The title poem in this book reminds us of what
Confucius had written centuries before: When you are making an
axe handle, using an axe to hew the wood, the model for what you are
doing is in your hand.
When a teacher is teaching students, the model of
teaching and learning and of knowledge is being used by the teacher as
the model by which students are learning.
The curriculum is inseparable from the life,
actions, and presence of the teacher and of the academy in which the
learning takes place.