STC Teacher Interview

Interviewer: Alright, we’re gonna start off with a few icebreakers. How about a joke?

Mr. Koszary: I think there’s a joke behind my advent calendar. Here we go – where would you find a penguin dancing?

I: No idea, you tell me.

K: At the snow-ball.

I: [Laughs] Alright, we’ll count the ice broken. Say you could crossbreed two animals to form a sort of animalistic chimera. What would you make?

K: A bird-ephant - you’re going from something so light and delicate, to something so big and heavy.

I: Right, and we humans are just as light and delicate, yet we continue to build bigger and heavier machines – when do we stop? Do you think the pursuit of the impossible reveals something deep about the nature of human dissatisfaction with reality?

K: The pursuit of the impossible is something that is inherent within us, is it not? Ever since our atavistic origins as cavemen, looking up to the stars, we’ve seen things that have been beyond our understanding. That was definitely a catalyst for us to have these thoughts about what we can achieve and how these magical things all around us happen.

Our lack of understanding of our environment gives us this inspiration to strive for things that seem impossible initially, but can eventually be discovered. You could see a forest fire, and think,

“What the hell is that? How could WE make that?”

Eventually, we could figure out and learn how to create a fire and pass down messages, then become new technology. This is steady progress—the emergence of light within the darkness has somewhat given us this sense that we can keep achieving more and more. And eventually, we're going to hit the limits—but nevertheless, when you think about what we can do today, compared to 3,000 years ago, we would be seen as gods or magicians.

I think the world around us gives us this inspiration to try and achieve the impossible. Nevertheless, sometimes the impossible is so beyond our comprehension, it makes us try to take shortcuts to understanding it – like just saying “God did it.” These fruitless attempts to answer the impossible sometimes take the form of religions or conspiracy theories – because trying to accept our lack of understanding of these things is frankly quite scary. When people are a bit more thoughtful, or taking a more mature approach, they’re able to accept this lack of understanding, but it still sits uncomfortably with us as people to accept the fact that we don’t know anything about the unknown, and resist the urge to try to create a simple explanation as a solution. So I think confronting it – directly facing the void of not understanding things (which you could argue to some degree is like atheism) is quite a scary thing to do; and while I think people are getting better at doing this, this kind of spiritualistic, mythologizing, conspiracy theorist stuff is quite comforting to some of us because it gives us an almost painless answer to these impossible things we don't understand.

The pursuit of the impossible can be seen as an attempt at scientific progression, but also as a frustration with our smallness as these highly evolved apes on this rock floating in space, with barely anything making sense.

Why are we here?

What the hell is going on?

Are we just a bunch of atoms with consciousness?

The magnitude of the unknown just causes frustration with our smallness, and our pursuit of knowledge probably comes from our desire to understand. I think we need to avoid the shortcuts – because a resolution based on these shortcuts just cuts off any attempts at exploration or progress.

I: Would you then say that religion, born out of inability to explain the unknown, is detrimental to human progress and trying to achieve what was thought to be impossible?

K: Not necessarily, for taking tiny baby steps is but a process of learning. When you think about where we are now, as to where we were - that took a good thousands of years- and standing on the shoulders of those before you, accepting the slow pace of understanding, it's rarely a revelation where someone goes “Eureka!”, and we understand something. But the slowness of that pace and the struggle you often have with institutions that don't believe these new ideas, or religions calling them blasphemous - it's a constant struggle. Honestly, it's just part of the reality of being human, the kind of struggle for understanding, and this slow crawl towards enlightenment from the impossible and doing things that we never thought would be doable.

I: In many ways, then, our aspirations are what drive us to be curious. Flying cars were once an aspiration for science fiction thinkers in the past – would you say that sometimes, our aspirations cause us to fly too close to the sun?

K: We could really apply these big, broad philosophical concepts to something microcosmic within school. Students are constantly taught to kind of aspire, but sometimes there are these unrealistic expectations – take getting a 45 in the IBDP, and studying medicine at the most prestigious university.

The tension between aspiration and reality can cause all sorts of issues – often mental – and occasionally, people bury their faces in the sand and can't face the realization of their failure. Some people don't want to hear it. Some people almost react angrily to it – as if saying, “how dare you limit my aspirations!” And it’s a complicated thing to navigate through – going from your hopes and dreams (which are sometimes not practical) to our constrained reality.

Everyone’s aspiring to get the highest score possible – but the system is literally designed to make a certain portion of the population to get a lesser score – and some people just aren’t ready to realize this reality. So when you encourage this belief that everyone can achieve the impossible, it sets people up for failure and disappointments, which eventually spirals into mental health issues. And perhaps aiming for the impossible isn't always the best approach. It’s down that path where sadness lies - constantly feeling dissatisfied and feeling like you're not doing enough.

And the thing is, when you define yourself by a number on a paper, which was derived from a very limiting, strict system of categorizing and judging people, then it can be unfair as well. There are people who are just as intelligent – but because they're not suited to the format of assessments, they don't do as well. But there’s no universal solution, and the best we can do is compromise – after all, there has to be some ultimate solution of grading people. Everyone wants to succeed, yet the process of facing the reality of how that's not possible for everyone is quite tough.

I: Success is built out of failure. It’s about learning from those who have failed before you. Would you say then, that our ambitions, however impossible to achieve, make us succeed? Should we aim for the stars?

K: It’s a really important process as part of growing up, seeing these illusory ambitions slowly eroding away as you realize just that life isn't all about those things that you’re aiming for – but also because life is more complicated than that. We can't all become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or go to MIT. The self-discovery of our own different strengths and different qualities, which aren't necessarily tied in with academics allows us to gain a better understanding of reality and sets us off on finding a path outside the system where you still do well in life, finding a job that suits your strengths. But it can be a tough thing to do – feeling judged by a single score, suggesting you’re less than what you could be, and that's just really sad – because that's not how it is.