Some Testimonies To Tom Fox & His Vocation as an Educator

First, I want to thank those many readers who sent their prayers and condolences about the death of my brother, Tom Fox, whose book, published shortly before his death, I am sharing in excerpts this week.  Your support means a lot to me.  He lived a full and productive life as is clear from the comments I show in today’s DM.

As it turned out, four days after Tom died, my other older brother, Nat Fox, also died.  Nat’s field was engineering, and he contributed much, including 80 patented inventions and a company called Geopier which helped implement them (see his accomplishments in the Iowa State University College of Engineering Hall of Fame page honoring him HERE).  I am two years younger than Nat and three years younger than Tom.  Nat too lived a full and creative life and loved his four children and two step-children and wife Lily whom he leaves behind..

I wish to close my 3-day meditation on science, education, and spirituality offered up by Tom Fox with some responses to his book, on becoming edGe-ucated: how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all. 

W. Nikola-Lisa, Christopher Award winning author of How We Are Smart: A Multicultural Look at the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, compares Fox’s book to Thomas Kuhn’s iconoclastic On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He says:

Fox’s ideas about education based on more than 50 years of experience, are nothing short of earth-shattering.  Like Kuhn, Fox offers a paradigmatic shift in our thinking, urging us to look more deeply at the nature of knowledge and how we acquire it.  The result: a truly revolutionary, as well as much-needed 21^st century vision of education.

From Dr. Sue Hansen, Consultant to Action Research Leadership Institute, Chicago Foundation for Education:

In addition to giving fascinating insight from an unorthodox career, Tom Fox’s wonderful book validates the complex and difficult work of good teachers—those who wish to prepare their students for the changing and challenging world of today—and at the same time indicates new directions for teacher preparation.

Olafur J. Proppe, former Rector of the Iceland University of Education and Jon Torfi Jonasson, former dean of the school of Education, University of Iceland:

In his book, Fox explains thoroughly and with various examples the concept of ‘edGe-ucation’ and how it differs from ‘education’ as often practiced in schools.  The book is enlightening and provocative, but also a pleasant and important read for the development of both education and educational research.

The day Tom died, I had a long-standing dinner date with a woman who was in town from NYC.  I told her of his death and how he had taught at National Louis University and she told me she attended school there in 1993 and had one exceptional teacher who thoroughly changed her life.  When I shared a picture of my brother the following day, she said, “That was he!  It was Tom Fox and I will forever be grateful for his presence in my life.  I loved our long conversations and how he challenged me to think and feel for myself  before advocating for others. He challenged my very way of viewing life and personal purpose.”

Yesterday, I received a correspondence from Marianne Grosspietsch, a German humanitarian activist who has worked for years with orphans and children with leprosy in Kathmandu, Nepal.  On reading my DMs on Tom, she wants to plant a tree in his honor at their school.  She writes: In your obituary you painted such a beautiful picture of a highly inspiring educator… all his students will certainly feel vividly reminded of their admirable teacher and his wonderful teaching methods.

His phantasy, his inspiring ideas, his respect of the individuality of his students…you describe all this with such loving admiration and vivacity that you made me think, that I met him personally. On a plaque near the tree will be this inscription: “Tom Fox, the inspiring educator: May his teaching continue to motivate young people to explore the beauty of  our creation.”

For my part, my knowing Tom and reading his book is a great gift.  He was a man with a vast spirit born of a curiosity to know and love  the world whether by way of science, mathematics, religion, sports, art, or sharing of minds. His was a search for wisdom and rendering it real to younger generations through a revolution in education.  

I am proud of my older brother and pleased to see his life’s work wrapped up in this book and in the many lives he touched on two, now three continents.  Education needs a radical reinvention and his is for thirsty souls everywhere. 

*G. Thomas Fox, on becoming edGe-ucated: how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all. Reykjavik: Bósala Stúdenta, 2024, pp. 225, 226f.

See Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.

And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.

Banner Image: “Morning mystics.” Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you know teachers and educators in your life to whom you are deeply indebted?  What are the best way you have found to thank them and carry on their spirit work?

Recommended Reading

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow.  Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin