You know, sometimes I hate Isaac Newton, or, at least, his devotees who
advocated that everything is a machine and is governed by intelligible,
universal, and immutable laws. I say this because the scholarship of teaching
and learning has turned the classroom in a Newtonian pedagogically and
technologically mechanical system. In the rush to make teaching an important
part of academia, in the effort to make it a worthy partner to scientific
research and publication, in the effort to give teaching a scientific bent, far
too many of us have made a pact with the devil. We've "scientized" teaching;
we "thingified" it; and, in so doing, we've unnaturally de-humanized,
impersonalized, and sanitized it as well. We've brought the 18th century view
of people into the classroom; we've divided people into the separated higher
order of the superior cognitive and the lower order of the inferior emotive.
To prove ourselves, we've joined the mechanized bandwagon with our total focus
on and reliance on scientific method of testing and grading and assessment.
We've soften our stand, almost into extinction, on the "soft sciences" of
feelings, emotions, and spirituality with devaluation, dismissal, and ridicule;
and, we've hardened ourselves with the purely physical, and mechanical "hard
sciences." Like the 18th century champions of mechanism, too many of us say,
“We don't need that emotional realm. Its subjectivity distorts. We’ll just
get rid of all of that." We've convinced ourselves that we've risen above
brutish, almost lawless, emotions. We've convinced ourselves that we are now
only controlled, objective 'thinking man,' homo sapiens residing in the
pristine Ivory Tower way above the fray of the outside sordid world. We leave
no place for what we call the human psyche or human spirit or just plain
humanity. So, we talk of "how" and "what" of physical assessment, or visible
methodology, or apparent technology. We talk in terms of statistical
generality, category, label, and stereotype. We "depeople-ize" classroom
teaching as if we've let the laws of physics, like everything else, take over
the classroom and accept that we're all just machines playing it out. I think
it's because we conceived the classroom world in such a spatial system way that
we have little way--or inclination--of describing the psychological, emotional,
or spiritual aspects of our being.
It's a delusion that is a barrier to insight. We don't really know
that we don't know. In fact, we get in our own way by self-satisfyingly
reading into things, engage in what the psychologists call comforting
"attribution error." We manufacture our own obscuring "In my humble opinion;"
with accepted beliefs, perceptions, expectations, demands, biases, stereotypes,
generalities, labels, categories. We don't know how to ask the right
questions. The result is that we don't usually see things and people as they
are; we numb ourselves to and turn away from what's going on. So, when things
don't go as we expect, we play the blame game. We, at best, give lip service
to, but generally ignore the challenging findings of such researchers as Dweck,
Deci, Amable, Goldman, Fredrickson, Seligman, Boyatzis, Lyubomirsky,
Csikszentmihaly, Halvorson, et al. They’re not talking about pedagogy or
content or technology. They all are talking about the fact that it’s always
personal. That no one has one objective bone in her or his body. It’s always
about people’s attitudes, perceptions, and emotions. Its people’s values,
character, morality, ethics, vision, purpose, meaning.
But, we don't let the fact of research findings on learning get in our
way; we haven't really changed our view of things and people; we haven't
changed our ways. At best, as Clayton Christenson would say, our supposed
innovations are merely sustaining, that is, merely tweaking in order to argue
the absolute correctness of what we're already doing and what we already
believe.
You know, this morning I was sipping cup of freshly brewed Tanzanian
Peaberry coffee, walking through my flower gardens, quietly watching the sway
of the koi in the pond. I noticed that by walking a while in these landscape,
my mood was changing. And, I realized that as landscapes change, so do our
emotions and actions. So, we've got to shift the environment that rest solely
on this "thingified" physical assessment or that visible methodology or that
apparent technology. Education is overpedagogical-zed and
over-technological-ized and under moralized. To barren and imbalanced
"thingification" we have to add rich "peopleness." We must acknowledge the
invisible relationships and connections, the emotion of it all, the psychology
if you will, that is prevalent in the classroom. To thingified "howdunnit" and
"whatdunnit," we have to add the critical human "whodunnit" and especially the
"whydunit."
That's where the role of faith, hope, and love come in. They are not
for "fixing," or "correcting," or "advising." As I just told a few people,
they are not about guiding to a particular place or to a particular activity.
They make all the difference. They are what I call classroom "axis shifters."
They're cleansers. They are, what Rabbi Chaim Stern might call, poetry in
action. They're the guiding light to insight. They're a portal to a world of
wonders. They identify and establish purpose. They enthusiastically capture
the sacred in the mundane, ennoble the commonplace, and reveal the uniqueness
in the ordinary.
They don't the need for a self-inflating, and self-importance
jargonized language. They "merely" select, rearrange, restructure, recast, and
enhance the very same everyday nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs we already use
to shed beauty, insight, and inspiration. In so doing, they call for
considering what the daily grind adds up to; for taking pause for renewal and
rejuvenation by reflecting on our efforts, by taking stock, by identifying and
articulating purpose and meaning; and by seeing the bigger picture beyond
information transmission and credentialling, beyond a test and grade and GPA.
They create a mindfulness that breaks through imposed and self-imposed barriers
of the impersonal numbness, disconnect, and disinterest created by the opaque
veils of generality, stereotype, catalogue, and label. They close distances
between "us" and "them," and forge communal connections between "me" and "each
of you." Their requirements of silently and sincerely listening and seeing are
deeply integrated components of a penetrating radar that gets beneath the
surface of mask and facade, of stereotype, of generality, of label, of
category, of simplification to the essential inner personal "me." That is, who
we and others are and can become. It's the residence of character, principles,
and values. It's the seat of spirit, attitude, and emotions; it's the source
of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect; it’s the wellspring of
priorities and allocation choices; it’s the measure of our lives.
Faith, hope, and love are about "people-ization;" or more specifically,
they are about "humanizing," "individualizing," "personalizing," and
"realizing" in a way pedagogy and content and technology cannot. They're
about nurturing, caring, supporting, encouraging rather than weeding out. They
are about mobilizing and channeling our moral energy. They are first and
foremost about witnessing another human being just like us; and witnessing
means a mindful, sustained, persistent, subdued ferocious but wise, and
sustained presence: an awareness, an alertness, an otherness, a kindness. They
are rooted in a deep commitment to our humanity and the humanity of others.
They frame our gaze, what we watch and what we see, what we hear and to what we
listen.
Think about how the landscape would change, how your emotions would
change, how your feelings towards others would change, how your actions would
change if you said sincerely to each person, and deeply lived, a simple, "I
have undying faith in you. I have endless hope for you. I unconditionally
love you." Think about it.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
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/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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