and genuine learning amid the 18-year prison sentence we call formal education. But such is not the norm, nor is it the point. The point is rather to ask what education could be. "What are the effects of schooling on creativity?" Jensen asks. "How well does schooling foster the uniqueness of each child who passes through? Does schooling make children happier? For that matter, does our culture as a whole engender happy children? What does each new child receive in exchange for the so many hours for years on end that she or he gives to the school system?" The answer is not much, unless you consider obedience to the clock a high and noble aim. In light of the looming problems our society now faces - drug addiction, teen suicide, domestic violence, rampant materialism, ecological crisis - this systemic acculturation of obedience has become pathological. Yet as Jensen shows, the aim of education from the very start has been economic growth, homogenization, social control, and industrialization - not personal enrichment, individuality, creativity or even the creation of healthy communities. Through a complex web of stories, anecdotes and personal experiences teaching both literal prisoners at California State Pen and figurative prisoners at Eastern Washington University, Jensen offers an alternative vision of education. This vision is reoriented to educe, draw out, and lead forth the native impulses and interests of students and teachers alike; and is predicated on our ability to listen to and fo