I was jolted into thinking about Maya Angelou this morning as I was trying to
think with Jennifer and I remembered another of my favorite Maya Angelou
quotes: "There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can
obscure the truth." I keep being amazed by her gifts. But this time, I think
I came to a new understanding of this quote. And it really proves the point of
what we've been discussing the last few days. When I say that we all need
schema to deeply understand, this is a perfect example. WHAT I BRING TO THE
PAGE of Maya's quote is different today than it was even days ago, largely
because of the thinking I've done which was kick-started by Jennifer's initial
question about main idea instruction. At the risk of being too trite, I again
have a favorite quote for this phenomenon: "Noone ever steps in the same river
twice." Have any of you ever known even a single person who hasn't finished
reading To Understand by saying, "Now I'm ready to read it again"? I haven't.
And that brings me to something else I've been thinking about this summer. And
a breakthrough understanding about Gardner's "It's not about how smart you are;
it's about how you are smart."
Ellin's To Understand made me think about living the intellectual life and our
own perceptions of whether we are smart or not. I had a class with several of
my favorite teachers and I wanted to see what they thought about themselves.
So we wrote a response over a two-week period based on the statement: "When I
First Realized I Was Smart." Needless to say, we had wonderful responses and
most people published them to share. Wonderful but unexpected - at first
blush. Without exception, each person realized they were "smart" not after
they'd received great grades, not after they received awards and accolades, not
after class rank, not after high scores on standardized tests (which these
particular people all had) -- but at some point in their university experience
or teaching experience, and they were universally being smart about teaching!!!
And, honestly, I proposed the question highly value-free and did not tie the
response into teaching at all. I actually expected that most people would
answer that by saying they were smart by comparing themselves to
something--grades, tests, etc. And NOT ONE DID. They all defined their
breakthrough understanding of themselves as "smart" during their undergraduate
or graduate education classes or during their teaching experience. And they
ALWAYS involved an "respected other," which is a powerful understanding as
well. And that experience, for each of them, became the catalyst, I believe,
to strive for understanding. They had to think they were smart before they saw
themselves as capable intellects who could push themselves toward greater,
deeper, more important understanding. They're all about the struggle.
I hate to throw out Angelou again, but she's just one of my sheroes! "A bird
doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."
I believe each of these teachers became, at the moment they understood they
were smart, a person capable of struggling for understanding who took intense
pleasure not only in the coming to know, but in the puzzle and struggle to get
there. And I believe that affects their teaching every day in every way. They
were transformed. And we remember again the brilliance of Ellin' mind, and
maybe just as important, Jamika's. It's all about the struggle. And, if we
never find the one true main idea -- well, we've been intensely happy on our
journey to get there.
And finally, I'm coming to the reason I wanted to post these thoughts. If any
of you are still listening, though, I'd be amazed after all my talk.
I realized the last day of class and all those papers were shared: these
teachers, these friends, these folk so worthy of respect, had one universal:
it really wasn't about how smart they were; it was all about how they were
smart. These particular folk were very, very, very smart - highly gifted - in
teaching and learning. And from that moment forward, they were hooked. They
saw themselves as capable learners who wanted to basically spend their life
continuing to learn--and they came to the right place to do so. Education.
WOW. Who'd a thunk it?
Now comes the place where I can hit it out of the ballpark! Each of these
people, teased into thinking about these issues by Jamika and Ellin, began
behaving as a "smart person" at that moment they understood they were smart.
BUT NONE OF THEM KNEW IT UNTIL THEY WERE ASKED TO IDENTIFY A MOMENT, sometimes
many, many years later, in our class thinking about Ellin's thinking. They
didn't articulate it, they didn't even realize it. In our discussion, they
said that it was only now that they realized when or how it was they came to
know/accept that they were smart, and that it had taken a great deal of
introspective musing. But the lack of naming it hadn't diminished their
understanding of it in this case.
What made the difference was their perception of themselves as bright. And
only in retrospect could they even determine or guess how that perception came
to be. But...their life as a learner took on a whole new depth, along with the
quest to come to understand, in some way largely because they started living
life as a Smart Person. And, fortunately for the dozens of children they lived
among after that, they were smart, maybe not every day in every way, but smart.
And it truly wasn't how smart these teachers were; it was how they were smart.
They were smart teachers!!! Wow.
And I was saddened by the two people in the class who never shared. To me,
that was a clue that they, in their heart of hearts, still hadn't found a
moment they felt smart. And that we still had some work to do.
And I'm so jealous of Ellin and all her friends at the PEBC. And I feel so
cheated that my years have all passed without a vehicle to think with the
support of others. And of all the late afternoons of washing out paintbrushes,
and unjamming pencil sharpeners, and making book orders, and filling out forms,
and putting up bulletin boards for God's sake!! I've been cheated by being on
autopilot because of the sheer volume of "stuff" we are getting bogged down
doing.
And what is the main idea and supporting details of this post, do you suppose?
You know what? Even I don't know.
Bev
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