GOING BLANK

…the Blank Plan…

…so, about ten years ago, I found myself thinking about how one begins a school year in the best possible way. At my school, and at many others, we filled those first few days with as many activities as we could imagine—“idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” after all. In practice, that meant there was little or no time to think—or to get into trouble—for either the children or, indeed, the adults. We all rushed around, unable to process or fully comprehend what was actually happening, but the busyness kept us from dangerous thoughts or from exploring different possibilities. Routine and tradition shaped the beginning of the year, just when we had the greatest opportunity to change its course.

I began to wonder what it might look like to start the year blankly. That led me to create The Blank Plan. I thought it was a good idea, but it never really took off. People were simply too invested in getting started and staying busy to question their assumptions, or to embrace the slightly unsettling void that invites questions rather than supplying answers.

I imagined how freeing—and exciting—it might be to co-construct the curriculum with students instead of designing it alone over the summer. How much more thoughtful it would be to build an academic plan around the particular learning trajectories of a particular group of students, rather than around an idealized class that did not yet exist.

Now that I am no longer working in schools, I have started to wonder what it means to face one’s own thoughts in a state of expectant blankness.

The first challenge is simply getting there.

With all the browsing, scrolling, notifications, and relentless pelting of content, it is remarkably difficult to arrive at anything resembling a blank slate. It seems to take a week or two of withdrawal before the mind begins to quieten. Even that is difficult when so many conduits are constantly pumping information toward us, whether we want it or not.

So I have been trying.

Just sitting. Thinking. Trying not to depend quite so much on others for information or stimulation, but becoming a little more independent in my own thinking. It feels as though one has to create space—to quiet the constant hum inside one’s head—before genuinely new thoughts have room to emerge.

Only then does one begin to realize how much dross and nonsense has accumulated there. That frantic fullness leaves little room for genuinely original ideas. One can only keep rearranging the same bits of intellectual ironmongery and mental rubbish already rattling around inside. We assume that it is better to fill one’s mind rather than cleaning it out and that means that there is little space within to maneuver.

So lately I have been trying to empty things out—to live more fully in the present and resist the pull of nostalgia. There is something surprisingly liberating about it.

Soon enough I shall happily begin filling my head again with worthwhile books, conversations, and ideas. But for the moment, I am rather enjoying the feeling of an emptier, quieter, blanker mind.

The Blank Plan lives on.

Keep well—and remember to empty your mind every now and then.