{"id":1032,"date":"2010-08-16T00:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T00:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/08\/advice-from-chuang-tzu-for-students\/"},"modified":"2010-08-16T00:54:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T00:54:00","slug":"advice-from-chuang-tzu-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/08\/advice-from-chuang-tzu-for-students.html","title":{"rendered":"Advice from Chuang Tzu for Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>One of my favorite quotes from the Chinese sage Chuang Tzu is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.terebess.hu\/english\/merton.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">this one<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. <br>If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. <br>If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets \u2014 <br>He is out of his mind! <br>His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. <br>He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting\u2013 <br>And the need to win drains him of power. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One could easily substitute a student for the archer:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When a student is studying for nothing, she has all her skill. <br>If she is working for an \u201cA,\u201d she is already nervous. <br>If her financial aid depends on her grade, she goes blind or sees two exam papers \u2014 <br>She is out of her mind! <br>Her skill has not changed. But the grade divides her. <br>She cares. She thinks more of passing than of learning\u2013 <br>And the need to achieve a certain grade\u00a0drains her of power. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What do others think? Is it good advice to students to focus on <em>learning<\/em> rather than on <em>grades<\/em>?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-2969882143124603804?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favorite quotes from the Chinese sage Chuang Tzu is this one: When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind or sees two targets \u2014 He is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advice from Chuang Tzu for Students<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of my favorite quotes from the Chinese sage Chuang Tzu is this one:When an archer is shooting for nothing, he has all his skill. 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