Welcome to the homepage of Dave Thomas - thanks for dropping in
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The
obligatory mugshot, updated again to account for a
lack of a moustache, longer hair and use of hair
products but I think the image proportioning could
be better!. It has,
mindfully, not been updated for a while so as to avoid
publicising the ravages of time.
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Dave Thomas Cyclist, juggler, swimmer, educator,
German-speaker, lateral thinker, problem-solver,
logophile, positively inclined with all things and now
retired Senior Lecturer in Applied Computing and
related areas In the Faculty Of Computing, Engineering and Sciences |
To comply with my erstwhile employer's policy for personal home
pages, I am required to state, fortunately with complete
honesty, that all opinions and views expressed on this page are
those of the author and not necessarily those of the University.
I have thus not said anything about things that are really
important to me personally. There is nothing (he lies) about
family, friends, juggling, laying bricks, cycling, the
manufacture of Jaffa cakes, surreal
humour, the Marchington
Singers with whom I sing with great joy, faith or having
an unreasonably positive view of everything. Nothing at
all!
The site is a moving feast and is currently, primarily to:
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Teaching
and
Learning Philosophy
From "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran (pronounced, I am assured by a very good friend, Chaleel Jibrahn, with the "Ch" pronounced as in "loch"). Apologies for the politically incorrect nature of the extract, but it was written in 1923 - a pre-political correctness era. I thoroughly recommend the book in its entirety (there isn't actually that much of it, but what there is is wonderful). The basis for the book is that a revered sage, who is not native to the land, is walking down to the harbour to board a ship to leave the land forever. The people of the land suddenly realise that he will, shortly, no longer be there. Consequently they each ask him what his thoughts are about issues that are important to them. The book is the collection of his thoughts. The thoughts below express beautifully what I feel the true rôle of a teacher is.
"Then said a Teacher, Speak to us of
Teaching.
And he said:
'No man can reveal to you aught but
that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your
knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow
of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but
rather of his faith and lovingness.
If he is indeed wise, he does not bid
you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the
threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of
his understanding of space, but he can not give you his
understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the
rythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear
which arrests the rythm, nor the voice which echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science
of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he
cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not
its wings to the vision of another man.
And even as each one of you stands
alone in God's knowledge, so must each of you be alone in his
knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.' "
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This page was created on, or about, November 1999 and was last
updated on 7th September 2023
