The Art of Noticing Deeply : Commentaries on Teaching, Learning and Mindfulness [1 ed.] 9781443858441, 9781443897884

Citation preview

The Art of Noticing Deeply

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Commentaries on Teaching, Learning and Mindfulness Edited by

Jan Buley, David Buley and Rupert Collister

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Commentaries on Teaching, Learning and Mindfulness Edited by Jan Buley, David Buley and Rupert Collister This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Jan Buley, David Buley, Rupert Collister and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9788-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9788-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi Section One ................................................................................................ 1 Classroom Climate: Wide-awakeness Chapter One ................................................................................................. 7 ‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom: The Power of Mindfulness Attention Training for In-service Teachers in a Graduate Educational Research Course Maureen Hall and Aminda O’Hare Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 23 Using Interdisciplinary Approaches to Develop the Art of Noticing Deeply Samantha Goss Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 Practising Mys-Pedagogy Lochran Fallon Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 49 Free To Learn More Deeply Nicole C. Fisher Section Two .............................................................................................. 63 Connections of Nature and Self: Speaking through Story Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 67 Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing Libby Falk Jones Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 81 The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape Cindy Derrenbacker

vi

Table of Contents

Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 95 The End of Rhetoric: Towards an Aesthetic Approach to Writing Instruction Wendy Ryden with Nikkia Green Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 105 Story as the Noticing Voice Jan Buley Section Three ......................................................................................... 113 Being Present in Beauty Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 117 When Beauty Guides Learning Susan A. Schiller Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 129 The Art of Listening Deeply: Layers of Possibility through Educational Orientation and Direct Encounter with and Immersion in the Natural World Sean Blenkinsop and Chris Beeman Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 147 What the Land is Telling Us: Listening to Learn from Indigenous Perspectives Mike Hankard Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 157 Re-“Mind”-ing Nature through Dalcroze, Schafer, and Greene David Buley Section Four ........................................................................................... 167 Empowerment through Engagement Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 175 Opening the Box: Making Room for Critically Conscious Students Aimee Myers

The Art of Noticing Deeply

vii

Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 187 Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts: A Contemplative Approach Daniel J. Weinstein Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 205 Soulcraft in the Classroom Richard L. Graves and Sherry Seale Swain Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 219 Meaningful Work: Experiencing the Sacredness of the Teaching and Learning Relationship Rupert Collister Biographies of Contributors .................................................................... 229

INTRODUCTION

The collected commentaries celebrated in this book are unified through the theme of deeply noticing the world of teaching and learning around us. Storytellers, teachers, researchers, poets, photographers, writers, mentors, guides—we are all of these things. The authors assembled in this collection are integral to the sustaining of wide-awakeness and engagement in the classroom and beyond. Together, we are exploring the spaces where we teach and learn, spaces where we explore and interact, and spaces where we pause and wonder. We trust that this book will offer insights into ways in which the arts intersect our creative beings, and nudge us to think about ways to renew what we ‘thought we knew’ about teaching and learning. Special thanks is extended to all of the authors: Chris Beeman, Sean Blenkinsop, Cindy Derrenbacker, Lochran Fallon, Nicole Fisher, Libby Falk Jones, Samantha Goss, Richard Graves, Nikkia Green, Maureen Hall, Michael Hankard, Aimee Myers, Aminda O’Hare, Wendy Ryden, Susan Schiller, Sherry Swain and Daniel Weinstein. We are indebted to you all. Co-Editors & Authors: Jan Buley, David Buley, Rupert Collister

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Founded by Alice Brand, Charlie Suhor and Richard Graves in 1991, the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning (AEPL) is an officially sanctioned NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) affiliate, and brings together people who are interested in exploring and pushing the boundaries of what teaching and learning is and can be. Holistic learning, aesthetic learning, intuitive learning, reflection on learning and teaching are some of the many areas embraced through AEPL’s conversations, yearly conference and research. AEPL supports and promotes scholarship through its publication JAEPL (Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning). JAEPL provides a forum for a broad community of scholars, learners and teachers to share commentary about innovative learning and write about insights into new research connected with learning practices. The submissions in this present volume resulted from invitations following the 2014 AEPL Conference, The Art of Noticing Deeply, held at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. All of the photographs included in this volume are the work of Libby Falk Jones.

SECTION ONE: CLASSROOM CLIMATE: WIDE-AWAKENESS

“Words create worlds”1. The way we think about something affects the way we talk (or write) about it. The way we talk (or write) about something affects the way we behave in relation to it. The way we behave in relation to something affects the way we experience it, and the way we experience something affects the way we think about it. So, in a very real way, language, behaviour, and experiences create the world we exist within. Words create worlds or we might also say that words create worldviews. As Tarnas says “Our worldview is not simply the way we look at the world. It reaches inward to constitute our innermost being and outward to constitute the world. […] Worldviews create worlds”2. Originally a German word, Weltanschauung means the ‘view of life’ or ‘perception of the world’. The intellectual concept of a worldview is rooted in European or Western culture and thinking. Worldviews are human constructs. They are the systems of beliefs or understandings that we use to make sense of our existence and the language we use to think about and describe it. From them flows the structures and institutions of our societies, and the patterns of behaviour that shape our interactions with the entire complexity of contexts we exist within. It is the worldview that describes those contexts—how they are formed and how they evolve. It also describes what is important and what is not, and what is real and what is not. Finally, it is the worldview that describes the extent of our understanding of this complexity of contexts and how all entities, relationships, experiences, and phenomena, both internal and external, are to be understood and interacted with. It is the dominant worldview in each context that controls and shapes the language, behaviours, and experiences 1 Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change (San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2003), 53. 2 Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New Worldview (New York, New York: Viking: The Penguin Group, 2006), 16.

2

Section One

in that context. Of course we, as teachers, don't simply exist in one clearly defined world, and we don't all have the same worldview. Nor do our students. We all live in a complexity of contexts, which are all interrelated; evolving, unfolding, and enfolding in every moment 3 . When I say ‘we’ I mean human kind. Although I don’t want to diminish the uniqueness of any and every individual, family, community, culture, and society by generalising, there are consistencies or synergies that can be highlighted between us. Dr. Greg Cajete (and others) calls this “unity in diversity”4. As teachers, we may not have full control of the context of teaching and learning we are immersed in, but we do have control over ourselves – who we are, how we exist in the world, and the effects that our attitudes, behaviours, actions, decisions, and values have on that world. Just as human beings, are all cocreating the world we exist in, in every moment; we, as teachers, are cocreating the context of our teaching and learning relationship in every moment too. Such an ultimate purpose cannot be achieved without noticing deeply, entering into mindfulness, awakening, awareness, or what others have described as ‘Presence’ 5 . Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, and Flowers say: We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one’s preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and […] making choices to serve the evolution of life. Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence as leading to a state of “letting come”, of participating in a larger field for change. When this happens, the field shifts and the forces shaping a situation can move from re-creating the past to manifesting or realising an emerging future. 6

3 Rupert Collister, A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2010). 4 Collaborative conversation with Gregory Cajete, 29th November, 2006. 5 Peter M. Senge et al, Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society 2nd ed. (New York: Currency/Doubleday: A division of Random House, 2005). 6 Ibid., 13-14.

Classroom Climate: Wide-awakeness

3

References Cajete, Gregory. 29th November, 2006. Collister, Rupert. A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2010. Senge, Peter M., C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers. Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society 2nd ed. New York: Currency/Doubleday: A Division of Random House, 2005. Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New Worldview. New York: Viking: The Penguin Group, 2006. Whitney, Diana, and Amanda Trosten-Bloom. The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change. San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2003.

We neeed to honour altternative ways of o being and waays of knowing g, ones that serve to educcate people andd connect to a professional ethiic and a sense of o care and concern for our world, our relations w with ourselves and a others.

CHAPTER ONE ‘WIDE-AWAKENESS’ IN THE CLASSROOM: THE POWER OF MINDFULNESS ATTENTION TRAINING FOR IN-SERVICE TEACHERS IN A GRADUATE EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH COURSE MAUREEN HALL AND AMINDA O’HARE

Introduction Recently, there has been a change in the culture of secondary education—a shifting away from the stringent, facts-based, ‘no child left behind’ mentality of high-stakes testing, toward social and emotional learning (SEL). This shift has been reflected in the Obama administration’s recent call for a reduction in over-testing in public schools1 and the adoption of SEL curriculum programs in different states including Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia 2 . While this shift is aimed at creating more balanced educational environments for students, (where the development of social and emotional skills is equally privileged with the development of academic skills), the development and well-being of K-12 educators has been overlooked. As such, the shift toward SEL programming in K-12 education cannot be sustainable until the individuals who provide the daily instruction to students are able to embody and model principles of SEL. 1

Kate Zernike, "Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools" The New York Times (October 24, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com. 2 Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, "State Standards for Social and Emotional Learning," CASEL, http://www.casel.org/state-standardsfor-social-and-emotional-learning/.

8

Chapter One

Even with this recent and gradual shift toward SEL in secondary education, there is still a significant emphasis on high-stakes testing. This environment places pressure on educators to ‘teach to the test’ to ensure their own job security, as well as providing funding and autonomy for their schools. In a sense, this strips away educators’ identities as teaching professionals. This de-professionalization of teaching lacks the necessary responsiveness of teachers,' and their students' individual needs as human beings. This added performance pressure and reduced sense of selfefficacy in the classroom might contribute to the growing burnout rates in K-12 educators3. Parker Palmer humanizes teaching and calls for a different kind of education where there is no separation between the ‘the knower and the known.’ He articulates that the current and dominant model has dominated and deformed higher education. Essentially, Palmer is articulating the disconnect between the science of SEL, best practices for learning and the current standards for how teachers are expected to teach. He sees contemplative practice as a corrective methodology, and as something that holds power to deepen the teaching and learning relationship4. In many ways, our work is aligned with Palmer’s notion: we need to honour alternative ways of being and ways of knowing; one that serves to educate people about a professional ethic and sense of care and concern for our world, our relations with ourselves and with others. We have utilised mindfulness meditation as a conduit for developing these skills in practising K-12 educators. Mindfulness provides an embodied way of knowing that intertwines with the participants’ cognitive understandings about mindfulness and embodied knowledge. In this way, there is no separation. We implemented an eight-week mindfulness-training program in a graduate educational research course for twenty in-service K-12 teachers. We draw upon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness, articulated as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment,

3

John Meiklejohn, et al., "Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the Resilience of Teachers and Students," Mindfulness 3, no. 4 (2012); Patricia A Poulin et al., "Mindfulness Training as an Evidenced-Based Approach to Reducing Stress and Promoting Well-Being Among Human Services Professionals," International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 46, no. 2 (2008). 4 Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, 2nd [10th anniversary] ed. (San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2007).

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

9

and nonjudgmentally.” 5 The mindfulness program consisted of reading literature about the research and application of mindfulness practices in education, weekly group meetings where new mindfulness practices were learned, daily individual practice, and daily reflective journaling on the practices and one’s subjective experiences throughout the program. The program culminated with a paper assignment entitled ‘Bridging Theory to Practice’ in which participants were asked to discuss 1) what they had learned about mindfulness practices in terms of both theory and practice and 2) ways, techniques, activities, and/or approaches they could use in the classroom to foster mindfulness in their content area. These papers were qualitatively analysed to examine the impact of the mindfulness program on the teachers and their teaching techniques.

Methods Grounded theory methodology As a part of the process of grounded theory methodology6, initial or open coding was used to identify and label words or phrases in the data. Focused coding was then used to group the codes into conceptual categories as higher order, or what we refer to as “umbrella” categories. As a part of the ongoing distilling of data, a constant comparative method was used. This constant comparison allowed for patterns to emerge and was instructive in terms of adjusting the terminology, as well as combining, eliminating, and adding sub-categories based on their perceived importance in the overall data. In the initial and later coding processes, memos were created to lend detail to how and why particular information fit together into a category or needed to be moved to another category or sub-category. Representative pieces from the coded data were then chosen to illustrate the larger themes and sub-categories. A diagram depicting the final categories and sub-categories can be found in Figure 1.

Results Many interesting themes emerged from the data. What differentiated the data into two large umbrellas of meaning or categories is what we are 5

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, 10th- anniversary ed. (New York, New York: Hyperion, 2005), 4. 6 Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory (London, England: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967).

10

Chapter One

referring to as 1) Expanding Out and 2) Internalizing.

Figure 1. Two umbrella categories emerged from the Grounded Theory qualitative analysis: Expanding Out and Internalizing. Each of these had sub-categories built around the themes of learning, well-being, and community.

Expanding out The data in the Expanding Out category evidenced a general understanding and experience with contemplative practices, which seemed to indicate a more rudimentary level of understanding. In other words, this category reflected the participants’ expanded conceptual understanding of the content provided in the mindfulness program. While participants were able to demonstrate an understanding of the mechanisms through which mindfulness practices can facilitate learning environments, they did so without referencing first-person experiential knowledge in this category. Five sub-categories emerged from the Expanding Out category: basic understanding of learning, understanding of student learning, understanding of and emotional learning (SEL), understanding of teachers’ well-being, and understanding of creating community. Each of these sub-categories will be described, and exemplars for each will be provided.

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

11

Basic understanding of learning: The first sub-category of Expanding Out is basic understanding of learning. This sub-category emerged through participants' articulation as to how their general understanding of learning had increased through the mindfulness attention training and reading and discussing research articles about contemplative practices in education. This sub-category demonstrates an understanding of the impact of mindfulness on learning but does not apply that understanding to specific educational contexts. Some examples of this sub-category are: Learning is holistic; the integration of mind, body, and spirit. Learning is interactive between the self and the learning environment and is continuous and ongoing (Participant Q). With the mindfulness learning, one would experience more deeply and would allow more connections to happen (Participant A). A student who is distracted is not going to be in a mental state conducive to learning (Participant C).

Understanding student learning: The second sub-category of Expanding Out is understanding student learning. This sub-category emerged through participants' articulation as to how their understanding of applying mindfulness practices to student learning had increased through the mindfulness attention training and reading and discussing research articles about contemplative practices in education. This sub-category demonstrates an understanding of the impact of mindfulness on student learning but does not connect that understanding to the role of the teaching self in student learning. Some examples of this sub-category are: They [students] will quiet the busy world to make way for a quiet/contemplative space; they will read deeply, write deeply, and create community. This process will allow students to make connections between their body and mind, and learning will deep seat itself into the brain (Participant L). By increasing the amount of student reflection, I can better understand my students’ misconceptions and they can see how their thinking has changed. This type of teaching is a move towards a more mindful classroom (Participant N).

12

Chapter One Students are exteriorly stimulated constantly and given less and less opportunity to look deep within themselves to develop ideas, be creative, and deepen understanding. This poses the ever-increasing need for students to become more present and connected to curriculum […]. They [students] can use their own life and experiences to deepen learning (Participant E).

Understanding social and emotional learning (SEL): The third sub-category of Expanding Out is understanding SEL. This sub-category emerged through participants’ articulation as to how their understanding of the connection between emotion and cognition had increased through the mindfulness attention training and reading and discussing research articles about contemplative practices in education. This sub-category demonstrates an understanding of the interconnectedness between emotional states and the ability to learn. Some examples of this subcategory are: Our ability to formulate high reasoning and rational thought stems from our ability to process emotion […]. Emotions and feelings are necessary for the development of proper reasoning, decision-making, and emotional behaviour (Participant E). By allowing children to incorporate their inner understandings and convert their problematic emotions into understanding they may hone innovative skills for evolving as creative, empathic, and conscious human beings (Participant G). Present moment learning allows people to be interactive participants as they reflect on their own experiences and to be empathetic […]. Learning that values and promotes mind, body, and spirit prepares our students to be educated as well a wise as they understand the world around them and then focus on improving it (Participant O).

Teachers’ well-being: The fourth sub-category of Expanding Out is teachers’ well-being. This sub-category emerged through participants’ articulation as to how their understanding of the impact of a teacher’s emotional and mental state on a learning environment had increased through the mindfulness attention training and reading and discussing research articles about contemplative practices in education. This sub-category demonstrates an understanding of the importance of the well-being of an educator, both for the longevity of the educator’s career and the learning environment of the students. Some examples of this sub-category are:

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

13

If we, as faculty members, create stronger minds within ourselves and stronger bonds among us, we will be more mentally fit to battle the days when we are isolated in our classrooms during the school day (Participant C). We can all benefit from contemplative practice, including mindfulness, as this will create long-term benefits in positive outlook and behaviour […] We will be more effective as educators two-fold. We will have a better balance to our lives as we are more centrally grounded and centred (Participant C). The integration of mindfulness in our practice can improve our resiliency, which in turn improves our relationships with our students…teachers need to build that ‘inner strength’ to help themselves and their students persevere against daily challenges and stressors (Participant O).

Understanding of creating community: The fifth sub-category of Expanding Out is understanding of creating community. This sub-category emerged through participants’ articulation as to how their understanding of the relationship between mindfulness and relationships between individuals had increased through the mindfulness attention training and reading and discussing research articles about contemplative practices in education. This sub-category demonstrates an understanding of the relationship between being accepting of oneself and being accepting of others. Some examples of this sub-category are: I would like to focus on using the mindfulness training as a way to bring faculty together after school as a way to increase the sense of community and decrease the feelings of isolation (Participant C). By establishing an emotional connection with students, their ability to learn and make appropriate decisions in the real world is increased...it becomes increasingly apparent to me that it is absolutely essential to establish emotional connections with my students through the curriculum. Contemplative practices can serve as an avenue to do so (Participant E). Contemplative pedagogy (i.e. deep/reflective writing) may be a strategy that can better a child's focus and her self-awareness. It may give students the therapy they so often need (especially in the urban school district) while building a strong sense of community that is necessary for a successful program of teaching and learning (Participant F).

14

Chapter One

Internalizing The data in the Internalizing category evidenced a deeper understanding and experience with contemplative practices, whereby participants were able to transcend basic comprehension of contemplative practices through their learning experiences in the class and go deeper or internalize their learning and understanding. In other words, this category reflected the teachers’ embodied, first-person understanding of the concepts included in the mindfulness program, and their ability to relate to others’ experiences with mindfulness through their own experience. This category is self-referential and privileges the value of internal ways of knowing. Four sub-categories emerged from Internalizing: understanding my teaching self and how that impacts student learning, understanding how I learn and what it feels like, understanding my own well-being, and understanding how I create community. Each of these sub-categories will be described, and exemplars for each will be provided. Understanding my teaching self and how that impacts student learning: The first sub-category of Internalizing is understanding how my teaching self-impacts student learning. This sub-category emerged through participants’ reflection on their direct role as educators on classroom learning. They acknowledge the importance of tending to their own emotional and cognitive state as a way of influencing those states of their students. Some examples of this sub-category are: By establishing an emotional connection with students, their ability to learn and make appropriate decisions in the real world is increased...it becomes increasingly apparent to me that it is absolutely essential to establish emotional connections with my students through the curriculum (Participant E). I consistently reminded myself to be centred in the present, to breathe and be non-judgmental […]. This engagement has not only benefited my deep learning, but I hope in time (after years of practice) will improve my students' understanding, comprehension, and cognition. By interacting, becoming more present and aware, I feel as though all individuals will benefit and become more focused in engaging education (Participant F). I can say that when a student is talking to me, and my mind starts to drift because I have a million things to do, I do notice myself pulling my attention right back to the student. I am more focused on what is going on right in front of me, and try to give my full attention to it. I guess even

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

15

being aware that I am sometimes not focused, and changing, is a benefit (Participant M).

Understanding how I learn and what it feels like: The second sub-category of Internalizing is understanding how I learn and what it feels like. This sub-category emerged through participants’ reflection on their meta-cognitive awareness of their own learning and their new understanding of an embodied way of knowing. They acknowledge the role of their body’s physical and emotional state on their own ability to learn and understand the world. Some examples of this subcategory are: The writing aspect of my involvement with the mindfulness research project effectively engaged me in a way that allowed me to fully experience the mindful practice […]. The writing provided me with a contemplative medium through which I was able to more deeply reflect on my experience. By putting my experience into words, I provoked more concrete memory and ideas both affecting my internalization and perhaps grey matter growth, and providing stepping off points from which to discuss my experience with others involved (Participant L). Given the connections with the mind, body, and spirit of what makes us human, contemplative practice has brought a renewed feeling of selfawareness to me. My reflections during mindful practice demonstrate that I was able to develop a relaxed and focused state after each practice. I want my students to develop the same increased concentration that I have felt since starting my mindful practice (Participant D). My mind was not always quiet, and my thoughts were not always clear. I feel that as weeks passed and I learned more effective coping/meditating techniques (i.e. imagining thoughts passing by my mind like clouds, etc. […]), I was able to become more focused in my meditation and more centred during my practice (Participant F).

Understanding my own well-being: The third sub-category of Internalizing is understanding my own wellbeing. This sub-category emerged through participants’ reflection on how mindfulness practice had impacted their own sense of well-being and wholeness. Some examples of this sub-category are: I was unsure about how this practice would fit into my career as a teacher and my life, but as we went through the training, I found the practices to be very valuable. I found myself feeling that I could cope better with the rigours of life and work when I practice regularly. Although mindfulness is

16

Chapter One difficult for me, I know that these tools will help elevate all aspects of my life (Participant B). I feel that the training has improved my perception on dealing with stressors in life, social issues in any relationship and confirmed my belief in the whole child curriculum for our nation’s education system (as well as my own classroom) (Participant F). When it comes to mindfulness, ‘just being’ is a part of my strategy for dealing with a rough day, a tough conversation with a student, or a tense meeting with an administrator. I sit in my car, let it all go, and just be. I accept it for what it is, accept that it happened and move on with my day and go home to my family […] I definitely find that my stress levels are lower, and my mood is more pleasant when I let it go and just be in the moment (Participant P).

Understanding how I create community: The fourth sub-category of Internalizing is understanding how I create community. This sub-category emerged through participants’ reflection on the relationship between their own feelings of connectedness with the self and their ability to connect to others. They acknowledge that work must be done on the self in order to create room for connectedness with others. Some examples of this sub-category are: Loving-kindness helped me become more forgiving of my peers when they do not seem as relaxed in their practice, and I have shared my experiences with my colleagues (Participant D). I feel that the mindfulness training has been a blessing for my [graduate] class. I hope for my fellow classmates, our education system, and our spirit, that all educators embrace contemplative pedagogy and accept its gifts (Participant F). I truly believe that a teacher needs to show his/her students that he/she is a human being too. It’s important to get to know your students as people (Participant J).

Discussion From our Grounded Theory approach to qualitatively analyse the personal reflections and academic writing of our participants, we identified two umbrella categories: Expanding Out and Internalizing. Expanding Out was found to have five sub-categories – three related to understanding learning processes at different levels, one related to understanding of well-

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

17

being, and one related to understanding of creating community. Internalizing was found to have four sub-categories – two related to understanding learning processes at different levels, one related to understanding well-being, and one related to understanding creating community. Ultimately, the distilled data reflects both the theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of mindfulness practice on education. Specifically, these findings highlight the importance of including teachers in mindfulness interventions in K-12 settings to create a sustainable culture of mindfulness among schools. Maxine Greene7, articulated the importance of the recovery of imagination in the classroom: […] one that brings an ethical concern to the fore, a concern that, again, has to do with the community that ought to be in the making and the values that give it colour and significance. My attention turns back to the importance of wide-awakeness, of awareness of what it is to be in the world. (p. 35)

Mindfulness practice, as evidenced in the voices of this study’s participants and echoed in the work of Kabat-Zinn 8 holds promise for manifesting improved learning through moment-to-moment attention on the parts of both teachers and students. In the introduction, we mentioned a palpable shift in education; this shift recognizes the importance of SEL as an essential element of learning. As Jennings articulates, "parents, educators, and policy-makers recognize the need for a broad educational agenda that includes the development of social and emotional competencies" 9 This broader agenda does not diminish academic success but instead is capacious enough to include learning how to practice safe behaviours and cultivate healthy relationships, along with care for self and others as part of being an engaged citizen in the society. Teaching itself is an ‘emotional practice’10, one that is rich with “intrapersonal experiences (those that take place 7

Maxine Greene, Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change (San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, 1995). 8 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. (New York, New York: Delacorte, 1990). 9 Patricia A. Jennings, Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom (New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2015), 36. 10 A. Hargreaves, "The Emotional Practice of Teaching," Teaching and Teacher Education 14 (1998).

18

Chapter One

within the teacher and each student) and interpersonal emotional experiences (those that take place between peers, between the teacher and each student, and as a social experience of group emotion)”11. Current research evidences that mindfulness practice for adults can increase awareness and promote reflective practice 12 . Also, other studies have shown that mindfulness practice can decrease stress in adults13. Our data replicate these findings and provide insight into how these in-service K12 teachers experienced mindfulness practice and its application to their careers as teaching professionals. Mindfulness holds power for helping teachers and learners because it can “enhance and support self-knowledge, self-regulation, and the freedom to co-create with others’ internal states and interpersonal relationships that are coherent and emotionally regulated”14. It is our hope that mindfulness and other contemplative practices will continue to become integrated into standard teacher-training curricula.

References Bai, Heesoon, Charles Scott, and B Donald. "Contemplative Pedagogy and Revitalization of Teacher Education." In Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55, no. 3 (2009): 319-34. Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. "State Standards for Social and Emotional Learning." CASEL. Accessed: http://www.casel.org/state-standards-for-social-and-emotionallearning/. Glaser, Barney G, and Anselm L Strauss. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. London, England: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1967. Greene, Maxine. Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 11

Jennings, ibid., 25. For example, see B. K. Hölzel et al., "How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action from a Conceptual and Neural Perspective," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, no. 6 (2011). 13 M.T. Marcus et al., "Change in Stress Levels Following Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a Therapeutic Community," Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment 2, no. 68 (2003); Y.Y Tang et al., "Short-Term Meditation Training Improves Attention and Self-Regulation" (paper presented at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 11th October, 2007). 14 Heesoon Bai, Charles Scott, and B. Donald, "Contemplative Pedagogy and Revitalization of Teacher Education," Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55, no. 3 (2009), 332. 12

‘Wide-Awakeness’ in the Classroom

19

Hargreaves, A. "The Emotional Practice of Teaching." In Teaching and Teacher Education 14 (1998): 835-54. Hölzel, B. K., S. W. Lazar, T. Gard, Z. Schuman-Olivier, D. R. Vago, and U. Ott. "How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action from a Conceptual and Neural Perspective." In Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, no. 6 (2011): 537-59. Jennings, Patricia A. Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2015. Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York, New York: Delacorte, 1990. —. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. 10th-anniversary ed. New York, New York: Hyperion, 2005. Marcus, M.T., M. Fine, G. Moeller, M.M. Khan, K. Pitts, P.R. Swank, and P. Liehr. "Change in Stress Levels Following Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a Therapeutic Community." In Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment 2, no. 68 (2003): 63-68. Meiklejohn, John, Catherine Phillips, M. Lee Feedman, Gina Biegel, Andy Roach, Jenny Frank, Mary. Lee Griffin, et al. "Integrating Mindfulness Training into K-12 Education: Fostering the Resilience of Teachers and Students." In Mindfulness 3, no. 4 (December, 2012): 291-307. Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. 2nd [10th anniversary] ed. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2007. 1998. Poulin, Patricia A., Corey S. Mackenzie, Geoff Soloway, and Eric Karayolas. "Mindfulness Training as an Evidenced-Based Approach to Reducing Stress and Promoting Well-Being Among Human Services Professionals." In International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 46, no. 2 (2008): 72-80. Tang, Y.Y., Y. Ma, J. Wang, Y. Fan, S. Feng, Q. Lu, and M.I. Posner. "Short-Term Meditation Training Improves Attention and SelfRegulation." Paper presented at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 11th October, 2007. Zernike, K. "Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools." In The New York Times (24th October, 2015). Accessed: http://www.nytimes.com.

Teachers m must strive for wide-awakeness w s in order to devvelop the skillss necessary foor their studentss to also engagee in the world w with a sense of awareness. a

CHAPTER TWO USING INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO DEVELOP THE ART OF NOTICING DEEPLY SAMANTHA GOSS

The art department that I worked in was reduced to accommodate the perceived need for more time on reading and mathematics. At the time, this was a common occurrence among my local art teaching community. Failing test scores, student progress as part of teacher evaluations, and the approach of Common Core, the move was disappointing, but not surprising. Having a background in literacy and the arts, I knew that many of the skills I was teaching to, and requiring from the students were linked and accessible from the verbal and the visual. The current testing climate in the US requires subjects to remain in their neat little boxes, which also allows them to claim ownership of certain skills and knowledge. This position denies students the opportunity to see how information interacts and develops deeper levels of connectedness. In this chapter, I wish to discuss the importance of interdisciplinary work, specifically art and literacy, in strengthening students’ ability to notice deeply and more critically engage in their worlds. I will focus on the relationship between art and literacy because I see and experience the strongest connection between them. I believe there are similarities between many of the subjects taught in school that should be explored by teachers and researchers who feel more drawn to those subjects. Another reason to focus on art and literacy is the current climate of education. Literacy has, and will maintain, an important place in public education; however, art suffers from the ebb and flow of educational trends. I believe literacy teachers can be great friends to the arts, and art teachers can be friends to literacy in return. We have much more in common than not, and should avoid grappling for territory. Both literacy and art value analysis, reflection, meaning making, and observations of meaning interacting. They both require a close read of their respective texts and an appreciation for the artistic expression. Historically, one

24

Chapter Two

remains based in the verbal and the other in the visual. However, our world is becoming increasingly intertextual and filled with multimedia, which requires skills from both subject areas, for complimentary, but different purposes. By looking at critical literacy and visual culture in particular, it is possible to see the connections in curricular approaches and values. Art and literacy embrace Greene’s desire to make students wide awake and engaged in their worlds. We have the ability to encourage students to create meaning through evidence, and to communicate the understandings of the world through similar paths. We must train our students to improve their lives through intentional actions and experiences1. Art and literacy embrace many of the same goals in their standards. They also operate within the shared space of humanities. At a time when literacy and math are most important in the American testing climate, art can remain an important component of the school day by acknowledging those shared goals. This chapter explores the connections and similarities between literacy and the visual arts specifically within standards, like Common Core, and pedagogical perspectives, like critical literacy and visual culture. Through an acknowledgement of connections between both, teachers can help students reach academic goals through visual or textual means. Both approaches allow students to develop skills in noticing deeply. By noticing deeply, students can create meaning through analysis and evidence, and they can use the information they notice to create and share their understandings of the world in the visual arts and literacy. This can be done independently in visual art or English courses, or through interdisciplinary approaches.

Literacy goals through the lens of Common Core The Common Core English Language Arts Standards2 have four areas with anchor standards. Rather than getting lost in the details of the standards within specific areas and grades, looking at the anchor standards allows us to get an overview of the goals of Common Core in terms of literacy. The anchor standards focus on skills within four categories: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language. In this chapter, I will be focusing on the anchor standards that are most pertinent for 1

Maxine Greene, Landscapes of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978). 2 Common Core State Standards Initiative, “English Language Arts Standards,” Common Core State Standards Initiative, November 25, 2015: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Develop the Art of Noticing Deeply

25

showing the connection between literacy and visual art. The ‘Reading’ standards contain one key element for making these connections. They use the term ‘text’ to refer to the items upon which to gain and practise literacy skills. I encourage my students to consider everything that can be a text and therefore approached in ways that meet the skills laid out in these standards. I suggest that a painting or a song can be a text just as much as a poem, novel, or work of non-fiction can be a text. The standards focusing on ‘Key Ideas and Details’ require students to conduct a close reading of a text in order to gain understanding of the text as a whole, the central ideas and themes, and the smaller elements or evidence that interact with and support the text as a whole. Arguably, there is a concern for how the technical aspects of a text affect meaning within the ‘Craft and Structure’ standards. Finally, the ‘Integration of Knowledge and Ideas’ standards require students to be able to use their knowledge across formats, media, and multiple texts, as well, as looking at how a final product integrates evidence, craft and structure, and format to support the meaning or argument of the text as a whole. Again, all of these skills can be used to dissect meaning of any text. The ‘Reading and Writing’ standards compliment each other. While reading focuses on the ability of students to find evidence and analyse how it is used, the ‘Writing’ standards allow students to put that knowledge to use in their own writing. The ‘Text Types and Purposes’ standards encourage students to produce a range of writing and create their arguments using sufficient evidence and effective organisation, structure, and reasoning. The ‘Production and Distribution of Writing’ standards encourage good technical writing skills and the selection of the most appropriate format and or media to support their argument. Research is also encouraged in the ‘Writing’ standards. Students should conduct research to find the best models for the kinds of writing they wish to produce. They should also do sufficient research to have the knowledge and evidence they need to make their arguments. The Writing standards push students to communicate meaning and/or argument through their writing, which should have been influenced by their analysing of highquality texts. The ‘Language Arts Anchor Standards’ also address language conventions and speaking and listening skills. While these skills connect with and are present in the visual arts standards, I do not find them to be as strong as the ‘Reading and Writing’ standards in showing the overlap of goals between literacy and visual art. The ‘Speaking and Listening’ standards require that students communicate their ideas clearly. Students should also be able to work with others through good communication skills. Finally,

26

Chapter Two

they need to “evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric” 3 . I believe this is a reiteration of the analysis conducted on written texts. If the word text can encompass all forms of produced meaning or argument, a speech could also be a text. The ‘Language’ standards connect with the importance of technical knowledge and skill, which is also seen in the ‘Craft and Structure’ standards within the ‘Writing’ standards. When looked at from a distance, the ‘Common Core Language Arts Standards’ seek to create students who can analyse texts in order to understand the meaning and produce their own meaning in similar ways through writing. The standards acknowledge the relationship between literature and writing and have an understanding of the use of the craft and technical knowledge of Standard English. Looking at, and making, art through certain mediums can be learned in very similar ways. This level of consideration to individual aspects of an argument or point of view is also an essential component in noticing deeply and attaining the kind of wideawakeness that Greene advocates.

Visual Art goals through the lens of the National Core Arts Standards The Visual Arts goals within the National Core Arts Standards focus on four main themes: Creating, Presenting, Responding, and Connecting4. Just as in the Language Arts section, I will briefly explore the anchor standards and general goals of these four themes in the Visual Arts standards before beginning to make the direct connections between both content areas’ standards and goals. The standards within the ‘Creating’ section focus on the skills and experiences need for students at various grades to be able to “generate and conceptualise artistic ideas and work [,] organise and develop artistic ideas and work [, and] refine and complete artistic work”. 5 The ‘Presenting’ section has complimentary anchor standards; “select, analyse, and interpret artistic work for presentation [,] develop and refine artistic techniques and 3

Common Core State Standards Initiative, “College and Career Readiness Standards for Speaking and Listening”, Common Core State Standards Initiative, November 25, 2015: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/SL/. 4 National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, “Visual Arts Standards,” National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, November 25, 2015: http://nationalartsstandards.org/sites/default/files/Visual%20Arts%20at%20a%20G lance%20-%20new%20copyright%20info.pdf. 5 Ibid.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Develop the Art of Noticing Deeply

27

work for presentation [, and] convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work”. 6 Both of these sections focus on the skills needs for students to create works of art that present their intended meaning with clarity and skill. The ‘Responding’ section focused more on the skills that would traditionally be labelled art history, appreciation, or criticism. Students are required to "perceive and analyse artistic work [,] interpret intent and meaning in artistic work [, and] apply criteria to evaluate artistic work”.7 The information gained through this level of analysis compliments the skills required in the ‘Connecting’ section. In addition to “synthesise and relate knowledge and personal experiences to making art”,8 students will “relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical connect to deepen understanding”.9 The ‘Visual Arts Anchor Standards’ have a distinctly different feel from the Common Core ‘Language Arts Anchor Standards’, but there are some shared goals and approaches to learning that exist within both. These standards do not address noticing deeply for a moral life, but they do develop the thinking and noticing skills to notice deeply and remain wide awake in the world.

Shared goals in visual arts and literacy based on standards In this chapter, I will use the term ‘text’ to refer to literary works and visual works. Both disciplines, literacy and visual art, are requiring students to analyse and produce texts that reflect their understanding built on analysis of other texts and a grasp of the technical skills associated with each discipline. The way the standards are written differ in each discipline, but the goals are the same. Therefore similar skills should be taught in both classes, and there is an opportunity to allow students to gain access to and share their knowledge in different ways. The ‘Reading’ anchor standards relate to the visual art sections of ‘Responding and Connecting’. The ‘Language Arts’ anchor standards are much more specific in how students should be able to analyse and find evidence in texts to determine the overall meaning or themes. This requires a close reading of the text. In the way that students go through a poem line by line considering word choice, the placement of words, and 6

Ibid. Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 7

28

Chapter Two

the pace of the language, a visual work of art can be analysed similarly. Word choice can have the same emotional impact as colour choice. Placement of words in a poem reflects the choices students make about composition in visual works. Movement exists in visuals and words. Students can use these components of texts to think about how meaning is successfully communicated through a close reading of words or visuals. The Visual Arts ‘Creating and Presenting’ sections connect with the ‘Language Arts Writing Anchor Standards’ in the curriculum documents. Both sets of standards want students to use the knowledge they should have gained from analysis and observation to produce texts that reflect what they have learned to share their own meaning. Literacy and visual arts courses both deal with meaning. Sometimes students are deciphering the meaning of others, and sometimes they are creating their own. Both disciplines require an exchange to knowledge from observation and implementation. Additionally, both sides benefit from the constant practice of observation and implementation until students have a wide repertoire to reference when producing.

Other ways to develop noticing deeply in the literacy and visual arts It is important to analyse how the standards in both fields mirror each other. Standards are important for supporting what teachers teach. In addition to standards, there are two perspectives or approaches to teaching in each discipline that supports Greene’s push for wide-awakeness. Critical literacy and visual culture both mirror the level of analysis of our present world and using their knowledge when we put our own meaning out into the world. Along with standards, both approaches (or perspectives) could be used to push students’ development in the way Greene is advocating. Ira Shor states: […] critical literacy is language use that questions the social construction of the self. When we are critically literate, we examine our ongoing development, to reveal the subjective positions from which we make sense of the world and act in it.10

Approaching literacy instruction with a critical edge inherently fosters 10

Ira Shor, “What is Critical Literacy?,” The Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice 1, issue 4 (1999). November 25, 2015: http://www.lesley.edu/journalpedagogy-pluralism-practice/ira-shor/critical-literacy/.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Develop the Art of Noticing Deeply

29

the kind of engagement with our world that prevents us from accepting everything as a given. Educators who want to foster a level of criticality along with wide-awakeness would benefit from embracing critical literacy in their curricular and pedagogical choices. A visual culture approach to art education allows for teachers and students to bring the popular culture into the classroom with more traditional art history. There is also a sense of criticality in most visual culture classrooms. For example, visual culture allows advertising in print or video to become the focus of an art lesson. Students can analyse how something is advertised in order to gain knowledge of how the marketing department has profiled their target audience. What does it say that certain products are marketed towards certain groups and not others? In order to be knowledgeable consumers, students must be critical and reflective of themselves. Greene speaks about making more choices between good and good, in terms of moral actions.11Choices in moral actions are typically not choices between good and bad. There is a similarity here to choices made as consumers. When it comes to advertising and consumers, frequently criticality will not change the fact that a student wants to be something, but they will do so with knowledge. They will make the best choice (between different goods) for themselves with an appropriate amount of facts. Despite advertising and the impact on consumers, criticality will not change the fact that a student wants something, but they will do so with more knowledge. They will make the best choice possible for themselves with an appropriate amount of facts. Questioning our world through different texts and with different levels of criticality was already occurring in both disciplines prior to the release of these more contemporary standards. Coupled with the new standards, literacy and the visual arts are places where Greene's conception of wideawakeness can be fostered in students while meeting the current expectations of those courses.

A teaching anecdote Before the new standards, but once I had knowledge of critical literacy and visual culture, I was teaching an introductory art course to a mixed age class of high school students. This position caused me to engage in a large amount of self-reflection and re-evaluation of my worldview. I was experiencing a high school that felt very much like a foreign country to 11

Maxine Greene, Landscapes of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978), 48.

30

Chapter Two

me. I had grown up in my almost completely white bubble and was now teaching in a predominantly black school. I didn’t speak the language or have any shared sense of culture. I spent a significant amount of time just observing and trying to get some understanding of my students’ worlds. Once I had the slightest grasp, I was able to begin looking at myself in this context and my confusion about getting older. I asked stupid questions to my students, who luckily sensed my sincerity and were always eager to explain their context. They asked questions back, and we found a space to question our assumptions and what we have accepted as a given in the world. Some of the fashion choices of my era were cropping up in my classroom. I was interpreting these visual cues with my background knowledge and not observing them more carefully in this new context. I also realised my students had no idea of the meanings that countless generations before them could ascribe to their style. I compiled a presentation that would illustrate my confusion for them and hopefully help them engage in some self-reflection. I focused on two male fashion trends – skinny jeans and bow-ties. Many of my students loved these two items and embraced an urban nerdy style that year. I knew these fashion choices had been appropriated time and time again, but all I could see was the flashbacks of my high school experience. I was a self-identified “Emo” (a stylised rock band) kid. I embraced reading and big words along with my highly emotional music focused on heartbreak and unrequited love. I was Emo before it was merged with cultural movements like scene kids or Goths. In skinny jeans, I saw all my favourite bands from that time. In bow-ties, I regarded the character Urkel from Family Matters as an icon of my youth. My students knew nothing about either of these things. I began the class by asking if any of them had any idea of the popular culture movement that had embraced skinny jeans. There was silence. Obviously, their generation had invented this trend. I began class by showing them the example of the fashion in their current context followed by pictures of all the bands I had seen at least ten times. We spent a significant chunk of time talking about how trends merge and change over time. We had this discussion to clarify why the same term, “emo”, had such different meanings for us. After this clarification, I made the point that skinny jeans were also a staple of many 80's Metal bands. I asked them to let that sink in as I made a final point. I pulled up images of the contemporary use of bow-ties and then flashed to an image of Urkel. I explained to my students that I could see no way that the stylist in charge of their favourite performers would not have thought of Urkel when putting them in skinny jeans, bow-ties, and suspenders. I felt there was an

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Develop the Art of Noticing Deeply

31

important cultural reference being made that they were not seeing. As they sat in contemplative silence, I moved on. I spoke to them about semiotics and how our fashion choices can work as signs to communicate information. This exercise was intended to get students thinking about why they should be more observant and reflective of their visual world, or notice more deeply the world around them. We talked about how I had a different meaning assigned to skinny jeans that they did. For this exercise, I wanted them to think about what they are trying to communicate through their fashion choices, but to confront what other people might see instead. They could still make their choices; I just wanted them to understand that those choices could be interpreted in many different ways. They began by sketching out their ideal or typical outfit. I asked them to label what they wanted each piece to communicate about themselves. It was amazing to hear the honest conversations friends and acquaintances shared with each other about what they were putting into the world based on their fashion choices. We only did this as a one-day activity, but I have been lucky enough to hear many students recall that day when reminiscing about high school.

The importance of noticing deeply Maxine Greene stresses the importance of developing critical questioning in students and the importance of “connection between wideawakeness, cognitive clarity, and existential concern”. 12 My anecdote provides a snapshot into a moment where I wanted to develop a greater sense of awareness in an aspect of my students’ everyday lives. I wanted them to have more cognitive clarity in terms of their choices and how they express themselves in the world. By noticing deeply, students can create meaning through analysis and evidence, and they can use the information they notice to create and share their understandings of the world in the visual arts and literacy. We now have standards in the visual arts and literacy that support those kinds of learning. We can push students to notice deeply by practising this level of awareness and consideration through the use of poems, fiction, memoirs, paintings, sculptures, and prints. Training students in these skills and applying them to every form of meaning-making they engage in is a large task, but teachers have the support of standards and well- known curricular and pedagogical approaches to do so. Through this knowledge, students can achieve goals 12

Maxine Greene, Landscapes of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978), 48.

32

Chapter Two

larger than those captured in a standardised test. “They are not only creating value for themselves, they are creating themselves; they are moving towards more significant, more understanding lives.”13

References Common Core State Standards Initiative. “English Language Arts Standards” In Common Core State Standards Initiative. Accessed: November 25, 2015: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/ —. “College and Career Readiness Standards for Speaking and Listening.” In Common Core State Standards Initiative. Accessed: November 25, 2015: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/SL/. Greene, Maxine. Landscapes of Learning. New York: Teachers College Press, 1978. National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. “Visual Arts Standards.” In National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. Accessed: November 25, 2015: http://nationalartsstandards.org/sites/default/files/Visual Arts at a Glance - new copyright info.pdf Shor, Ira. "What is Critical Literacy?" In The Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice 1, issue 4 (1999). Accessed: November 25, 2015: http://www.lesley.edu/journal-pedagogy-pluralism-practice/irashor/critical-literacy/ .

13

Maxine Greene, Landscapes of Learning (New York: Teachers College Press, 1978), 49.

We begin without certainty, and embrace e it.

CHAPTER THREE PRACTISING MYS-PEDAGOGY1 LOCHRAN FALLON

Beyond seeing It may be assumed that when a teacher enters the education profession in America, they will be given classes to teach within a systematic institution, governed by state mandates of education and enforced through levels of administration, laws, and funding. This teacher will be a member of a department, which will have in place a curriculum that is aligned with standards. Materials may be provided for the specific areas of knowledge and works that the teacher is expected to teach about. The school that the teacher teaches for will most likely administer standardised tests. This has been true for my own teaching experience, as well as teachers I've known. A teacher cannot be prevented from practising mys-pedagogy within this environment and its institutional structures, though the strictest supervision, scripting, and constraints will probably make it exceedingly difficult. I would encourage any teacher under such a system exhibiting this type of extreme disciplinary micro-managing style to leave immediately, or preferably, never take a position at such an institution in the first place—it is sure to either crumble under the inverse backlash of its own resistance or become more quickly distinguished by its disconnect 1

This chapter will utilise a working (meta) theoretical framework and perspective we call “mys-theory.” “Mys-recognition,” “ambiguity,” “coherence,” “semiactuality,” “recognition,” “inversion,” the “visibility project” and other variations of “mys-” are all terms and concepts that will be used in the following pages that we have constructed and conceived as part of this framework, theory, and perspective. While some of these terms are used by other scholars or possess existing definitions of their own, it should not be assumed that they are borrowed directly from other theoretical frameworks, nor that standard definitions of these terms apply here. Likewise, sources are cited in the following pages for their inspiration and related concepts, but these concepts may be applied in alternative ways herein.

36

Chapter Three

with changing sociocultural conditions. If one is teaching in an institution that is becoming one of these places, one will perform resistance to this becoming simply by practising mys-pedagogy, though it will not be of a visibly revolutionary nature. It would be reasonable to assume that such resistance, recognisable by techniques we're about to describe, will be accounted for and dealt with by an administration and institution hostile to a mys-pedagogical approach. This thinking is representative of the visibility project, which demands that such techniques be put into recognisable, defined forms, capable of being mass produced and disseminated to teachers in a nice little package with the marketing to accompany it. This paper is not about that which is recognisable. How then will any teacher know if they're performing mys-pedagogy for certain, then? They won't, but neither will the people attempting to recognise it when they see it. If this feels like an affront to disciplinary practices and capability enforced by recognition and visibility 2 , that’s because it is. To properly begin, we must banish the notion that we must act by recognition. A mys-teacher mys-teaches, mys-recognizes, and mysunderstands; their mys-pedagogy is bound up in an onto-epistemology that transforms precision, clarity, replication, accuracy, and recognition into ambiguity, semi-actuality, coherence, inversion, and mys-recognition. This transformation itself is only mys-recognizable. A mys-teacher is quite comfortable in the environment we set forth at the beginning of this section and will be properly mys-recognized in such an environment. Similarly, the practices and pedagogy outlined in the following pages will make it difficult for those who would deter her from her mys-practice to succeed. If you were hoping for a conventionally accurate understanding of mys-pedagogy, look elsewhere. We offer only mys-recognition and mys-understanding here. We begin without certainty and embrace it. It is easier for those of us growing up in a society that prizes speaking with authority to listen without certainty than to speak without it. We are more likely to begin with listening that is not just listening as usual, but emergent listening that requires no recognisable identity 3 . We listen knowing the signal we receive is always somehow unclear, facilitating our mys-hearing. I begin class with an implicit mys-understanding of my students and my role in 2

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Kindle ed. (New York, New York: Pantheon Books: Random House, 2012). 3 Bronwyn Davies. Listening to Children: Being and Becoming, Kindle ed. (New York, New York: Routledge, 2014).

Practising Mys-Pedagogy

37

this course, but I am not anxious, for I know we will discover our journey together, wherever it takes us. New teachers are unsurprisingly better equipped for this than veteran teachers and others who have come to depend on certainty and recognition for their positions, roles, and identities. New teachers are, by virtue of a lack of experience, more predisposed to admitting that they are developing their bearings 4 and recognitions than someone who has had more experience, and feels a sense of mastery in the profession. We may not even begin with a question, for a question itself is an intervention, a speaking. While we are inextricably and already intra-actively part of the phenomenon5 of the classroom, we know that if our pedagogy is one of mys-recognition, it must be open to surprising possibilities sitting right before our eyes and potential paths hidden among those we might preconceive. 6 And so, we listen to our students. We listen to what is running through their minds, what worries, anxieties, excitements and matters matter to them. Asking for such things to be recognisably identified may not even be necessary if we simply let them emerge on their own. On my first encounter with a class, sometimes they are already talking, so I listen. A conversation is already in progress—lives are always already happening7—and I have be-come entangled in these lives, allowing them to diffractively co-re-construct my mys-be-ing. Recognition isn't important right now; listening is shaping my pedagogy at this moment, even as I am present in this phenomenon; shaping questions that may become recognisably "essential." I want to hear more, and so I ask, "What's on your minds right now? What are your concerns? What are you worried about? What can I try to answer for you?" It has not even been ten minutes and already they are guiding our inquiry, our classroom. My texts are their worries, my materials are their concerns, my topics are their conversations, and my essential questions come from their mouths. This is recognition of what is already mys4

Suresh A. Canagarajah, "Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment," Research in the Teaching of English 48, no. 1 (2013). 5 Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Kindle ed. (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007). 6 Bronwyn Davies. Listening to Children: Being and Becoming, Kindle ed. (New York, New York: Routledge, 2014). 7 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

38

Chapter Three

recognized: this class, my students, and myself. Yet, through this mysrecognition, an intra-active conversation, a curriculum, and a place of learning begin to emerge. Where are the texts, the calendar, the syllabus, you might ask? They’re all right here, of course. Putting them all down, all together at the beginning isn’t necessary, and isn’t even true, even when they’re all down on paper, so to speak. We know they will change, even if they don’t change; like a play. The lines are the same, the texts, the materials, the course could all be the same, but we know it will all be different with each performance.8 This is the pedagogy of mys-recognition. We take what we have, this course we share, and negotiate the meanings we find in our texts,9 because only then can we honestly suggest that the text is ours to (de)(re)construct,10 together. I am not interested in preserving a meaning, in transferring a legacy, or passing on knowledge intact with careful hands to those before me. This isn’t carelessness; it’s mys-recognition—I couldn’t tell you precisely, certainly, what was in my hands even if you defined it for me, because this class isn’t just about what you and I recognize, what you and I know, what we plan to teach, or where we plan to go. New teachers especially face a host of uncertainties before they even enter the classroom. They don’t know what kind of teacher they will be, and many of them fear the worst. They have no recognition of their teaching capabilities, often, that gives them any confidence about what they can do in the classroom. They certainly aren’t given to considering themselves experts or masters of pedagogy. Yet, uncertainty lives (and thrives) within pedagogy of mysrecognition. We let go of our control, our mastery, our certainty—of the texts, of the course, of the materials, of the students, and of ourselves. We dismiss “cultural myths” of education that insist upon these things 11 as absurd, confining, and inflexible. Even by simply listening to my students, I am acknowledging and performing mys-recognition; I am acknowledging 8

Bob Fecho, Is This English?: Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom (New York, New York: Teachers College Press, 2004). 9 Suresh A. Canagarajah, "Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment," Research in the Teaching of English 48, no. 1 (2013). 10 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Translator's Preface," Of Grammatology, ed. Jacques Derrida (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 11 J. Kay Fenimore-Smith, "Democratic Practices and Dialogic Frameworks: Efforts toward Transcending the Cultural Myths of Teaching," Journal of Teacher Education 55, no. 3 (2004); Deborah P Britzman, Practice Makes Practice (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2003).

Practising Mys-Pedagogy

39

the limits of my knowledge, understanding, and capability in order to expand the field of possibilities, potential, and capabilities beyond myself. My students are mys-recognized, so they become teachers. My be-ing is mys-recognised so that I become the learner. My classroom is mysrecognized so that it is our co-constructed experience, an experience that diffractively (co)(de)(re)constructs our be-comings and be-ings beyond recognition, beyond limits of understanding, knowledge, and capability, into the potential field of possibilities we may call our mys-be-comings— education by mys-recognition. We are not alone in eschewing authority, recognizability, and certainty in our pedagogy. Freire banishes the fear of displacement and selfpreservation of one’s role and authority in the performance of dialogue12; a practice that is aligned with a pedagogy of misrecognition. Floden and Buchmann define teaching as riddled with uncertainty and the need for a stance, a positioning, a framework, and a pedagogy that incorporates it into practice: Teaching is evidently and inevitably uncertain. No teacher can be sure how a lesson will go or exactly what a student will learn. No one can know which teaching approach will guarantee access for particular groups of students. While casual observation and systematic research indicate the importance of multiform uncertainties to the ways teachers think and feel about their work, little has been published about the stance teacher educators should take towards uncertainty.13

Again, one might ask, where do we begin, if nothing is certain? Where do we start if everything—our texts, our class, ourselves—is mysrecognized? Let us respond by utilising concepts that are defined, such as Vygotsky's scientific concepts: In contrast to Piaget's (1970) and Dewey's (1902) constructivist notions (discussed later), Vygotsky held that children should not and cannot be required to understand the world by way of a rediscovery of the principle explanatory laws already discovered by humankind. The development of human children is so special, in large part, because adults teach them these laws. That is why, according to Vygotsky, the acquisition of scientific

12

Rick Bowers, "Freire (with Bakhtin) and the Dialogic Classroom Seminar," Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 51, no. 4 (2005). 13 Robert E. Floden and Margaret Buchmann, "Between Routines and Anarchy: Preparing Teachers for Uncertainty," Oxford Review of Education 19, no. 3 (1993).

40

Chapter Three concepts should arise from their presentation to school students in the form of precise verbal definitions.14

Let us suppose that such definitions are passed to us by the curriculum, materials, and institutions we teach in; let us suppose further that we are required to teach these precise definitions, these particular texts, and align ourselves with state-approved and mandated standards. Fair enough, we say; now that our defined concepts, texts, symbols, lessons, standards, curriculum are laid bare before us, the work of mys-recognizing them can begin. The definitions instantly become subject to participatory deconstructing inquiry by our students, and ourselves who ask if the term and its attendant definition means this or that, just as Derrida is want to do15. If we are willing to (re)consider, to mys-recognize our understanding of these texts, these definitions, then we face not just the spectre of mys-recognition, but we are compelled, in the moment, to achieve (re)cognition again,16 not just for ourselves, but our students. If we further remove the possibility for precise recognition, in favour of mys-recognition, we need not pursue a cyclical occurrence of simulacra; the Real and Symbolic17 have be-come mys-recognizable. “But what of correctness?” you contend. I have yet to encounter a single mathematical problem, scientific principle, or literary text that is so limited to one particular, authoritative understanding. Even Karpov affirms that while both are important to learning, “neither the acquisition of scientific concepts nor the mastery of procedural knowledge in itself should be viewed as the desirable outcome of school instruction.” 18 Instead, we invest those who teach/learn with us with the same teacher/learner mys-being we become in intra-active, diffractive participation within the classroom. As a result, our students are invested with mys-recognition of knowledge, authority, and understanding; they 14

Youriy V. Karpov et al., "Vygotsky's Doctrine of Scientific Concepts," in Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural Context, ed. Alex Kozulin (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 15 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Translator's Preface," Of Grammatology, ed. Jacques Derrida (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 16 Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 17 Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. Bruce Fink, Heloise Fink, and Russell Grigg (New York, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006). 18 "Vygotsky's Doctrine of Scientific Concepts."

Practising Mys-Pedagogy

41

become theoretical practitioners, able to explain the “why” behind their ways of understanding and doing; able to speak with authority and depth about their perspectives; able to sustain and incorporate mysunderstanding and mys-recognition into their be-ings and be-comings when their positions are threatened or thrown into question by others. Ours is a shared responsibility. It is not an “all or nothing” relationship. Our be-ings are more and less, and we perform accordingly. Ours is a fluctuating field of mys-practice and being, so it goes with our pedagogy. To some, we may appear to value process over product, but the truth is, we mys-perform, finding ourselves in the middle of a shifting process19 where we couldn't quite tell you what "mastery" is or where to look for it—our mastery is a mystery, and we like it that way. We see struggle as success; we are always shaking on the inside, even if it seems we speak with grace—your mys-recognition is welcome, but we know those scores will never tell the whole story. So we admit that we do not know, and we let them see us struggle.20 Together, we decide what the rubric will mean, what it will look like;21 all of us acknowledging in this process that none of us completely agree, or recognize everything, or share what recognitions we may have, but we all have some skin in the game22 where divisions between those who teach and those who learn are crossed and blurred. This is a place where lines and limitations we were told existed become as mist that we pass through together. Just as the laser possesses focus, we may identify genres, categories, subjects, and disciplines, while acknowledging that these are all mysrecognitions, subject to bleeding, traversing, transgressing messiness. 23 Yet, the laser, like the fractal,24 does not ever need to exceed its finiteness to possess a potentially limitless potential, like a category of evaluation on a rubric, such as "ideas," "organisation," or "voice".25 A lesson plan with 19

Canagarajah, "Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment." Kelly Gallagher, Teaching Adolescent Writers, Kindle ed. (Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 2006). 21 Ibid. 22 James Paul Gee, "Identity, Discourse, and Paradox in Learning to Write," in 2014 Maryland Conference on Academic and Professional Writing (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, 2014). 23 Jasbir K. Puar, "Queer Times, Queer Assemblages," Social Text 23, no. 3-4 (2005). 24 James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, Kindle ed. (New York, New York: Viking Press: Penguin Books, 2011). 25 Education Northwest, "6+1 Traits® Condensed 5-Point 3-12 Writer's Rubric Aka One Pager," Education Northwest. 20

42

Chapter Three

one focus, through mys-recognition, attains a manifold of shared recognitions that shade into a common mys-understanding that simultaneously reaches everyone, while remaining distinctly personal to each particular participant. So it is that we may come together, without coming together; may agree on an understanding, a meaning, a message, without claiming identically shared recognitions, or revealing differences in our own perceptions. Like jazz musicians, we come together for a common purpose, to play at a particular place, a particular time. Like actors who are improvising, we share the spirit of what we are here to do, without automating and eliminating our distinctive differences and our potential for mysperforming through improvisation. As teachers, we welcome surprising productions, performances, responses and inquiries from our students, because together, we’re here to learn and teach each other; to play off each other. Like an orchestra or a symphony, we are all diffractively affecting one another, even as we play together, in our variety of differences in skill, aspirations, and motivations. Like a basketball team, we don’t need to wait for a hierarchical command structure to direct us from the top down; we are a mys-assemblage, mys-be-coming in our mys-be-ings towards each other, mys-recognizing our shared understandings and common purpose to produce a harmony of discordance that could not be planned out and predicted even if we even wanted to try. When those who cling to the rocks of rigidity, certainty, and definition holler at us in the tumultuous spray and howling winds of our tempestuous work, “How does it all work out?” we smile and holler back, “We don’t know; it’s a mystery!”26 We revel in a classroom in crisis. To those who grasp for solid ground, sick with the turbulence to which we are accustomed, who insist upon some order, understanding, recognition that must be preserved, we say “there are only teachable moments here.”27 We do not flail, we feel the water. We feel no more anxiety about drowning than the surfer confidently riding a wave larger and more powerful than she ever will be. We forsake a measure of control to achieve an equilibrium, a harmony of motion that moves with our learning and circumstances. Our mastery is one of honour and respect for the agency of our students, the insights and understandings they can reveal to us that we know nought of. They bring the momentum, and they react to our own, and together, we diffractively, agentially perform our pedagogy. http://educationnorthwest.org/sites/default/files/5-pointwriters-rubric.pdf. 26 John Madden, "Shakespeare in Love," (Miramax, 1998). 27 Charles Garoian, Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics (Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1999).

Practising Mys-Pedagogy

43

From our limits come opportunity; from our lack of control, responsibility; from our vulnerability, safety; from our humility, respect. We cannot be everything to our students. We cannot even be certain who or what we are, or will be to them. We acknowledge that our understandings, our learning, our experiences are limited. We show them that we write badly, that we know of only one way to work the problem, that we are unfamiliar with the technology. But instead of retreating, instead of confining them to what we know, to what we can control and understand, to that domain of learning over which we might proclaim authority, we request that they show us, teach us, explain to us, and have patience with us, as we become the learner once more with them. We show them by this, by our limitations, that we truly believe they are empowered, capable, and deserving of respect in ways we cannot even begin to anticipate, and that they may not even realise. We invite them to share with us under a banner of mutual trust, their opinions, their perspectives, which may indeed unsettle and rock our own. When they have another way, a path of which we are uncertain, we say, “Lead on.” We say this because we are not concerned with self-preservation and defence. We are not concerned with failure, nor are we concerned with getting things correct. We are doing28 and playing.29 If we are lost, we are not worried, for we are someplace new. This is the power of practicing mys-recognition; we do not fear the blurring our recognitions, the transbecoming of that which, on the surface appears to be the same; we do not worry ourselves that the next time we look at a text, at a lesson plan, at ourselves, we will not see the same person—or that we can only mysrecognize ourselves in the mirror! We accept it; we rejoice in it. We are no longer trapped 30 by visibility and representation, either of our courses, materials, roles, or ourselves. Our mys-understanding is just enough to hold onto today while being flexible enough to be something different tomorrow, because what we need tomorrow is not what we need today. Let us mys-understand Shakespeare then, and share, perform, and (re)mysrecognize him again tomorrow, so that, from across impossible distances and differences in space, time and culture, we may understand, without 28

Allan Kaprow, "Just Doing," in The Performance Studies Reader, ed. Henry Bial (New York, New York: Routledge, 2007). 29 Brian Sutton-Smith, "The Ambiguity of Play: Rhetorics of Fate," ibid. 30 Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (New York, New York: Routledge, 2003); Jacques Lacan, Erratum of the Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, ed. Maranda Michael (Toronto, Ontario: Parasitic Ventures Press, 2015).

44

Chapter Three

understanding completely. Our practices of ambiguity are ripe soil for growth, rich with decomposition, wrought with fires, floods, storms and lava, and when the climate turns, so shall we, so that we are ever mysbecoming in practice. When we can no longer recognise the limits of our understandings and ourselves, and when we can no longer recognise our boundaries, the blurry fields of potential and possibility will await our participation.

References Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Kindle ed. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007. Bowers, Rick. "Freire (with Bakhtin) and the Dialogic Classroom Seminar." In Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 51, no. 4 (2005): 375. Britzman, Deborah P. Practice Makes Practice Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2003. Canagarajah, Suresh A. "Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment." In Research in the Teaching of English 48, no. 1 (2013): 64. Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri. "Translator's Preface." Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. In Of Grammatology, edited by Jacques Derrida, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, lxxiv. Davies, Bronwyn. Listening to Children: Being and Becoming. Kindle ed. New York, New York: Routledge, 2014. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Education Northwest. "6+1 Traits® Condensed 5-Point 3-12 Writer’s Rubric Aka One Pager." Education Northwest. Accessed: http://educationnorthwest.org/sites/default/files/5-pointwritersrubric.pdf. Fecho, Bob. Is This English?: Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom. New York, New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. Fenimore-Smith, J. Kay. "Democratic Practices and Dialogic Frameworks: Efforts toward Transcending the Cultural Myths of Teaching." In Journal of Teacher Education 55, no. 3 (2004): 228.

Practising Mys-Pedagogy

45

Floden, Robert E., and Margret Buchmann. "Between Routines and Anarchy: Preparing Teachers for Uncertainty." In Oxford Review of Education 19, no. 3 (1993): 373. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Kindle ed. New York, New York: Pantheon Books: Random House, 2012. Gallagher, Kelly. Teaching Adolescent Writers. Kindle ed. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 2006. Garoian, Charles. Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics. Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1999. Gee, James Paul. "Identity, Discourse, and Paradox in Learning to Write." In 2014 Maryland Conference on Academic and Professional Writing. College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, 2014. Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Kindle ed. New York, New York: Viking Press: Penguin Books, 2011. Kaprow, Allan. "Just Doing." In The Performance Studies Reader, edited by Henry Bial. New York, New York: Routledge, 2007. Karpov, Yuriy V., Boris Gindis, Vladimir S. Ageyev, and Suzanne M Miller. "Vygotsky's Doctrine of Scientific Concepts." Chap. 3 In Vygotsky's Educational Theory in Cultural Context, edited by Alex Kozulin, 66. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Translated by Bruce Fink, Heloise Fink and Russell Grigg. New York, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006. —. Erratum of the Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. Edited by Maranda Michael Toronto, Ontario: Parasitic Ventures Press, 2015. Madden, John. "Shakespeare in Love." 2h 17m: Miramax, 1998. Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York, New York: Routledge, 2003. Puar, Jasbir K. "Queer Times, Queer Assemblages." In Social Text 23, no. 3-4 (2005). Sutton-Smith, Brian. "The Ambiguity of Play: Rhetorics of Fate." In The Performance Studies Reader, edited by Henry Bial. New York, New York: Routledge, 2007.

Becoming more m mindful is like upgrading the number of ccolours in our crrayon box.

CHAPTER FOUR FREE TO LEARN MORE DEEPLY NICOLE C. FISHER

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” —Albert Einstein

Paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental and compassionate way is a simple concept with complex intricacies inherent in what mindfulness brings to our renewed view of the world. As such, the art of noticing deeply to foster a wide-awakening in teaching and learning environments nudges us forward both as individuals and as compassionate guides. When we learn to see more deeply, we live differently, talk differently, and teach differently. Though it is common for the focus to be placed primarily on student achievement, to forget the well-being of the teacher is to diminish the overall potential available to influence the learning. While we have recently been keenly focused on keeping the brain active and task-oriented with curriculum agendas, growing evidence suggests that brain connections also benefit from gap allowances to create the magic of synchronicity, innovative solutions, and arguably a deeper learning connection. The classroom is its own ecosystem, which is intricately connected with the school and the community. Our mindfulness to stress levels helps to shape how we update our perspectives on listening more deeply to the messages of our daily life. In this light, how we as teachers spend our time is just as important as how we define and value the learning environment for students. Freedom comes from not overloading ourselves unnecessarily—physically, mentally, environmentally —so we can start noticing the deeper patterns of interconnectedness in our lives. As we develop our mindfulness, what we pay attention to changes, as does the resonance of our presence.

50

Chapter Four

Up-grading cognitive understanding Our understanding of the world around us and within us is changing with every day that passes. Discoveries in our era are both expanding and sometimes negating what was previously accepted as the norm. The mindfulness movement has perhaps recalibrated our focus to more consciously recapture what was once taken for granted and then later lost to the high-stress demands of progress. As quantum technology advances, our understanding of the interconnectedness of life shifts, and we think differently about what is possible and what we believe to be true. When rigid, automated processes dominate, we may ignore how original logic has become illogical. An example of this comes from earlier in Dr Deepak Chopra's medical career when he overheard the comment, "Mr Smith, would you please wake up, I need to give you your sleeping pill,”1. He uses it to show how “mindlessness” can fly below our radar of awareness. In the past, the Cartesian model shaped our thinking and way of doing business where we delved deeply into the mechanistic study of parts to the point of disregarding their connection to the whole—in the environment, in the study of the human body, and in education. Today we witness the birth of new fields of science like “epigenetics” which confirms how our perceptions and environment shape our biology at the level of our DNA, “neuroplasticity” where our brain circuits have flexible wiring to shape our learning at any age, and “heart-mind coherence” where the heart and brain are synchronizing information on a much deeper level than previously thought for “optimal efficiency”2 with order and harmony. These concepts merely touch the surface of a paradigm shift in our understanding, which ultimately will shape our learning environments, expectations, and marketplace values anew.

Freeing the mind for cognitive health and well-being When considering what it means to minimise stress or respond to stressful situations, it’s important to experience what lightening the unnecessary load feels like in the tasks we do. Perhaps you remember the 1

Deepak Chopra, "Goldie Hawn & Deepak Chopra (Interview)," (Youtube, 2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_EPcWBYZQ . 2 Harold Reich, “A Qualitative Study of Heart-Mind Coherence Techniques for Stress Relief and Mental and Emotional Self-management,” 52-53. PhD diss. California Institute of Integral Studies, 2009. https://www.heartmath.org/assets/uploads/2015/01/qualitative-study-of-heartmind-coherence-techniques.pdf.

Free To Learn More Deeply

51

first time you tried carrying a heavy piece of lumber across the backyard. With a lot of stressful back strain, manoeuvring was tiring and awkward at best until you discovered the magical difference made by finding the midpoint of the board. You may have even marvelled at how flexible and empowered you felt simply by making a few adjustments to your position or view of how the task was to be done – the fact remains that the heavy board was still a heavy board. “Look[ing] deep[ly] into nature, and […] understand[ing] everything better” with regards to how our physical body reacts is necessary. Some stress is inevitable, so too is gravity, but it does not have to wear us down. The expression, “to have your head on straight,” not only refers to our ability to think effectively, but it literally highlights the way our head sits on the atlas bone at the very top of the spine, ideally in effortless balance. Here is a little secret: while the body is bound by gravity with every step we take, we are naturally designed with ‘tensegrity engineering’, which means that our joints are balanced to work as a cushion instead of contracting together like the pounding of a hammer. So rather than pound away at our day, how do we become more free to create and respond? Mindfulness research helps us rewire our perspectives for healthier choices and our ability to hone in on more important tasks without expending unnecessary cognitive energy. Neuroscientist, Elena Antonova, states that “mindfulness brings the best of both worlds: the alertness of the central nervous system without the anxiety, and the calm relaxation and pleasantness of the parasympathetic nervous system without the drowsiness.” 3 Previously, many administrators and educators put an emphasis on how many areas of the brain light up as a result of a particular cognitive task with the assumption that “more is better.” However in “The Mindfulness Movie,” Antonova shows that this is not as idealistic as once thought. The demonstration uses a simple visual data exercise, where participants determine whether the numerical digit from one to nine viewed is an odd or even number, in order to compare efficient brain activity of novice and experienced meditators. The results reveal that brain scans of participants with little meditation or mindfulness experience have extensive areas of the brain that were "on fire" with the kind of energydraining activity Antonova calls "ego-effort" while completing the task. However, the participants with experience of mindfulness meditation have only minimal areas of absolute necessity which light up in the brain to complete the same exercise, but are in a freer “state of flow.”4 This study 3

The Mindfulness Movie, directed by Paul Harrison, AIA. (2014; Pasadena, CA: Where’s My Mind? Media, 2014), DVD. 4 Ibid.

52

Chapter Four

demonstrates the importance of respecting ourselves and our working environment to include a mindfulness practice of choice, where we reduce stress pre-emptively regardless of the complexity of the task. In essence, we accomplish "more with less" because we have not cognitively overtaxed ourselves. As such it behoves us to look closely at what the demands and responsibilities in the learning environment are in order for mindfulness activities to have a place in our day. I have been studying mindfulness and practising its concepts for years. However, I was tested for a while by an over-scheduled lifestyle and heavier-than-usual workload. I found myself talking more about mindfulness than actually taking the time to practice it. This detachment felt like I only had a “phone app” for sunshine rather than the real thing. It was an inconvenient truth for me to realise that I would have to make adjustments to the lifestyle that originally seemed like a logical choice on the surface, but came at the expense of my quality of life. When we are under stress, we tend to breathe more shallowly. Consequently, the easiest way I found to start this shift was to breathe…more deeply…and more often. Looking deeper into the nature of breathing, we find it is more than just the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide; it also serves as a scan of all systems in the body in a feedback loop to the brain to know how to correct and respond to life.5 Ironically, although we “know” how to value our quality of life, we may inadvertently only be giving it lip service. The field of education has its own inconvenient truth: it knows what to say about supporting mental health practices, and yet places increasing demands on teachers both in and out of the classroom with planning, assessment, technology, documentation, and customer service-like responsibilities, leaving many teachers questioning whether there is any consideration for managing their own family lives. In her book Thrive, Arianna Huffington highlights the forward-thinking matrix required for companies to take into account the need for employees to look after their well-being, and in return become more productive, effective, and creative in the workplace. 6 Further to this concept of noticing the deeper connections within the workplace, Deepak Chopra discusses how our chances of happiness increase significantly if our happy friend has a happy friend who has a happy friend—without even knowing who those other 5

John Veltheim and Sylvia Muiznieks, "Key Concepts," BodyTalk Fundamentals, 8th Edition. (Sarasota, FL: PaRama LLC, 2011), 56. 6 Arianna Huffington, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder. (New York: Harmony Books. 2014).

Free To Learn More Deeply

53

friends are.7 Therefore, by extension, a student who has a happy teacher who has a happy family will likewise benefit. This web underlines why we need to see more deeply the nature of our underlying interconnectedness of the “collective consciousness,” and shift perspectives to include how the cognitive well-being of teachers is just as important as what we offer as tools for student well-being.

Layers of noticing: Strategies for deeper perspectives Becoming more mindful is like upgrading the number of colours in our crayon box. When we first start learning to interpret literature, we have a basic set of four colours like simile, metaphor, symbol, and pathetic fallacy. With the blatant availability of abridged notes or pre-fabricated text interpretations just a click away online, how do we share the value of noticing more deeply now? The value of studying literature remains in the meaningful connections we form with the story and its characters. So, just as a teacher uses literary devices to help students glean more information from a literary text, what can we do to glean more from the bigger story of daily life? A teacher may take a Jungian approach to show how a situation parallels the protagonist. For example, in the novel Zack where the truck repair of “a loose wire”8 is used as a metaphor for Zack starting to repair the connections with people in his family, do they pause to consider what metaphors are showing up in their own life? In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is a deeper understanding of the nature of how energy pathways flow in the body. For example, the wrist is connected with the role of the stomach and the conscious mind, where too much rigid thinking may show up in the issues of the wrist.9 This is where we start to expand the number of colours in the spectrum of our life-set, and how the art of noticing deeply influences our ability to engage differently in this conversation with our surroundings and enlighten our understanding. With that in mind, let’s take the objects that give us pause, or objects that challenge us, as fodder for metaphorical meaning—all the while keeping it on the level of playful curiosity to avoid becoming over-analytical or overindulgent. The reward is similar to that which is experienced by people who begin taking a painting class. Often, when they are out and about, they cannot help but notice an amazing morning sky and perhaps even 7 Deepak Chopra, “Deepak Chopra at TEDMED 2010.” TEDMED video, 9:56. Posted March 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tglicKfBpc0. 8 William Bell, Zack. (Toronto: Seal Books. 1998), 137. 9 John Veltheim, The BodyTalk System: The Missing Link to Optimum Health. (Sarasota: PaRama, LLC. 1999), p. 67.

54

Chapter Four

articulate that the sky is not just blue, but cerulean blue, and suggest the kind of brushstroke that might be used. Starting from this point, we see how students can move forward in how they interpret life in a meaningful and compassionate way by discerning information more deeply with fewer borders, like the interconnected systems in nature. Similarly, by incorporating the perspectives of First Nations' cultures, we can expand our awareness to consider how all things are connected, and how there is an animation in everything around us even if we may not think so on the surface. Imagine if we saw dandelions with more insight than simply as a weed to be removed, or the porcupine as more than just some awkward animal that became road-kill. Whether it’s animals, plants, earth, rocks, trees, water, each has a message to offer us, but only if we are willing to engage in the art of noticing deeply. On the surface, we can appreciate how we encounter these elements in our daily lives, but below the surface, we can connect with the messages they have come to represent over hundreds of years. On a basic level, the dandelion holds the essence of “looking beyond the surface”,10 and porcupines work with the idea of a “renewed sense of wonder”.11 Even a birch tree shares the message of the “new beginnings, cleansing of past, [and] vision quests”. 12 The combination of using our knowledge with deeper connections changes our worldview. When something gives us pause or shows up spontaneously in our lives, we could just write it off as nothing special. But imagine the difference if we used the same fun curiosity to engage in a deeper connection that we never thought to consider. We might recapture some of our childhood innocence as we relate to a plum tree in our yard, or with the dragonfly that came and sat with us on the deck for a few moments. Without a deeper perspective and the connection with nature and the environment around us and within us, we would miss out on the more subtle magic because we did not know it was there. How many colours are in the spectrum of your life? The more there are, the greater your ability to experience the richness of life by mastering the art of noticing deeply.

10

Collette Baron-Reid, "The Guide to Sacred Sign-Bearers," Messages from Spirit: The Extraordinary Power of Oracles, Omens, and Signs. (New York: Hay House, Inc. 2008), 224. 11 Ted Andrews, Animal-speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small. (St Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications. 1993), 229. 12 Ibid., 48.

Free To Learn More Deeply

55

The craft of noticing deeply There is a certain allure that accompanies the sense of mastery from someone who is living or working their “craft” to the point of such familiarity that they use their medium beyond words, or they manoeuvre so mindfully in the moment that we call it “poetry in motion.” Having the same thoughts and living our lives in the same ways eventually creates a pattern circuit whereby the conscious mind is no longer required to keep things going minute-to-minute, since hardwiring at the subconscious level has taken place. Joe Dispenza says that "you've conditioned your body to become the mind," 13 meaning that your active thoughts, actions, and reactions of daily processes are so much a part of you, that you essentially embody what has been programmed. Until you consciously make a new change, you will continue to play out the same behaviours in different circumstances. We can see this in a simple example where we have trained our body to remember a phone number pattern or password code and embodied it in such a way that if we consciously try to think about it, we inevitably end up making a mistake because our body now knows the task better than our mind. We might say we learned it “by heart.” If you have ever learned to play a musical instrument, you may have had a similar experience where you have practised to the point of embodying the song, or you know the instrument to the point of embodying the music. As long as you are able to let the moment flow freely through you, you will play flawlessly. This hardwiring explains why making changes can feel so difficult, and how becoming very good in your craft becomes second nature. It is in this zone that the craft of noticing deeply moves us forward. As teachers, our arena is that of the classroom where our expertise can likewise be appreciated. Here, we are “master chefs” who deliver uniquely designed lessons with differentiated instruction in situations of high demand. Matthew Crawford talks about the embodying that experts do with their craft, so as to create a higher appreciation for what tends to go unnoticed. “Once we have achieved competence in the skill, we don’t routinely rely on our powers of concentration and self-regulation—those higher-level ‘executive’ functions that are easily exhausted. Rather, we find ways to recruit our surroundings for the sake of achieving our

13 Joe Dispenza, “How to Break Old Habits & Strengthen Your Synapses.” Hay House University. September 11, 2015. http://www.learn.hayhouseuniversity.com/joedispenza-video2-breakoldhabits?utm _medium=email&utm_campaign=email_course_dispenza_making_your_mind_ma tter_2015&utm_source=15089700_opt&utm_content=6377&utm_id=6377.

56

Chapter Four

purposes with a minimum expenditure of these scarce mental resources.”14 Being open to spontaneity while teaching is necessary if we are to truly model mindfulness in classrooms, and live and work at a level that causes less stress and teacher burnout overall. With increasing workload demands, there is such a finite availability of a teacher’s attention both in and out of the classroom today that it is becoming increasingly necessary to value where this attention is directed. Classroom responsiveness is notably quite different from writing curriculum profile lesson plans, and to insist on hair-splitting documentation is ironically a potential misuse of the craft. Crawford references Clark regarding physical learning by saying, “goals are not achieved by micromanaging every detail of the desired action or response but by making the most of robust, reliable sources of relevant order in the bodily or worldly environment of the controller.”15 This may help us realise that while planning has its place in a teacher's ability to deliver curriculum, this same mandated detailing have the awkward potential to undermine the freedom to learn more deeply. It requires time for the craft of teaching to be explained, rather than used to create a more responsive and mindful learning environment. When we have embodied these concepts, we start to notice the classroom environment differently. Depending on our classroom dynamics, we may encourage more walk-and-talk activities like some language programs do. We might surreptitiously float mindful puns into our phrasing, or bring in spontaneous artistic outlets for note-taking or transitions. Or, perhaps we notice that our students are holding their breath. So, rather than plough onward, we might pause and make a point of asking what the concern is. Or we might renegotiate while watching for their shoulders to relax. Honouring the mind for the task at hand, and providing the needed breathing-space on all levels required in a class, is part of the unique craft of teachers. The beauty of watching people who have mastered their craft is the magic that seems to accompany it. This magic may show up as a heart-felt connection, an image, a flavour, or a word; it may represent a happy coincidence or synchronicity that shows up unplanned yet perfectly timed for the moment. For some people, this situation is merely an odd fluke, but for others, it's an indicator of being on the right track or in synch, and 14

Matthew B. Crawford, "The Jig, the Nudge, and the Local Ecology," The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming and Individual in an Age of Distraction. (Toronto: Allen Lane, Penguin Canada Books, Inc., 2015), 33. 15 Matthew B. Crawford, "Embodied Perception," The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming and Individual in an Age of Distraction. (Toronto: Allen Lane, Penguin Canada Books, Inc., 2015), 52.

Free To Learn More Deeply

57

mindfully opens to the moment without force. If you have ever had the experience of trying too hard to think of a word, movie title, or lost object in vain, only to have the answer or idea pop up while you're walking downstairs or busy with another task afterward, then you have experienced 16 what is called l’esprit de l’escalier in French. Guy Claxton gives the example of how we are “wise” before and after an interview, but during the interview, when we are thrown by questions we didn’t prepare for and are trying too hard to say the right response, we “are otherwise.”17 This deeper form of mindfulness relies on the subconscious mind, which has a more subtle knowledge approach to data retrieval in response to a question or intention. There is a delicate balance between challenging student learning and likewise releasing the pressure of trying too hard. For both teachers and students, the deciding factor rests with the ability to tune in and notice the deeper authentic message from the wisdom of the heartmind rather than relying solely on what the intellect has understood or rehearsed. When we recognise that mindfulness refers to far more than the mind of the brain, but likewise that of the heart and other body system connections, then we create an opportunity to experience a fuller sense of life. In this way, the more we benefit from gap allowances which create the magic of synchronicity and arguably a deeper learning connection, the more readily available it integrates and resonates more authentically who we are—which has strong implications for healthy student voice. In education, we tend to talk about “closing the gap” when referring to improving student achievement; however, here is where it’s important to “open the gap” by not over-scheduling activities and micromanaging details of the class. Darrin Griffiths, in Principals of Inclusion, opens with this quote from Deal and Peterson, “…if a school does not stand for something more profound than raising achievement levels, then it probably does not make a memorable difference to teachers, students, or parents. Put on a spiritual plane, a school needs a deeper soul.”18 This depth can be found in the spaces that let the lesson breathe or marinate in some kind of collaborative soup with the potential to produce an unexpected meaningful connection. How does this happen? It shows up inconspicuously like when you are about to introduce a unit about mysteries, and a staff member 16

The Mindfulness Movie, directed by Paul Harrison, AIA. (2014, Pasadena, CA: Where’s My Mind? Media, 2014), DVD. This term is generally translated as “staircase wit” in English. 17 Ibid. 18 Darrin Griffiths, Principals of Inclusion, Practical Strategies to Grow Inclusion in Urban Schools. (Burlington: Word and Deed Publishing, Inc. 2013), iii.

58

Chapter Four

comes by, but in that same moment is called elsewhere, leaving with the spontaneous message of: “Just a little mystery visit.” Perhaps it is the moment that you are talking about having a balanced perspective and end up drawing a perfect circle freehand on the board without looking. Perhaps it is in the moment where you think you are playing a video clip earlier than planned because you need an extra moment to cut out activity sheets, but you realise that it is actually a perfect segue for the activity itself. Maybe it is in the moment that drama students are performing and happen to be so in-the-moment, they surprise themselves by truly embodying the character. Maybe it is in the fact that you let students set up the chairs in your room, and one day they put four chairs back-to-back, which solved the issue you had with how to present an activity about disagreements. Or, maybe it is the fact that a piano just shows up in your room one day, and rather than work around it, you chose to build in a voluntary music playing interlude, and later discover how meaningful that was for risk-taking and compassion even though it was not originally linked to the lesson. Many of these examples would have been considered interruptions or nuisances to the plan, yet ironically their spontaneity added enlightenment, a moment of appreciation, or answered a need for learning on a deeper level. This ability to expand our awareness in the moment is what modelling mindfulness is about and likewise where a sense of fun, freedom and lightness is found. It is about knowing we have a plan, but being open to what is being presented in the environment, and engaging creatively in the subtle “conversation” taking place.

Synergy: The joy of mindfulness Mindfulness has many research-based accolades for reducing stress and improving concentration. This basis creates a welcoming environment for people to start at a level that works for them, whether it be breathing awareness, understanding brain processing, opening to the purpose of engaging all senses, a mindfulness- awareness community circle, or a daily meditation to bring one's attention back from scattered thoughts of daily drama. The fact is that we are not immune to stress, but when we begin to pay attention to how we focus—when we realize we are talking about being stressed rather than caught in the swirl as “the stressed person”—we automatically start to become more mindful of our choices and thereby create a space which allows us to consider our next steps more deliberately. We are then responding to the moment rather than reacting to it. This realisation forms another level in welcoming mindfulness ways into our life. As we move forward, questions may arise regarding how we

Free To Learn More Deeply

59

have behaved or reacted in the past, how issues we thought we had forgotten or tried to forget to resurface, or how new awareness shifts the direction of our life path. This is where it is important to use a sense of compassion and non-judgement which is practised in the stepping stones of mindfulness techniques in order to apply this same compassion and non-judgement to ourselves, as we work through potentially uncomfortable issues. We then learn to navigate through them and gain the wisdom and joy inherent therein. For this reason, teachers may find that working on their own mindful awareness is helpful to embodying mindfulness ways in the classroom implicitly before taking on the teaching of mindfulness to students explicitly. Amy Saltzman reminds us that "your teaching must come from the depths of your own practice; you must be able to deal skillfully with whatever comes up… These circumstances require that we stretch our capacity to respond to suffering with clarity and compassion.” 19 Fortunately, the art of mindfulness is designed to help us deal with stressors in our lives, and rather than get swept up by them, we can give ourselves some space from the issue in order to do our best, even if the situation is overwhelming or difficult. In this way, how we emanate mindfulness to those around us provides an environment of understanding on a deeper level just by our presence, which proves to be a great relief even if not formally articulated. When we model mindfulness responses to our dealings with students, they comment on our patience, or on our creative way of seeing a situation or making a connection. This learning comes vicariously, yet rides in on a deeper level because now they have a subtle identifiable framework when faced with a similar experience. Most of us have had the experience of working well as a team at some point in our lives. It was probably a time when the work seemed effortless because everyone took part and took charge of something requiring personal strength. Without needing to explain ourselves overly, we were understood. This synergy is the same energy that is present in nature and can be seen when birds fly together and make changes mid-air simultaneously—it is poetry in motion and defies our concept of needing to explain every single detail in order to move forward collectively. When we practice the craft of mindfulness to such a point that we embody it in all we do, we encounter more situations of synergy because we have hardwired the art of noticing deeply to the point where we are in the moment, naturally, and more often. By being ready to respond to what 19

Amy Saltzman, “Mindfulness: A Guide for Teachers,” 6. Accessed: May 2015: http://www.contemplativemind.org/Mindfulness-A_Teachers_Guide.pdf.

60

Chapter Four

shows up and trusting that we have integrated our previous learning on a deeper level, we experience a sense of cognitive lightness and selfempowerment which brings hope and resilience when taking on the pressing concerns of our time, namely: learning, health, and the environment. As humans, we have an affinity for creating and solving. When we engage mindfully in what we are doing and likewise connecting on a deeper level because of our interest in what we do, we create a healthier relationship between our talents and our environment. This shows a change in perspective when we see a mirror in how we treat ourselves more mindfully with how we treat our environment more mindfully—we realise that we are not separate but rather a part of all that is around us. Because we are free to learn more deeply, we can now live in a deeper conversation with people and nature, and realise the dynamic system in which we play a part. Imagine how this can change our worldview. Gabrielle Bernstein says every relationship is an “assignment.” 20 With tools of varying levels of mindfulness, the world appears differently to us, and likewise our response to what is going on within and around us. Perhaps now passing through a construction zone invites us to question what is under construction in our own life; driving in a rainstorm reminds us to join with that force to make it a symbol for washing away what no longer serves us. That rainbow may be for us just to observe, and that challenging class of students gives us an opportunity to consider what it symbolises. These are the real assignments personalised for us. How do we tune in mindfully in order to harvest what the lesson brings? As teachers, how this perspective deepens our personal awareness asks us how we bring our talent to a deeper level for the benefit of students in order for them to be free to learn more deeply in their lives as well.

The gift of mindfulness How we choose to use the gift of mindfulness depends on our perspectives in each present moment, both individually and collectively. When we expand our awareness to newer views regarding the neuroplasticity of our brain, the quantum science of interconnectedness, the heart-brain coherence patterns, the epigenetic influence of the environment on our biology, and the values present in how we focus our attention for our health and well-being, we shift the trajectory of how we 20

Gabrielle Bernstein, “Relationships are Assignments,” Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. (New York: Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc., 2011), 125.

Free To Learn More Deeply

61

respond to stress and likewise what is possible for the future in every moment of now. We see a shift of noticing deeply as we move from literary techniques to life strategies, and we appreciate how our talents are hardwired into an embodied craft to satisfy our own need for creative growth and likewise how we model this craft for students to benefit in their own learning. This concept of mastery brings with it the connection to an awareness of the synergistic nature that is possible when we are able to respond to our life with more fluid communication between our cognitive perspectives and the deeper layers woven into our natural and constructed environments. This is an invitation to be free to learn more deeply, transmute challenges, and experience the magic of mindful awareness. "The soul speaks in feelings, in longings, in yearnings, in deep knowing, in vibration, in signs, in nature, in people. It centres itself in the heart and carries within it a blueprint for your life. You can't hear the calling of your soul if you don't create space in your day to listen to it.”21

References Andrews, Ted. Animal-speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 1993. Baron-Reid, Colette. “The Guide to Sacred Sign-Bearers.” in Messages from Spirit: The Extraordinary Power of Oracles, Omens, and Signs. New York: Hay House, Inc., 2008. Bell, William. Zack. Toronto: Seal Books—a division of Random House Canada. 1998. Bernstein, Gabrielle. Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. New York: Three Rivers Press—Random House, Inc., 2011. Campbell, Rebecca. Light Is the New Black: A Guide to Answering Your Soul's Calling and Working Your Light. Vancouver: Raincoast, 2015. Chopra, Deepak. “Deepak Chopra at TEDMED 2010.” TEDMED video, 9:56. Posted March 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tglicKfBpc0. —. “Goldie Hawn & Deepak Chopra (interview).” Video, 44:58. Posted August 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzNIgXoUfgs.

21

Rebecca Campbell, "It's Harder to Ignore a Call Than to Answer It," Light Is the New Black: A Guide to Answering Your Soul's Calling and Working Your Light. (Vancouver: Hay House, 2015), 107.

62

Chapter Four

Crawford, Matthew B. The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. Toronto: Allen Lane – Penguin Canada Books Inc., 2015. Dispenza, Joe. “How to Break Old Habits & Strengthen Your Synapses.” Hay House University. Accessed: September 11, 2015: http://www.learn.hayhouseuniversity.com/joedispenza-video2breakold habits?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email_course_dispenza_ making_your_mind_matter_2015&utm_source=15089700_opt&utm_c ontent=6377&utm_id=6377. Griffiths, Darrin. Principals of Inclusion: Practical Strategies to Grow Inclusion in Urban Schools, iii. Burlington: Word & Deed Publishing Inc. 2013. Huffington, Arianna. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. New York: Harmony Books. 2014. Reich, Harold. “A Qualitative Study of Heart-Mind Coherence Techniques for Stress Relief and Mental and Emotional Selfmanagement.” Ph.D. diss. California Institute of Integral Studies, 2009. https://www.heartmath.org/assets/uploads/2015/01/qualitative-studyof-heart-mind-coherence-techniques.pdf. Saltzman, Amy. “Mindfulness: A Guide for Teachers.” Accessed: May, 2015: http://www.contemplativemind.org/Mindfulness-A_Teachers_Guide. pdf. The Mindfulness Movie. Directed by Paul Harrison, AIA. 2014. Pasadena, CA: Where’s My Mind? Media, 2014. DVD. Veltheim, John and Sylvia Muiznieks. “Key Concepts.” In BodyTalk Fundamentals, 8th Edition. Sarasota, FL: PaRama LLC, 2011. Veltheim, John. “What Disorders Can BodyTalk Address? Module 1.” In The BodyTalk System: The Missing Link to Optimum Health. Sarasota, FL: PaRama LLC, 1999.

SECTION TWO: CONNECTIONS OF NATURE AND SELF: SPEAKING THROUGH STORY Our world is filled with stories. The media shoves stories into view, minute by minute, second by second. Stories join us together, whether we like it or not. They jab us awake to the needs and lives and realities of others in remote places on the globe. Stories keep us awake at night, as we envision the horror, recall a conversation or imagine a journey for someone. When we can’t recall the name of the village we visited, we will recall the story of the enormous wrought-iron key that the lovely elderly man retrieved from the back of his rural mailbox to allow us to enter the stone church with the crumbling tower. We may not remember the name of our neighbour’s golden retriever, but we recall the story of the time the same dog awakened the family by barking frantically when a fire started in the basement of their house. Stories become the pieces that glue our lives together. They allow space for varying perspectives and opinions about the shared understandings of events. Important life lessons can emerge from storytelling, and what we pay attention to while listening to or reading a story, determines what we do with the story after it is heard and shared. Story can indeed be the framework for what we notice in life. Because of the wrought-iron key story shared in this introduction, some of you will notice keys in new ways because of this incident. It’s a rather miraculous form of gifting from one person to another. Because I own a dog that is deaf, I know that her response to the smoke detectors in our house is different from the dog hero mentioned above. I internalise the story uniquely. We all do. The details we pay attention to are varied, depending on our own life experiences. Stories are shaped by who we are, where we are and what we choose to notice consciously and unconsciously. And just as spiders don't have to think, consciously and deliberately, about how to spin their webs, and just as beavers […] do not consciously and deliberately plan the structures they build, we do not consciously and deliberately figure out what narratives to tell and how to tell them. Our tales are spun, but for the most part, we don't spin them; they spin us. Our

64

Section Two human consciousness, and our narrative selfhood, is their product, not their source.1

Reference Vollmer, Fred. 2005. "The Narrative Self." in Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 35 (2):189-205.

1

Fred Vollmer, "The Narrative Self," Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 35 (2):189-205.

The receptivityy that leads to true t seeing inclludes the abilityy to notice the overlooked o and to see thhe ordinary in new n ways. Attentiveness A offten meant look king small.

CHAPTER FIVE NOTICING DEEPLY THROUGH CONTEMPLATIVE WRITING LIBBY FALK JONES

—Academia has drained me. It has been rough trying to get through the past four years […]. I cannot pump it out and be proud of it and I want to be. Contemplative Writing was so different, a course that honoured who I was […]. A time to stop, pause, and honour myself […]. Writing and reflection are essential fuel. —Through the vehicle of a contemplative mind, writing becomes deeply developed and alive.

The Berea College students whose words appear above are among the eighty I've taught over the past seven years in five offerings of a course titled Contemplative Writing. I developed this course in response to my own needs as a writer—needs I saw increasing among my students—for alternative spaces of solitude and focus. A writing life infused with activity, busyness, and noise is a writing life impaired. I wanted to find ways for me and my students to develop artistically and spiritually, to cultivate our innermost lives, as a means of fostering creativity. I envisioned a path in solitude and community where writers could attend to both nature and self. In this chapter, I'll explore key facets of the course, examining concepts, practices, and students’ responses. Reviewing course documents, my own writing, my students’ writing, and interviews I’ve conducted with students after the conclusion of the courses has shown me the power of approaching writing—and learning—in a contemplative way. This essay investigates what learning to notice deeply can bring about. Each section begins with and includes students’ comments from interviews.1 1

My interview base consists of open-ended interviews of at least 30 minutes with 25 contemplative writing students, some from each of the five classes. Interviews were conducted several months after the course’s conclusion.

68

Chapter Five

Seeing as receptivity —Underneath [the surfaces] there are things that I did not pay attention to before. —Just let yourself go, and take it all in.

What does it mean to see? True seeing begins with noticing but goes far beyond. Seeing, notes Thomas Merton, is different from looking: “Looking means that you already have something in mind for your eye to find […]. But seeing is being open and receptive to what comes to the eye […].”2 To cultivate receptivity, students must learn to be non-categorizing and non-judgmental about what they see and think.3 To help students develop openness and trust in whatever comes to eye or mind, I have made private journal-writing the centre of my course. I coach students to observe and to use external images to fuel their imaginations and internal journeys. We practice regular freewriting—that nonstop, non-judgmental private generation of language and thought. In freewriting, insight unfolds as words flow onto the page or screen. As a record of thought, journal-writing takes a writer far beyond what’s initially-seen or known. The journal, maintained over a period of time, becomes a sourcebook for ideas, questions, reversals, and paradoxes. Student comments confirm that the journal is a place of receptivity and discovery. “I don't know what I am thinking about, or what I know, or what concerns me,” one student noted. “But when I sit down to journal, I have the freedom to let my mind flush itself out.” Another student advised, “Sit and let what needs to come, come.” To be effective, journal-writing needs to be regular and extensive. I suggest questions and topics but urge writers to pursue their interests. Being given permission is key. “If I feel like writing I can just write,” one student said. “And the fact of not having pressure, it automatically made me want to write.” Another said she wrote mostly “because you encouraged us to just write whatever was on our mind.” One noted that being instructed to see is “a good instruction that is in a way freeing. It’s not like sometimes being told a rule […]. It opens you up to doing things you maybe wouldn’t consider doing.” Journal-writing encourages deep exploration. The journal “definitely 2

Ron Seitz, Song for Nobody: A Memory Vision of Thomas Merton (Liguori, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1995). 3 Philippe L. Gross and S. I. Shapiro, The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing (Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2001).

Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing

69

inspired taking a tiny little thought and making something big out of it,” one student noted. One said she used the journal as stream-of-consciousness; another said the journal helped her “untangle” life experiences. “I learned about objective exploration of myself,” another student said. “Writing allowed me to reflect; when I wasn’t writing I wasn’t reflecting,” said another. To deepen writing, reviewing the journal is important. One student noted, “you can look and say why am I so concerned with this particular thing that's going on […]. I should continue to explore this more deeply.” During the course, students generated at least 10,000 words of journal writing, with many writing 20,000 words; some students wrote more than 50,000 words. Becoming receptive also involves open-mindedness, a willingness to enter what seems other or strange. In stillness and silence, one student noted, a writer becomes part of the environment: “You are no longer a foreign creature.” Another wrote that contemplative writers “let themselves dissolve into others.” Strangeness is often a catalyst for extending the self. One student noted that entering an unfamiliar landscape can be "a shock to the system, but it woke us up to where we were.” Contemplative writers, one student noted, choose “to celebrate their open-mindedness and write in it.” Being able to withhold judgment, to avoid settling for pat answers, allows for deeper investigation. One student cultivated ambiguity through her photography, noting that “ambiguity […] forces the viewer to work harder and really think about what they are looking at instead of taking things at face-value.” Another confirmed, "The class was about recognising the uncertain […]., learning that every question doesn’t need to be answered.”

Image and word —It is just you and your camera and your subject.

Another tool for cultivating receptivity, in addition to informal writing, is the camera. As Howard Zehr notes, despite the aggressive, predatory language that dominates the art of photography (“shooting,” “taking,” “capturing”), the camera, in fact, is literally a receiver of light. 4 Photographer and subject work together to create the image.5 Drawing on Zehr’s book, I invite my students to use a camera of any 4

Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Contemplative Photography: Seeing With Wonder, Respect, and Humility, ed. Phyllis Pellman Good, The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding (Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 2005). 5 Ibid., 17.

70

Chapter Five

quality as a means of seeing. Some students did visual journaling; others created final projects incorporating both writing and images. Their comments testify to their experience of receptivity. “Some of the best pictures are moments, taken when a breath has passed and there was no time to stop and think,” a student said. “I felt like the subjects were just shouting at me to take a picture of them,” another said. “They were all very unbelievable subjects to have stumbled upon, and for that I am grateful.” Another recalled how cold it was when he made his photographs; it’s “about just being there,” he said. Many students spoke of the reciprocity between image and word. Creative work began at either end; seeing is the root of both, many students found. "I write about what I see, and I take pictures of what I see,” said one. Photographs and writing “happened simultaneously,” another student said. “One picks up where the other leaves off.” Others noted the power of the visual: “When I go to write it was visual that was on my mind,” one student said. Another said that the camera "shows you things in a light and view you might not have noticed before. The curve, colour, shape, how it forms and fits into your box, the lines, structure, texture. And it reminds me to use my scenes when I write.” Students found value in both image and word. “There was a lot more detail and personal stuff in the writing,” one said. “But in the picture, you can see that and maybe make up your own story of what happened.” Another reported that after doing visual work, her writing drew more heavily on images. "After that class, I became a much better visual writer,” another student said, adding, “I remember feeling as though a bubble kind of formed in my head and I was watching all these images in that bubble and then it kind of popped and spread out.”

Stillness, solitude, silence—and community —Internal solitude allows you to cast off the restraints and just be at home with yourself. —The more silent I was, the more my head talked to me. —I guess I was just really tuned into everything.

Becoming still, spending time alone, and being silent has been crucial to the impact of the course. I’ve learned that students need to be taught how to engage in these out-of-the-social-norm practices. With Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude and May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude as background, we practice working in silence in classrooms, outdoors, and especially on

Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing

71

retreats.6 When I’ve taught the course as a one-month intensive, I’ve been able to take students on extended retreats. However, even during a regular term, I’ve arranged day or half-day retreats. Retreat time has become the cornerstone of the class’s creative work. Students commented on the value of stillness, solitude, and silence to their writing and learning. “There are just so many things that you can learn from just slowing down your pace a little,” one student said. And another: “I don’t think you would be able to get that photograph if you weren’t still long enough to see it.” Another said, “Having a calm mind and having a calm time […] gave me more inspiration than I usually have every day.” Being alone, though initially perceived as strange, led to discoveries and the building of inner strength. There were rocks, and I would just sit there for a while. And every time it was like me doing what I wanted to do. And it wasn’t like I am going to take 20 pictures today […]. And it was really private. The writing was private, and the pictures were private too.

Another said that the course helped her: […] with the confidence to be alone. Because before the class, I had a hard time being by myself. When my friends would go home for the summer I was like really sick to my stomach when I was the last of my friend group to leave and that [being able to be alone] is a skill that will help me my whole life.

Many students spoke of the value of silence, noting especially their heightened ability to listen. “When there is silence, I think there is a lot more opportunity to listen […]. It may not be a physical hearing, but an intuitive hearing,” one student said. “If you don’t listen you don’t learn,” another said. Many spoke of the ways silence led to new attention. “Turning off your speaking […], you are better able to focus on your seeing and your feeling,” one said. And another: “I like to have the silence because it forces you to understand what is going on inside of you.” For many students, embracing silence was difficult though ultimately rewarding. "I am a person who really speaks a lot, and I would find myself looking at birds or looking at things and saying oh my goodness,” one student said. "I wanted to talk, but I wanted to be like wow, look at the 6

May Sarton, Journal of Solitude (New York, New York: W.W. Norton, 1973); Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1956).

72

Chapter Five

trees." Another noted that silence gave her “permission to write and be in nature which is a weird or antisocial thing to do otherwise.” Stillness and silence carried over into writing: “Since there were not a lot of things going on, a lot of things caught my attention. Little things like butterflies and flowers—those were what spurred on my writing,” a student said. Another noted, “I learned to take more time just sitting for hours and hours in front of the page because it was about speed before.” Another student said the silence had led her to deeper subjects in her writing: “You think about this planet and the meaning of existential concepts when you have been in silence for five days.” The course also created productive interplay between solitude and community. In addition to writing by themselves, students wrote in large and small group sessions. Students took turns bringing writing prompts to group sessions, thus inviting one another to probe important subjects. Sharing after silent writing was invited but not required. Ongoing peer review groups gave oral and written responses to individual project proposals and project drafts. Peer review not only provided useful feedback but also helped to create shared ownership of work. Students often credited one another for ideas. One student commented, “It was more of a fellowship in writing with other people than it was an actual class […]. It was like I fed off them.” Another said: I think [sharing writing] made us closer as a class and I was sad when that class ended because I think all of us had been sharing our stuff with each other, and it was like this big writing family.

Classes also wrote collaborative haikus and experimented with other forms of collaborative writing. These practices often resulted in surprising connections within the writing as well as among writers.

Moving in and with nature —Going out into the world to find wonders was really important. —I do better moving if I am trying to be creative.

Movement, whether unstructured exploration or deliberate walking, is a necessary practice for contemplative writers. Drawing on Thich Nat Hahn, students lead the class in meditative walking.7 Writing is a physical act, and 7 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation (Berkeley, California: Parallax Press, 2001).

Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing

73

writers often find that moving their bodies, fuels their seeing and their words. “People need to just walk, to walk in the woods and to walk with yourself to hear your thoughts,” one student said. “I think it is just the walk that you have to do more than the birds or the trees.” Another noted the connection between physical and mental journeys: I remember […] going on a walk through the snow and writing something in my head. It was almost as if I was walking through my thoughts […]. Every physical step I was taking I was taking a mental step as well.

Walking a labyrinth—available at retreat centers—is another instructive form of movement. As one student commented, “the act of walking through the set path doesn't disconnect you from the outside world, but it allows you to put the most focus possible on what it is I am doing […]” Spending time with nature profoundly affected students and their writing. I regularly invited a naturalist to speak with the class and to lead us on an outdoor, silent journey of exploration. No matter the season, time outdoors was spiritually regenerating: "There was the sun, and there was wind, and there were really high places where you could feel so close to the sky," one student said. Students wrote during and after outdoor time, with Thomas Merton and Robert Hamma as models.8 One student noted: One day I was just wandering and photographing, and I don't even know where the time went, and then when I was in my bed that night I was remembering all the things from the day. So maybe I wrote more in my room, but I got inspiration from my day.

Another said, “I talked to myself a lot in my head as I was walking around […]. Everything that ended up in my project was the result of something I heard, saw, contemplated outside.”

8

Thomas Merton, When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature (Notre Dame, Indiana: Sorin Books, 2003); Robert M. Hamma, Earth’s Echo: Sacred Encounters with Nature (Notre Dame, Indiana: Sorin Books, 2002).

74

Chapter Five

Attentiveness: Finding the extraordinary in the everyday —I would just look at it and get to know it like nobody has before. —I swear I would sit in that window up there and just see if I could catch [the trees] breathing.

The receptivity that leads to true seeing includes the ability to notice the overlooked and to see the ordinary in new ways. Attentiveness often meant looking small. One student explored the macro setting on her camera: “I loved being able to closely examine the most intricate of nature’s designs.” Many spoke of the power of becoming aware of what had been overlooked. "I almost noticed things as a traveller would, not as someone who had been living here a year and a half already," one said. Looking small sometimes meant noticing the nonexistent. “I noticed what was missing rather than what was there,” one student said. Awareness became the basis for writing. “To be specific is the whole thing [in writing],” one student said. “Things like animal tracks, little small things really reach people,” another said. Students also valued the experience of thinking deeply about things often taken for granted. “Think about the things you are observing,” one student advised. “I remember after that class I saw a spider stuck between two windows and I was like how did he get there? How's he going to get out?” Others spoke of expanding their writing horizons. “I was writing about how the wood on the floor would speak when we were walking on it,” a student said, adding, “I think I have a wider variety of things that I feel confident writing about.” Another student connected the ordinary with the personally-significant: One of the major things that inspired me to write was pretty much this rocking chair by this tall window, and I would just imagine this person sitting on this chair and doing some pottery, and I was like how could something like that come out of that? And I thought about my grandmother and how she was sitting on a chair like that and how she might have been doing something when she was my age.

As they wrote, students recognised their power to choose their approaches and purposes. "It doesn't matter so much what the subject matter is–it matters how you approach it," a student said. Discovering and communicating beauty became an important goal. "Looking through a camera lens, it sounds cheesy, but it is like helping me to see the small beauty in things, things I don't usually notice,” a student said. “It’s our job to

Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing

75

not only see the beauty in the world but to also make beauty in the world.”

Discipline and play —I spent like three hours following one bird, and it never did fly away from there. —The class helped me to focus. It helped me to really think about whatever I happened to be doing in more of an intentional way.

Discipline—showing up, spending time, focusing—is a central part of contemplative writing. Engaging in a disciplined practice not only encouraged the continuation of that practice but also led to finished writing of higher quality. Finished products in the course included a substantial individual writing project. Students designed their own projects, choosing subject, focus, approach, and form. Their writing might be serious, playful, truthful, imaginative, descriptive, emotional—or all of these. The only requirement for the project was to probe the subject deeply, through language. Students have made chapbooks of poetry or prose, written searching memoir essays on places and passions, prepared research papers on theological questions, created photo essays or videos, and written and illustrated children’s books, among other things. The project begins with a proposal that includes a reading list and a sample of work and proceeds through multiple peer-reviewed drafts. Many students have been surprised by the subject that called them. “I wasn’t expecting to write through my religious experiences,” one student said. “I thought I had locked all of that in a barred place in the back of my mind. And the class helped me go through this. It was such a profound class.” Because writers owned their projects, they invested much time and care in them. “I need to really think about every word that I am choosing, now,” one student said. Seriousness and depth in the work did not preclude playfulness. Humour and even irreverence led to discovery. One student drew the story and images for her children’s book from her dreams. Another noted the pleasure of playfulness: “After that course, I realised that whimsy is allowed in the classroom […] I would just let the whimsy flow […] because I didn't have an opportunity to let it out anywhere else.” She advised writers to engage occasionally in writing nonsense. “Don't be rigid or overly concerned with rules,” she said. “A little bit of insanity will contribute a bunch to making you a happier writer.”

76

Chapter Five

Meaning, mystery, and love —When something becomes sacred to you, you pay more attention to it. —After this class, I had to make the time to come back to this place internally. I think this class was a time to treasure these things I have inside of me. —I found more of my identity […]. I found my voice.

Education, as experienced in these contemplative writing courses, is a leading out. An Education Studies major, now a high school English teacher, said that this approach had influenced her studies and work: I have learned a lot more about how I have to allow the writing to go where it needs to go. And push people, but push them in their own comfort level. A big one in Contemplative Writing was allowing people the freedom to go […] on an individual journey. And it went with me in that class and went with me the rest of the time [at Berea and since].

Students’ journeys in the course spoke to the power of embracing meaning, mystery, and love through seeing, thinking, and writing. A striking example is one student’s writing about the respect and love embodied in a photograph she made on a retreat at the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky. She asked a Sister if she could photograph her hand holding a coffee cup. The sharing initiated by her photograph led to a deep communion between the two—a connection she perceived as standing for much more: So easily, I had done the impossible. I had bridged the gap between agnostic college student and devout retired nun. I think that’s what my semester has really been about: finding a way to bridge being a busy, agnostic college student, struggling against mountains of homework and responsibilities, with being a spiritual being. Not necessarily a church-goer or a believer but a devout truster and receiver in the gifts of nature: the sun, the sky, the grass, the flowers, the mountains, the ponds, and the people.

As photographer and writer, teacher and learner, I have shared my students’ journeys. They have honoured me with their gifts of voice and spirit, image and word. Writing this essay has allowed me to continue our joint pilgrimage and—through these pages and the following haiku, which I wrote in a contemplative writing class—to invite others to build these concepts and practices into their own educational spheres.

Noticing Deeply through Contemplative Writing

77

We have all the time we need We have all we need We have all We9

References Gross, Philippe L, and S I Shapiro. The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2001. Hamma, Robert M. Earth’s Echo: Sacred Encounters with Nature. Notre Dame, Indiana: Sorin Books, 2002. Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press, 2001. Jones, Libby Falk. Above the Eastern Treetops, Blue: Poems. Georgetown, Kentucky: Finishing Line Press, 2010. Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. New York, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1956. —. When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature. Notre Dame, Indiana: Sorin Books, 2003. Sarton, May. Journal of Solitude. New York, New York: W.W. Norton, 1973. Seitz, Ron. Song for Nobody: A Memory Vision of Thomas Merton. Liguori, Missouri: Triumph Books, 1995. Zehr, Howard. The Little Book of Contemplative Photography: Seeing With Wonder, Respect, and Humility. Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 2005.

9

Libby Falk Jones, Above the Eastern Treetops, Blue: Poems (Georgetown, Kentucky: Finishing Line Press, 2010), 1.

When onne is mindful off the landscape and a the commuunity that inhabiits it, there are opportunnities for expanded learning, in nfluencing for ggood, and becom ming more firmly rooted in the land.

CHAPTER SIX THE ART OF NOTICING DEEPLY: LEARNING FROM THE LANDSCAPE CINDY DERRENBACKER

Introduction One should not underestimate the influence that place has on community and the positive role that individuals and community can make in shaping a broadly conceived understanding of landscape. Being attentive to the way in which landscape shapes individuals and groups, identity, the built environment, and lifestyle, is constructive. When one is mindful of the landscape and the community that inhabits it, there are opportunities for expanded learning, influencing for good, and becoming more firmly rooted in the land. While this paper draws on examples in northern Ontario, Canada, centred in or near the City of Greater Sudbury, the hope is that the reader will make connections between these regional examples and his or her own locale, whether urban, suburban, or rural. As a relative newcomer to Sudbury, the landscape has had a profound personal effect on me. It has taken time to adjust to the northern climate and the natural and cultural geography of the place, including minus 30qC winter weather, unusual rock formations, and distinctive Franco-Ontarian and Indigenous cultural influences. While lumber served as the initial local industry, Sudbury has distinguished itself historically as a mining town connected to the rest of Canada by rail. In recent years, Sudbury has diversified, emerging as a northern centre for healthcare, higher education, and recreation. Finding “a place called home” beyond the façade of depressed-looking downtown storefronts and smoke stacks rising from the landscape has been a challenge. Over the course of several years, however, I have experienced community in unanticipated corners – one especially committed to volunteerism – and I have discovered unexpected beauty in the land, all of which has engendered a spirit of hope.

82

Chapter Six

As academic librarian for Laurentian University’s new (2013) School of Architecture, I will highlight several intriguing examples of northern Ontario architecture as part of this chapter, touching on the importance of creating places and spaces that care for the soul and give meaning to our lives. I will reflect on the importance of exploring the natural landscape, discovering beauty in unlikely places and considering how the landscape can be a source of inspiration, rejuvenation, and reconciliation. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the influence of landscape cannot be underestimated; it is a source for learning and community engagement. When one is mindful of the landscape and the community that inhabits it, there are opportunities for expanded learning, influencing for good, and becoming more firmly rooted in the land.

The success of Sudbury’s land reclamation efforts The story of Sudbury’s land reclamation efforts is depicted in the book, Healing the Landscape: Celebrating Sudbury’s Reclamation Success. This story is an unusual representation of the interconnections between a landscape and a community. In the foreword, author Nicola Ross references Sudbury’s damaging history: “Early logging, forest fires and a century of mining activities resulted in a bleak landscape of black, scarred and barren rock, denuded forests and acidified lakes and streams.”1 Even today, to many not living in Sudbury, the landscape appears desolate and lonely. Since the 1970s, however, there has been a concerted effort by Laurentian University faculty, mining interests, local activist groups and concerned citizens to work “together to bring about Sudbury’s ecological rebirth.” 2 Today the regreening efforts have turned “an industrial wasteland into a vibrant and spirited community,”3 winning numerous conservation awards, including a United Nations commendation. While these remediation endeavours are ongoing, the efforts of the community to make the region an ecologically sustainable place to live, learn, work, and recreate are commendable.

1

Nicola Ross. Healing the landscape: celebrating Sudbury’s reclamation success = Un paysage en renaissance: Sudbury inspiration d’un succès écologique (Sudbury, ON: City of Greater Sudbury, 2001), 8. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.,11.

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape

83

St. Mark’s Chapel: Inspired architecture Thorneloe University’s 4 Fielding Memorial Chapel of St. Mark (Anglican), was designed in 1967 by one of Sudbury’s finest architects, Arthur Townend. This modern chapel emerges from a swath of lawn in the summer and is comfortably blanketed in snowdrifts in the winter. It is a tranquil space with filtered, coloured light that is open to the academic community and beyond, for the purposes of worship, education and retreats. It is set apart from, yet perceptibly intertwined with, Thorneloe's academic complex and is situated near Lake Laurentian's conservation area, where nature abounds in all its seasonal glory. Janna Ramsay Best depicts the unusual design of St. Mark’s Chapel in The Architectural Imagination of S. Arthur Townend: The chapel walls consist of six triangular wedges and one rectangular wedge of concrete that are placed in a circle, but which do not touch in the centre. The apexes of the triangles, each at a different angle and level, reach for the sky…The space in the centre between all the concrete wedges is the floor area of the chapel. Interior walls are created by that part of the concrete wedges that reaches towards the centre, each at a different angle, creating extraordinary effects of light and shade from the stained-glass windows in the intervening spaces. The interior is calm, comforting and serene, and cool with the brilliant blue of the stained glass windows.5

She also describes the chapel’s exterior: “The largest and tallest concrete wedge, with a slender metal cross on its apex, reaches for the sky on the eastern side of the chapel like a spire […]. This building, sitting on the grass, is an imaginative, poetic, artistic creation.” 6 Townend’s architectural firm received a Design Council award for the chapel. Visitors remark on the intimacy of the sacred space, its peaceful interior punctuated by light. The human experience of the building lends itself well to worship, prayer, meditation, and possible inner transformation. Such actions can be restorative and life-giving, demonstrating that the built environment has the potential to elevate and stir the spirit. In spite of Sudbury's barren surroundings in the 1960s, Townend's vision, to design an aesthetically pleasing building that continues to inspire and rejuvenate, is an example of how the landscape of the built environment can be an influence for good. 4

Thorneloe University is one of three founding institutions federated with Laurentian University, located on the Laurentian campus. 5 Janna Ramsay Best, The Architectural Imagination of S. Arthur Townend (Master's thesis, Laurentian University, 2001), 92. 6 Ibid., 93-94.

84

Chapter Six

Sudbury’s transformation, including the development of ‘Science North’ Sudbury's story is one of regeneration and transformation. In Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital, historian Dieter Buse writes: “In the 1970s Sudbury’s political and social make-up underwent a transformation.” 7 He notes: .

Population, pollution, work patterns, economic conditions, physical appearance, transportation, governmental structures, and cultural opportunities were all altered fundamentally during the decade […] Sudbury […] had changed from a single reliance on the mining industry to a dual dependence on mining and government8.

That extended to higher education and a new service-oriented economy, including health care. Despite these developments and others in recent years, Sudbury has not shaken its "moonscape" image beyond the city limits. Bucking this trend, however, is Northern Ontario's most popular tourist destination, ‘Science North’. Designed by acclaimed Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama, and built in the early 1980s, this science education centre is situated on the shores of Ramsey Lake, across from the regional hospital, Health Sciences North, and at the corner of two main thoroughfares, one leading to Laurentian University and the other leading to Sudbury’s downtown core. The museum is comprised of two stainless steel hexagonal buildings resembling snowflakes. The architectural significance of the design is described as: […] a snowflake perched atop a rock crater […]. The snowflake is symbolic of the glaciation that sculpted Canada’s northern landscape. A snowflake is also a crystal, the basic component of so many natural minerals. The rock crater is symbolic of the Sudbury Basin […] the edge of the basin is the source of the nickel, copper and fifteen other minerals that have made Sudbury one of Canada’s largest mining centres9.

The smaller hexagonal building houses administrative offices and a cafeteria; the larger hexagon: 7 Dieter K. Buse, “The 1970s,” in Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital, ed. C. M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993), 265 8 Ibid., 242. 9 “Science North Architecture,” Science North, accessed: June 6, 2014: http://sciencenorth.ca/mediacentre/about/architecture.aspx.

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape

85

[…] rests atop a rock outcrop sixty metres away at an elevation some fifteen metres higher. The elevation difference allowed the architects to connect the buildings by an underground rock tunnel beneath the exhibit building. At the end of this rock tunnel is an underground cavern used for various public functions10.

Referenced in Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital, "from its opening in 1984, Science North has symbolised the importance of tourism in the diversification of the Sudbury economy." 11 The permanent and travelling exhibits attract a year-round clientele, while Ramsey Lake is a centre for activity in summer and winter months. ‘Science North’s’ success is due, in part, to its contextualised design, premier waterfront location, and permanent exhibits that feature the northern Ontario landscape. A unique aspect of the museum is the presence of "Bluecoats," trained science staff and volunteers, who are available throughout the museum to engage visitors in conversation about the various exhibits. These personal encounters make a lasting impression and are, what museum administrators12 believe to be one of the primary draws for repeat visits that help to offset the financial costs of this attraction. ‘Science North’ embodies a measure of what poet and activist Wendell Berry valued in his work: A deep familiarity between a local community and the local landscape is a dear thing, just in human terms. It’s also, down the line, money in the bank because it helps you to preserve the working capital of the place13.

Recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, ‘Science North’ models that “working capital”.

Landscape takes on meaning in relation to community Not far from Sudbury, heading south on Highway 69, Canada’s acclaimed Group of Seven artists were inspired to paint the Georgian Bay 10

Ibid. C. M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson , eds, Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993), top photo adjacent to p. 193. 12 Franco Mariotti, recently retired Science North scientist on staff since 1981. Interview with Cindy Derrenbacker. Sudbury, June 10, 2014. 13 Roger Cohn, “Wendell Berry: A Strong Voice for Local Farming and the Land,” posted March 6, 2014, accessed June 19, 2014, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2739. 11

86

Chapter Six

landscape of “rocky islands, wind-blown pine and blue water.” 14 They captured the beauty of Lake Huron and the wild terrain of the region. An enduring criticism, however, has been the Group’s depictions of Canada leaving people out of landscapes.15 I would argue that landscape cannot be viewed in isolation from human beings. Landscape takes on meaning in relation to people and community (much like the personable “Bluecoats” sharing the northern Ontario narrative with visitors at Science North). In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, D. W. Meinig expounds on human geographer John Brinckerhoff Jackson’s understanding of landscape. According to Meinig, Jackson believed that “the idea of landscape is anchored upon human life,” as Jackson put it, “the true and lasting meaning of the word landscape: not something to look at but to live in; and not alone but with other people.”16 Furthermore, says Meinig: “Landscape is a unity, a wholeness, an integration, of community and environment; man is ever part of nature, and the city is basically no less involved than the countryside.”17 “Therefore we must always seek [as Jackson wrote] ‘to understand the landscape in living terms,’ [and] ‘in terms of its inhabitants.’”18 Meinig is able to conclude then, that “[i]n the broadest view, all landscapes are symbolic,” and, as Jackson argued, every “landscape is a reflection of the society which first brought it into being and continues to inhabit it.”19 There are local examples of the landscape taking on meaning in relation to community, such as the flourishing community garden movement. This is despite a limited growing season and a need to amend the soil for best results. There are over thirty such initiatives throughout Sudbury. The concept of a single plot of land being gardened collectively encourages community, responsibility, education, and food security. Further, as Ann Spirn writes in The Language of Landscape: […] community gardens are a place for planting, growing and harvesting food, but they are also the locus for many other life processes: for sharing

14

Michael Hough, Out of Place: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 21. 15 David Silcox, The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson (Richmond Hill, ON: Firefly Books, 2011), 76. 16 D.W. Meinig, “Reading the Landscape: An Appreciation of W.G. Hoskins and J.B. Jackson,” in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, ed. D.W. Meinig (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 228. (emphasis original). 17 Ibid. (emphasis original). 18 Ibid. (emphasis original). 19 Ibid. (emphasis original).

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape

87

and trading, for meeting and play, for making and building, for dreaming and worship. They are the scene of both cooperation and conflict.20

Drawing connections between these life processes, the local community, and the land itself, is one way to become more rooted in an increasingly transient society. One grass-roots organisation worth mentioning is Sudbury's Rainbow Routes, a not-for-profit group, dedicated to developing the Trans- Canada Trail through the District of Sudbury, as well as promoting sustainable mobility where pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users can get to their destinations within the city, safely and efficiently. From October through June, the association leads monthly hikes, introducing the community to various trails throughout the city. One memorable winter hike that I participated in started at ‘Science North’. Around eighty of us donned snowshoes and followed a trail along the southern shoreline of Lake Ramsey to the sustainably designed Vale Living with Lakes Centre, which is adjacent to the entrance of the Laurentian University campus. As we stepped out, a pond hockey competition was under way, ice skaters were winding their way along the Ramsey Lake skate path, snowmobilers were crisscrossing the frozen lake, and a handful of cross-country skiers and ice fishermen could be observed in the distance—a quintessentially Canadian winter scene! Initiatives such as Rainbow Routes and a community that actively supports youth sports, healthy living, and outdoor recreation, help to offset Sudbury’s culture of driving and a potentially sedentary community driven indoors in the winter months due to extreme, cold temperatures. Such initiatives also help to counter the general obsession with technology and social media—shades of Richard Louv’s bestseller Last Child in the Woods, “which describes a generation so plugged into electronic diversions that it has lost its connection to the natural world.”21 When we experience the landscape with our senses fully engaged, we are enlivened, and often all the more so, when we share our experience of the land in communion with others.

Reconciling displaced communities In spite of these and other constructive efforts to connect the community with the landscape, there are those who have been exiled, marginalised, or 20 Ann W. Spirn, The Language of Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 71. 21 Richard Louv, The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from NatureDeficit Disorder (Chapel Hill: NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008), back cover.

88

Chapter Six

unable to reap the benefits of the land. In The Architecture of Exile, author Stanley Tigerman quotes Edward Said: “Exile is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home […]. Exiles are cut off from their roots, their land, their past.” 22 As such, Tigerman states: “At the heart of the exilic quest is the search for identity.”23 There is a history of Indigenous people in Canada having been cut off from “their roots, their land, and their past.” This pattern has been repeated in northern Ontario. In Oiva Saarinen’s history of Sudbury, From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City, the author writes: “Aboriginals have broadened their cultural imprint on the human landscape […] the unfortunate reality, however, is that outside of [Sudbury’s] downtown core, the Aboriginal population has remained largely invisible.” 24 In spite of local initiatives, Aboriginal People have not been fully integrated into the community as well as one might hope, especially given "there are approximately twenty reserves situated within 300 kilometres of Sudbury's radius."25 One such reserve is M'Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island, an island west of Sudbury in Lake Huron. A tourist attraction at M'Chigeeng is, among other things, the Immaculate Conception Church, a Roman Catholic parish served by Jesuit missionaries since the late 1850s. The original church was built in 1910, but burned to the ground in 1971. Father Michael Murray, the incumbent at the time, and a handful of Aboriginal parishioners influenced the design of the present-day church-in-the-round: Drawing upon memory and gesturing toward a resurgence in traditional teachings and practices the community combined what Murray saw as three ideas: that the church should be a place in which the circle of healing could be remade, a place in which shelter could be sought and a place of prospect [opportunity].26

Theresa Smith describes the effect: "In its architecture, artwork and in the inclusion of traditional Anishinaabe ceremonies, the church appears to seek a fusion of spirituality that has proven to be both enlightening and sometimes 22 Stanley Tigerman, The Architecture of Exile (NY: Rizzoli, 1988), 124, quoting Edward W. Said, “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile,” Harpers 269 (September 1984): 49, 51. 23 Ibid., 124. 24 Oiva W. Saarinen. From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City: A Historical Geography of Greater Sudbury. (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier, 2013), 233. 25 Ibid., 234. 26 Theresa S. Smith, “The Church of the Immaculate Conception: Inculturation and Identity Among The Anishnaabeg of Manitoulin Island,” American Indian Quarterly 20/4 (Fall 1996): 519

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape

89

confusing to Natives and non-Natives alike."27 The church is known for its Stations of the Cross painted by Anishinaabe artist, Leland Bell. While “Bell is not a Christian but a committed traditionalist and a member of the Midewiwin society [Society of Medicine],” 28 the church is a unique expression of both native images and Christian spirituality, with mixed results. And as Smith concludes: Inculturation, syncretism, Christianization, and the Indianization of Christianity are issues that appear to be of more interest to scholars and theologians than to the Anishnaabe parishioners or traditionalists of Manitoulin. For both Christian and non-Christian Anishnaabeg, the symbolism of the church may be not about identification with one religious system or another, but about identity itself. And the reclamation of Anishinaabe identity on Manitoulin is an ongoing journey […]29

This sacred place teaches the importance of seeking authentic reconciliation with those who have been exiled, marginalised, or cut off from their roots, land, or past. We must make room for those who are displaced and for whom identity is uncertain. As we share a common landscape, we must also share our resources, eradicate injustices, and practice hospitality.

Conclusion It takes a certain courage and gritty determination to live in northern Ontario, given the ruggedness of the land, the winter climate, and a certain isolation from broader cultural opportunities available in larger urban centres, among other things. It may come then as a surprise that in 2015, Sudbury was ranked the happiest city in Canada. 30 This may be due, in part, to the influence of the landscape on the community and the community’s response to the land.31 In Happy City, Charles Montgomery quotes Christopher Alexander: “The fact is, a person is so far formed by his surroundings, that his state of

27

Ibid., 518. Ibid., 521. 29 Ibid., 525. 30 Chaohui Lu and John F. Hilliwel, “How’s Life in the City? Life Satisfaction Across Census Metropolitan Areas and Economic Regions in Canada,” Economic Insights [Statistics Canada] no. 046 (April 2015): 3. 31 Robin Levinson King, “ The Happiest City in Canada is…Sudbury,” Toronto Star, April 21, 2015, http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/04/21/torontosecond-unhappiest-city-in-canada-sudbury-the-most-content.html. 28

90

Chapter Six

harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings.”32 In other words, the physical and cultural landscape has an unmistaken effect on the individual, and by extension, the community; the influence of landscape cannot be underestimated. Montgomery shares the inspiring account of a mayor in Bogota, Columbia, who was elected in 1997 on a platform to make Bogotans happier, not wealthier. "And what are our needs for happiness?" he asked. We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need to be in contact with nature. And most of all we need not to be excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality.33

Under his leadership, the mayor encouraged walking, bike riding, taking public transit, and once each year, banning cars on the road—initiatives the populace grudgingly accepted. And as the story goes and the polls suggested, over time, the population was more optimistic and actually happier about city life than it had been for years. There is much that we can learn from the experience of cities like Bogota, Columbia and Sudbury, Ontario, Canada and the unique places that we each call “home.” As we notice our surroundings more consciously and are mindful of the respective landscapes in which we live, we are more likely to become invested in the land and the community with whom we share this common bond. We can influence the shape of the landscape—its resources and inhabitants—in the short term, for long-term, sustainable, benefit. It often only takes one visionary or a small group of determined volunteers to make a difference. Furthermore, it is through the history of a place and its symbolic markers, exploring the landscape on foot, bike or transit, seeking out beauty, tending the land, connecting with neighbors, and, caring for those who are displaced, that we become more grounded, know ourselves better, and draw wisdom from and are transformed by the landscape.

References Best, Janna Ramsay. The Architectural Imagination of S. Arthur Townend. Master’s thesis, Laurentian University, 2001. Buse, Dieter K. “The 1970s.” In Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital, edited by C.M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson, 242-274. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993. 32

Charles Montgomery, Happy City: Transforming our Lives through Urban Design (Toronto: Doubleday, 2013), 3. 33 As quoted by Charles Montgomery, ibid., 6.

The Art of Noticing Deeply: Learning from the Landscape

91

Cohn, Roger. "Wendell Berry: A Strong Voice for Local Farming and the Land.” Accessed June 19, 2014: http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2739. Cosgrove, Denis E. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. Hough, Michael. Out of Place: Restoring Identity to the Regional Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Lu, Chaohui and John F. Hilliwel. “How’s Life in the City? Life Satisfaction Across Census Metropolitan Areas and Economic Regions in Canada,” In Economic Insights [Statistics Canada] no. 046 (April 2015): 1-11. Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Wood: Saving Our Children from NatureDeficit Disorder. Updated and expanded. New York: Workman Publishing, 2008. Meinig, D.W. “Reading the Landscape: An Appreciation of W.G. Hoskins and J.B. Jackson.” In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays, edited by D.W. Meinig, 195-244. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Montgomery, Charles. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. Toronto: Doubleday, 2013. Ross, Nicola. Healing the Landscape: Celebrating Sudbury’s Reclamation Success. Sudbury, Ontario: City of Greater Sudbury, 2001. Saarinen, Oiva. From Meteorite Impact to Constellation City: A Historical Geography of Greater Sudbury. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2013. Said, Edward W. “The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile,” Harpers 269 (September, 1984): 49-55. “Science North Architecture.” Accessed June 6: 2014: http://sciencenorth.ca/mediacentre/about/architecture.aspx. Silcox, David P. The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books, 2011. Smith, Theresa S. “The Church of the Immaculate Conception: Inculturation and Identity among the Anishnaabeg of Manitoulin Island.” In American Indian Quarterly 20/4 (Fall, 1996): 515-526. Spirn, Ann Whiston. The Language of Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Tigerman, Stanley. The Architecture of Exile. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.

So muchh of the way rheetoric has tricklled down in thee teaching classroom ends up reinforrcing this view of writing as prredictable and assessable. a

CHAPTER SEVEN THE END OF RHETORIC: TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC APPROACH TO WRITING INSTRUCTION WENDY RYDEN WITH NIKKIA GREEN

In the end, good writing can be professional, but great writing is, almost by definition, amateur. It does not necessarily know itself or its audience.1 —Miriam Markowitz Now we are less interested in equipping and refining thought, more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield measurable enhancements of material well-being [...]. Now we are less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, more engrossed in the drama of staying ahead of whatever it is we think is pursuing us.2 —Marilynne Robinson

The field of rhetoric and composition has dominated American writing instruction with its emphasis on demystifying composing through rhetorical principles that allow practice to be explained, taught, and replicated. Such an orientation stands in stark contrast to a notion of writing as a talent either possessed or not—instead it is a skill that can be acquired and practised by everyone. This most democratic and egalitarian idea is, of course, laudable and valid. But the emphasis on writing as rhetoric has had the consequence, intended or otherwise, of aligning our teaching with the worst aspects of assessment culture, itself a process severely compromised and coopted by the market forces that pervade higher education as we have moved towards what Phelps and Ackerman characterize as a “‘utilitarian' ethos" for "social, political and economic

1

Miriam Markowitz, “Here Comes Everybody,” Nation, (Dec. 9, 2013): 52. Marilynne Robinson, “Humanism,” The Givenness of Things, (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2015), 3-4. 2

96

Chapter Seven

gain.”3 I suggest a return to an aesthetic approach to writing informed by Maxine Greene’s concepts of aesthetic education that “will release our students for live and informed encounters.”4 Twentieth-century expressivist writing pedagogies were implicitly connected to humanist valuations of writing as an aesthetic project. They allowed theorists like Peter Elbow to define good writing as having “juice,” 5 much the way we might describe a successful artistic performance that exceeds mere technical proficiency. Certainly rhetoric and aesthetics are not inimical, as Elbow points out when he defends the artistic concept of voice by invoking the sophists.6 But the need to defend voice in this manner is telling, as it is through rhetoric that this aesthetic concept has been most discredited in writing studies. In the late twentieth century, “Exciting developments in rhetoric and theory, embodied […] in James Berlin’s critique of the poetic, channelled [...] the field’s attention” away from the aesthetic tradition of the creative nonfiction genres.7 The charge that expressivism is aesthetically romantic, that is to say, insufficiently or at least incorrectly rhetorical/critical in its situatedness, produced a definitive turn in late twentieth-century scholarship and pedagogy. We have been, ever since, running from and apologising for approaches to writing that try to preserve what Bartholomae denigrated as the “idea of an independent, self-determining subjectivity,” the principle charge levelled against expressivists.8 The phobia of falling prey to such a fallacy haunted us and pushed us in the direction of a pragmatic writing pedagogy defined by measurable, and--above all--sensible and useful products that would “empower” students through “critical thinking” and practical application. This is what it meant to help students achieve agency, as we legitimised a field through the disciplinary muscularity of rhetoric. 3

Louise Weatherbee Phelps and John M. Ackerman, “Making the Case for Disciplinarity in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies: The Visibility Project,” College Composition and Communication 62.1 (2010): 181. 4 Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education, (New York: Teachers College, Columbia U, 2001), 27. 5 Peter Elbow, Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University P, 1998), 286. 6 Peter Elbow, “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries,” College English 70.2 (2007): 168. 7 Douglas Hesse, “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies,” College Composition and Communication 62.1 (2010): 37. 8 David Bartholomae and Peter Elbow, “Responses to Bartholomae and Elbow,” College Composition and Communication 46.1 (1995): 85.

The End of Rhetoric

97

For all its analytic and liberating potential, rhetoric has attached to it an inherent prescriptiveness that has fed the maw of the great outcomes assessment monster, which thrives on the ideas of measurability and predictability. This is techne in an impoverished, Platonic sense that “presupposes a knowledge and wisdom […] measurable and universal.”9 This is writing and its teaching as a social science experiment, akin to "the precursor to standardisation and mechanical reproduction in modern technology" rather than an art as “the source of creative tendencies, the formation of new ideas, the place of invention.”10 So much of the way rhetoric has trickled down into the teaching classroom ends up reinforcing this view of writing as predictable and assessable. This notion becomes inscribed through Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines, undoing all the good these programs have done in championing the contingent nature of writing, when they emphasise utility over aesthetics in the treatment of audience and purpose. By invoking rhetoric as delimited techne, we neglect poesis, “the ‘energy’ behind techne”11 and revile tuche, chance, as the thing rhetoric must conquer. This ethos of predictability is evident in Haswell’s bid to shift research in the field towards RAD: replicable, agreeable, and data-supported. Haswell documents the lack of such scholarship, suggesting that the field has an irrational aversion to moving forward in its professionalisation by failing to embrace this trend. He dismisses charges of positivism levelled against this social science orientation towards scholarship, 12 but the concept of RAD as a governing sensibility seems to move us in the same epistemological direction generally so in vogue these days, just as positivism did in the early twentieth century. Of this cultural trend, Marilynne Robinson makes this observation: Holding to the old faith that everything is in principle knowable or comprehensible by us is a little like assuming that every human structure or artefact must be based on yards, feet, and inches. The notion that the universe is constructed [. . .] so that reality must finally answer in every

9

Michelle Ballif, Seduction, Sophistry, and the Woman with the Rhetorical Figure, (Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois P, 2001), 191. 10 Robert R. Johnson, “Craft Knowledge: of Disciplinarity in Writing Studies,” College Composition and Communication 61.4 (2010): 677. 11 Robert R. Johnson, “What Calls for Naming? A Meditation on Meaning in Technical, Professional, and Scientific Communication Programs,” College Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 711. 12 Richard H. Haswell, “NCTE/CCCC’s Recent War on Scholarship,” Written Communication 22.2 (2005): 200.

98

Chapter Seven case to the questions we bring to it, is entirely as anthropocentric as the notion that the universe was designed to make us possible. Indeed the affinity between the two ideas should be acknowledged […]. Science of the kind I criticise tends to assert that everything is explicable, that whatever has not been explained will be explained—and furthermore, by their [scientists’] methods [...]. So mystery is banished […]. 13

RAD, rhetoric, assessment, all seek to banish mystery in as much as they align with a particular trajectory that seeks control. Surely that is not wrong but only limited. I advocate a return to the aesthetic over the rhetorical, a suspension of concern with audience and purpose, not because these ultimately don’t play an important role in writing, but because worrying about them or thinking about them consciously might be counterproductive, not just because of complicity with assessment but because of what these concerns do to the writer and her writing. Maybe there’s a fallacy undergirding our pedagogy—that people mostly learn through explicit instruction rather than the creation of opportunities to learn. Perhaps we undervalue implicit learning in part because it doesn’t lend itself to assessment and in part because we’ll have to acknowledge just how unpredictable learning, teaching, writing, life really is—and how much is not in our control. Maxine Greene’s work on what she calls aesthetic education reinforces my belief that we should be focused less on teaching the skills that a rhetorical emphasis seems to foster and more on teaching an attitude or orientation that an aesthetic approach would encourage. In other words, we may or may not have some particular outcomes in mind, but we don’t scientifically set out to teach them—rather we create situations that, to use Greene’s words: will release our students for live and informed encounters […]. The ordinary planning we have been taught to do probably has to be reconceived. The orientation to predetermined objectives has to be set aside [...] what happens must be conceived of as an emergent, as a realised possibility. It cannot be preplanned or predicted....”14

13 Marilynne Robinson, “Humanism,” The Givenness of Things (New York: Farra, Strauss, and Giroux, 2015), 14. 14 Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education, (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001), 2728.

The End of Rhetoric

99

Greene’s guiding principle that we should strive “to notice what there is to notice”15 would sound maddeningly tautological to a rhetorician or someone coming up with department learning goals, but the idea of “noticing deeply” sounds remarkably like the essayistic methodology of Montaigne and the habits of observation, reflection, and mindfulness that are the cornerstones of creative nonfiction. I think Greene is effectively arguing for a phenomenological approach to apprehending art, which we can extend to the teaching and practice of writing, and creative nonfiction is the perfect route, because the arts of observation and reflection are the basis for any real, critical thought. Greene repeatedly resists efforts to quantify and measure as counterproductive to her enterprise. For example, she makes statements such as the following: The insights, the modes of attending [...] are not the sort that can be translated into statements of competencies or quantifiable skills [...]. there is no guarantee that the exercise of competencies mentioned will lead to the enjoyment, the discriminating awareness, the sense of disclosure most of us have in mind. Nor is there any guarantee that the work of art at hand will be transmuted into an aesthetic object, no matter what the level of skill nor how extravagant the claims [...]. What we are trying to bring about is neither measurable nor predictable. How could it be if our desire is to enable persons to be personally present to works of art? How could it be if we want so deeply to enable persons to reach out, each one in his/her freedom, to release his/her imagination, to transmute, to transform?16

As someone who has tried to practice critical and transformative pedagogy, I, like others, have often been unsuccessful in guiding students to awareness of inequities and transformation of the worlds we live in. Indeed, critical pedagogy often backfires, producing merely resentment rather than transformation. I have argued, along with others, that such friction and discomfort are possibly the necessary precursors to real change. And they may be. But it is also possible that our structured attempts to induce awareness are self-defeating and that a principled abstinence is ironically more productive and ethical in that regard. What follows as example of the potential of this idea is an excerpted piece of writing by my former student, Nikkia Green, who took a number of classes with me, including a class I teach on writing and healing that features narrative and reflective writing. 15 16

Ibid., 25. Ibid., 29-30.

100

Chapter Seven

The Black Girl I love my culture, but being The Black Girl, I rarely know what the fuck these white people are talking about.... I glance around the room, and I think that if it had not been for the classes we've had together, I probably would have never spoken a word to them. I can't even imagine that, because I feel like I’ve come to know such a vulnerable side to each of them [...]. They know bits of me that no one else does [...]. I feel like these guys are my peeps. It is annoying being the only black girl [...]. I imagine that if there was another black girl sitting across from me we’d connect eyes in silent agreement. Then I start to think about all the nonsense that comes with being of the chocolate skin persuasion. I hate it when people describe me, and they all of a sudden become possessed and their necks tick and rotate, and they say, "girrrrl" and they snap their fingers, and they roll their eyes, and I mean [...]. I do those things. But that isn't all me [...]. I spent a big portion of my childhood going to bat mitzvahs, spinning dreidels and doing things that usually only white people do. Being black in a room full of white people is like being the elephant in the room. Either people pretend I am not different, or they try too hard to relate to me. They ignore me, or they're too nice. It kind of sounds like I won't be happy with any way I am treated, but I promise that's not it. Everything is not racial, I remind myself. Thinking back, I know that this whole Black Girl thing started for me in high school. Maureen was her name. She was about 5’5” with pale skin and brown haired and slightly pudgy. Like on the verge of losing her baby fat, but just not quite. She wore zip-up sweatshirts, t-shirts, blue jeans with sneakers or flip flops depending on the time of year it was. She was so ordinary. I don’t remember how [...] but we became close friends. We sat together and cheated off of Jordan's tests. Eventually, I started hanging out with her group of girlfriends. Needless to say, I was the only black girl. I did everything with these girls. They were the first people to secretly get me drunk behind their parents’ bars. They were my very best friends for almost two years, and I remember exactly when things started to change. It was at Maya's 16th birthday getaway extravaganza at her parents "cabin," which was much bigger than a damn cabin. We were doing the normal sleepover activities. Telling ghost stories, eating pizza, popcorn and candy, and painting our nails. Eventually we started braiding each other's hair, and of course, everyone wanted me to cornrow their hair. I didn't mind, and I was enjoying myself…that is until Maureen asked: “Who’s going to braid Nikkia’s Afro?” Everyone laughed except for me. I didn't get it because I'd always worn my hair straight. I had pretty hair, and I was proud of it—right up until that moment. Around bedtime, I went on my normal routine of wrapping my hair in my silk scarf [...]. I was bombarded with questions. You can’t be offended by someone’s genuine curiosity, right?

The End of Rhetoric

101

At school the next week Maureen would go on to call me ghetto, call me Kawana because that was a ghetto name, and tell people not to be mean to her because her black friend would beat them up. Perhaps I'm remembering it wrong, but it felt like she made jokes and they all just laughed at my expense. By my junior year, I only waved to them in hallways and in passing. The girls I hung out with after them all looked like me. They were all black girls like me, so I didn't have to be The Black Girl. I remember thinking back then I will always just be seen as The Black Girl. That no matter how hard I work, or how many degrees I earn—I'm just a black girl. My father used to tell me that, for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to work twice as hard just to get half the reward. It's a tough pill to swallow, but I've experienced enough ignorance to know that there is some truth to it. I've been told so many times that I don't "act black” or that I was pretty “for a black girl.” And I’ve conditioned myself to not be offended by these things because then I’m a “mad black woman” if I speak out against it. I wonder how many other people feel as though they need to compromise themselves just to be accepted. [...] I don’t want anyone to be afraid to speak freely around me. I was just wondering if the Italian Girl or the Gay Guy or the Jewish Guy or the Mixed Girl or the Foreign Girl ever feels this way? Forever labelled, and there is nothing you can do about it. Dubbs [Wendy] [...] asks me what I am typing in the middle of class. I rattle off an excuse and make a joke. We all laugh.

There was no purposeful attempt to interrogate racism in this class, but Nikkia wrote this because she “felt comfortable sharing it just because of how close the class had become. I doubt,” she says,” I would've shared that piece with any other group of people in an ordinary class setting.” Rather than a techne of control, the principles of kairos and tuche, timeliness and luck, seem to have guided Nikkia’s composition and the class’s ability to receive the gift she offered us that helped us then to have an authentic rather than contrived dialogue about racism. Thanks to Nikkia for providing us with this opportunity.

References Elbow, Peter. Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process, second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. —. “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries.” In College English 70.2 (2007): 168-88.

102

Chapter Seven

Greene, Maxine. Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. Haswell, Richard H. “NCTE/CCCC’s Recent War on Scholarship.” In Written Communication 22.2 (2005): 198-223. Hesse, Douglas. “The Place of Creative Writing in Composition Studies.” In College Composition and Communication 62.1 (2010): 31-53. Johnson, Robert R. “Craft Knowledge: of Disciplinarity in Writing Studies.” In College Composition and Communication 61.4 (2010): 673-90. —. “What Calls for Naming? A Meditation on Meaning in Technical, Professional, and Scientific Communication Programs.” In College Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 709-14. Markowitz, Miriam. “Here Comes Everybody.” In Nation (Dec. 9, 2013): 47-53. Phelps, Louise Weatherbee and John M. Ackerman. “Making the Case for Disciplinarity in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies: The Visibility Project.” In College Composition and Communication 62.1 (2010). 180-215. Robinson, Marilynne. “Humanism,” In The Givenness of Things, New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2015.

What might the stories w we choose to sh hare reveal abou ut our personal and profession nal selves?

CHAPTER EIGHT STORY AS THE NOTICING VOICE JAN BULEY

Storywriting and storysharing as a form of healing practice are rapidly gaining momentum in health and education fields. Storywriting and storysharing with others are essentially about noticing when we wear masks and when we remove the masks—noticing the metaphors for living and the metaphors for coping. Stories shared become the stories of everyone who hears them and relates to them. We become connected with others through our stories; outsiders are invited to be insiders, and people can begin to empathise with other people. All stories have the potential to transform the hearts and minds of those willing to listen and receive. As Cai and Bishop1 state, “Once heard, stories can change other hearts.” Learning journeys come in many forms and in unexpected times and places. Often, learning journeys result in story gatherings—those moments when a young child paints a picture of a dog she once owned who loved to catch Frisbees in the air. Or the chance conversation on an aeroplane with someone beside you who works with female crack addicts in a large city, and the role that the local art gallery plays in their healing. Noting and noticing the voices in the stories we attend to is vital. It's likely that the teller is most closely connected to the story details and experiences within the narrative. Our job as the listener is to make sense of the story threads as they unravel in our ears. Perhaps I have also owned a dog that loved to catch Frisbees, but my dog fetched them in the water. My layer of personal connection gently blankets the layers of other dog-Frisbee fetching stories, and so the stories we notice and pay attention to grow and expand in depth and poignancy. We all thrive on stories that pull us in emotionally. PowerPoint, data sheets, graphs and statistics might attempt to tell a story 1

M. Cai and R. S. Bishop, "Multicultural Literature for Children: Toward a Clarification or the Concept," in The Need for Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and Community, ed. A. H. Dyson and Celia Genishi (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994), 68.

106

Chapter Eight

on a screen, but nothing can compete with the lure of a well-told story. We notice differently when we hear a story. We notice differently when we watch a PowerPoint slideshow. It might be argued that storytelling is innate and central to our existence and wellness as human beings2. Vivian Paley states that children do not pretend to be storytellers; they are storytellers. It is the way children think3. The use of story as a means of noticing and sharing deeply is as old as the world. Most of us can recall sitting on the lap of someone or around a campfire while being told a memorable story. Stories can be places to share feelings, to heal, to offer hope to another person, to strengthen a community or to increase understandings about something. Stories can make us question our beliefs and wonder creatively about other ideas. Indigenous peoples from all over the world tell ancestral stories or lesson stories to transmit a message or a specific teaching at certain points in the seasonal calendar. It is in the sharing of stories that we begin to learn about each other and fully notice what happens around us in the communities where we live. Stories invite us to notice and engage with the world in new ways. Stories have the potential to connect us to others in new and surprising ways. Bruner 4 , states that the “eagerness and willingness to tell one’s story signals a desire to live”. Writer, Matt Ragland, explores what makes stories powerful—or not. What attracts us to one story and not to another? What makes a story memorable for me and not for you? Why have TED talks become so popular? Ragland outlines specific criteria for powerful stories, and the most critical factor that he identifies is that the story must connect to who we are. We connect to the animal, the hero, and the villain because we all have these tendencies within us from time to time. We connect to the teaching lesson because we have been in a similar situation. We connect with the animal character because we, too, have been chased or scolded in our own lives. Frankly, stories can transport us to another time and place in our lives. What might the stories we choose to share, reveal about our personal and professional selves? Elbaz, a teacher education researcher, says it best: 2

J. Ahn and M. Filepenko, "Narrative, Imaginary Play, Art and Self: Intersecting Worlds," Early Childhood Education Journal 34, no. 4 (2007); D. Booth and B. Barton, Story Works: How Teachers Can Use Shared Stories in the New Curriculum (Markham, Ontario: Pembroke, 1999). 3 V.G. Paley, "On Listening to What the Children Say," Harvard Educational Review, no. 56 (1991): 17. 4 Jerome Bruner, "Narratives of Aging," Journal of Aging Studies 13, no. 1 (1999): 9.

Story as the Noticing Voice

107

"The story is the very stuff of teaching, the landscape within which we live as teachers, researchers, and within which the work of teachers can be seen as making sense"5. The stories we share with others show much about our inner philosophies and beliefs. They illuminate for others what we believe and how we have come to know. The stories we share with others are the pinpoints to our own noticings. The details in stories that I remember might connect to something I have experienced. What I notice in a classroom varies from what you, the reader, might notice in a classroom. When I visit a classroom, I notice the height of the tables where children are asked to sit, because I have a personal story about being forced to work in a ‘too small desk' when I was in Grade 7. We all notice different details in stories, and when we collect these details, we being to story our lives together. Our personal identities are crafted from the threads of storied experiences. This is a story about story-sharing, but more importantly, this is a story about giving voice to the voiceless. This is a story about the journey taken with a dozen youth from a local shelter who had never shared their stories publicly. This is a story about what happens when the dynamic, complex and changing world of marginalised youth is honoured and noticed. This is a story about why stories matter. Journey with me to an encounter that happened three years ago with some youth at a shelter in an urban Canadian city: It's October 3, 2013. 4pm. As I drive into the parking lot, it's already getting dark. Today has been a cold rainy Friday, one that always makes me thankful that I have a warm coat. I arrive at the youth shelter (as I have done for the past eight months) and hurry downstairs to the basement where our weekly meetings occur. Dodging a few smokers outside, I greet them all by name, inviting them to come downstairs for our gathering. "I've got chocolate chip cookies today, and there's hot coffee on if you're interested," I announce. Dustin extinguishes his cigarette under his boot and walks towards me, holding the door open. A few teenagers are already waiting downstairs. One of the support counsellors has put a pot of coffee on, and some paper cups are stacked next to an impossibly large jar of white sugar. “Hi Jan! We hope you brought some cookies!” Hazel shouts to me. I assure everyone that I’ve got treats, and within minutes, we’re all seated around a blotched and scratched grey table with caffeine and cookies. We send around a talking stick and ‘check in’ with each other. A few more arrive, grabbing a coffee and a handful of cookies and pull up chairs 5 F. Elbaz, Knowledge and Discourse: The Evolution of Research on Teacher Thinking (London, England: Falmer Press, 1990), 31.

108

Chapter Eight around the table. There are a few new faces in the group today—not uncommon—and we listen as names are shared with brief introductions. Young people travel through our city en route to other destinations with surprising frequency, but there is a familiar group of eight or nine—the ‘regulars’ as I’ve come to know them. "So!" I announce after everyone has had time to say hello and be officially welcomed to the group, "I thought it would be neat to try writing something today. I know that last week when Donna shared her poem, some of you were pretty impressed. I think you're all capable of writing. Here's what I'm thinking about…" I then proceeded to share a little bit about the writing of monologues. I talked about the term ‘puncture points’—those critical incident moments that catch our breath and sometimes break our hearts. “Monologues are really just personal stories—something you all do every time we meet. Some of you have told stories about what it’s like to live on the street. Others have shared what it’s like to get caught by the cops or give up a baby to foster care. Some of you have had happy endings to tragic lives. Those are all puncture points in your lives. So here’s what I’m wondering about and I’m just going to say it. I think you’d be good at writing monologues.” There were blank stares and a few chairs shifted. “Yeah, right. Are you for real? Writing?” blurts Devon. “I don’t write good. Never did,” he added, tipping back on his chair. Devon was one of the ‘regulars’—not ever saying much at our meetings, but happy to be there in the grubby basement of the youth shelter. He always seemed to be famished; always grateful for a warm place with coffee and conversation. He looked around the circle. “That’s okay, Devon. I never used to think I was much of a writer when I was in high school. But I bet you have a story that you could still share. Tell you what. I can be your secretary—and you won’t have to pay me a cent!” I joked. “C’mon. Give it a go,” I added. Within seconds, Devon had grabbed a paper and pen and moved to a corner of the room. Everett, another regular, got up and said he needed to go have a smoke. “Come back, will you?” I asked him. “Sure. I’ll be back,” he promised. I really didn’t know where this invitation would go, but this group trusted me. They trusted my sincerity in whatever we shared and did together, and I continued by handing out some assorted pens and papers. I had also brought along some pieces of heavy cardboard to serve as clipboards, in the event that someone wanted to move away from the table to capture their ideas privately in the basement space. “Take what you need and see what happens when you start jotting down your ideas. And don’t worry about spelling,” I added. “We can fix all that stuff later.” To my complete surprise, the room fell silent as stories flowed onto paper. Ryan sketched his thinking. Linda wrote about her life as a young mom. Others wrote about drugs and getting busted. Carmen tried to capture how she feels about missing her family. Alisha wrote about

Story as the Noticing Voice finishing school and trying to find a job. Some wrote about losing hope. Others wrote about losing friends to suicide. Celeste designed a tattoo she always wanted and wrote about that. Everett returned, and Devon accepted my offer to be his secretary. In the span of about five minutes, he dictated an incredible story about finding his friend passed out in an alleyway on a really dangerously cold night. He relayed the details so quickly that I could hardly keep up. When he finally finished, he tipped back on his chair again and sighed quite audibly. "And that's not the end. There's more," he mumbled, staring straight at me. "But maybe that's enough for today." We would write again next week, I assured him. Then he leant forward and asked me the question that carried me through the week. "Can I keep the pen Jan?" So began the journey to the monologue project with homeless youth. At the end of our first day of writing, Jessica had crafted a whole page of writing about being gay, and what that journey was like for her in high school. She recounted the details of being bullied and pushed around in the hallways. She shared details of what it was like to be ‘cut out of stuff’ as she phrased it. And then she talked about how she resorted to cutting herself. I decided to introduce the notion of metaphors to the group, and they were clearly intrigued. Razors, carpets, candles, train tracks, nests, lost invitations, glittery shoes. I invited them to think about something that could represent some aspect of their life story. Something magical happened when the idea of metaphors was extended. “I feel like I’m just a carpet,” suggested Donnie. “People treat me with no respect. They just wipe their boots on my face.” Silence. Then some people began writing again. Tania, writing beside me, piped up. “And it’s like life is a dark alleyway with a train coming towards me. ‘Cept the tunnel is blocked at this end,” she added, tracing the snake tattoo up her arm with the pen in her hand. “I feel like I’m just in the way all the time, but the tracks go on forever.” Jessica announced that her story was finished, and I invited her to share it with the group. She beamed and grabbed another coffee. We pulled our chairs into a circle and everyone sat motionless as Jess read what she had written. It was the first time she had shared her story about being bullied with the whole group, and there was admiring silence at the end of her reading. Then someone clapped. There was so much to learn in listening to these stories. I talked about the writing process, and how I would be willing to help edit their stories. We talked about flow, details, voice and authenticity. I assured them that these were teaching stories for the world. I shared the idea of possibly sharing these stories with others outside the youth shelter, and the youths were clearly intrigued. I also told them about attending a performance of youth shelter stories once, and how wonderful it had been. I told them that they didn't have to share if they didn't feel comfortable doing that with others.

109

110

Chapter Eight “Would you be willing to let me type up your story as a more formal draft, Jess?” I asked. “I could take it home and bring it back next week.” She agreed, and the following week, I returned with twelve copies of Jessica’s monologue. All twelve chairs were filled, and I sensed that the group was eager to get started. Who knew that a writing group would hatch so easily with homeless youth? The following week, I talked a little bit about the skill of co-editing pieces together. I spoke about the importance of tact and finding things to say about the writing that were positive and encouraging. This was uncharted territory with the youth, and I had no idea what to expect. I wanted to protect Jessica and her story. Knowing the importance of modelling the writing process, I had also crafted a monologue to share with the youth. I had written a story about a young boy who had gone to a tattoo parlour to get a tattoo in memory of his deceased brother. Jessica wanted me to share my writing first, and I willingly agreed. I distributed the copies of my story to everyone and invited the youth to get their pens ready to underline things they wanted to talk about. I read my piece out loud as everyone followed along. All was going well until I reached the sentence about the young boy going to a tattoo parlour. That's when Nathan shifted his big boots on the cement floor. "Jan, just for the record, that's not what you call it. It's an ink shop not a tattoo parlour." There were a few giggles around the circle and I smiled warmly at Nathan, thanking him for that detail. I didn’t want him to feel that his editing suggestion had offended me. “Cool, Nathan. Thanks for that. It sounds better doesn’t it?” I said. "Yeah. And I'd move the part about his brother dying, to the first part of the story. That's the part that everyone should know about before he gets the tattoo," suggested Alisha, empowered by Nathan's courage. "Oh. Okay. I see what you mean. I agree, Alisha. It makes more sense for it to be up at the top of my story. So everybody, mark up your copies. Just put an arrow beside paragraph two so we move it to the top of the story. See what I've done on my copy? And everyone can scratch out ‘tattoo parlour' with your pens and put ‘ink shop' above that part please. Do it in your copies. You're the editors now. Hey! Thanks, writers!" More giggles and more scribbling. Eventually, we heard Jessica's story as well, and there were equally fine ideas for strengthening her monologue. The youth offered their suggestions with grace and candour. No-one felt offended. We had all become members of a writer’s club. This story has an incredible ending. The youth wrote and wrote and wrote. Some weeks, at the end of our meeting, I would find three monologues tucked into the side pocket of my knapsack. Brent brought his writing to the art gallery one week and begged me to edit with him while everyone else painted. Tania wrote three songs and performed them one Friday afternoon, her voice filling the dingy basement with utter beauty. Darcy wrote a poem that he later read on the local radio station. For writers who were too shy to perform and share their monologue, I invited some

Story as the Noticing Voice

111

student teachers to ‘become’ the youth. The youth from the shelter eagerly coached the student teachers to ‘be’ their voice, and the power of mentoring another person to deliver text in this way was unforgettable. They chose what they wanted the student teachers to wear (one girl took off her denim jacket and loaned it as a costume piece right on the spot). We had lessons in how to strut, how to toss a cigarette package, how to stare. The youth monologue authors listened intently as their texts came alive through the voices of the student teachers and the sharing was transformative for everyone. Together, we crossed many thresholds, eventually sharing our stories in a production of “You’ll Never Forget These Stories” with medical students, social workers, police, community healthcare providers, high school students and youth support workers filling the audience chairs.

The youth in this story found their voice through writing. Livo and Rietz6 explain that: Story is a universal mirror that shows us the ‘truth’ about ourselves—who and why we are. When we look into this mirror, we see daily routine; mundane circumstances transformed into something profound. ‘Story' takes the ordinary and binds it into all of human existence, revealing the significance of the trivial.

Stories are essentially the maps to ourselves, defining who we are, our actions and thoughts, our hopes and dreams. In this experience, the writing created by the youth at the shelter caused new windows to be pried wide open. We all had an opportunity to notice new things around us. One person's conflict connected to another person's troubles. Special bonds developed among youth who had been bullied in high school, and they shared their journeys with the student teachers. Tania became recognised as a songwriter; Darcy, a poet. We all became writers. Writing story monologues helped the youth make sense of themselves and each other, and nudged others to see marginalised youth beyond their own stereotyped worlds. They noticed the broader community map around them and considered the experiences of others. Perhaps most importantly, the stories shared became the teachings for our audience and for ourselves, equipping all listeners with insights and tools to better judge the world and the people we hope to become.

6

N. Livo and S. Rietz, Storytelling: Process and Practice (Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1986), 4.

112

Chapter Eight

References Ahn, J., and M. Filepenko. "Narrative, Imaginary Play, Art and Self: Intersecting Worlds." In Early Childhood Education Journal 34, no. 4 (2007). Booth, D., and B. Barton. Story Works: How Teachers Can Use Shared Stories in the New Curriculum. Markham, Ontario: Pembroke, 1999. Bruner, Jerome. "Narratives of Aging." In Journal of Aging Studies 13, no. 1 (1999). Cai, M., and R.S. Bishop. "Multicultural Literature for Children: Toward a Clarification or the Concept." In The Need for Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and Community, edited by A. H. Dyson and Celia Genishi, 57-81. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994. Elbaz, F. Knowledge and Discourse: The Evolution of Research on Teacher Thinking. London, England: Falmer Press, 1990. Livo, N., and S. Rietz. Storytelling: Process and Practice. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1986. Paley, V. G. "On Listening to What the Children Say." In Harvard Educational Review, no. 56 (1991).

SECTION THREE BEING PRESENT IN BEAUTY

Where, when and why is the concept of beauty noticed by people moving in and through their worlds? Moreover, how might people begin to recover their natural condition for hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling through a mindful and thoughtful use of imagination, and sensory perception? Are there habits and pathways of knowledge-gathering that assist a journey of noticing deeply one's environment and that provide a more fully realised worldview? Indigenous teachings spiral into everexpanding relationships with the smallest and largest aspects of the world through mind, body, spirit and emotion. Relational connectedness may require a re-alignment of awareness: noticing beings in the world differently than merely as something to be checked off a list. Living in relational connectedness, in itself, may be recognition of the concept of beauty. As in language acquisition, this re-alignment may require an authentic immersion. Celebration of beauty breaks open possibility of empathy and awareness of other. Celebration of beauty inspires further creative honouring and expression. Beauty may well be found in inconvenient and imposing aspects of our world. These chapters explore some answers to the questions, “How do we notice deeply?” and “By what means may we follow pathways to beauty?” “Can we become more ‘metaphysically flexible’ in being open to where we can find these pathways?” “Who can explore these pathways?” All of us can and must. And how will we do this? Robin Wall Kimmerer1 writes: We must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have and they have had time to figure things out. They live both above and below the ground, joining Skyworld to the earth. Plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then they give it away. The plants can tell us [the] story. We need to learn to listen. 1

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2013), 9-10.

114

Section Three

Reference Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions, 2013.

Creativity, as a self-motivaated action that connects the inndividual’s inneer life with exteerior social and eenvironmental exigencies, e is a proocess that beauty can ride.

CHAPTER NINE WHEN BEAUTY GUIDES LEARNING SUSAN A. SCHILLER

Greater awareness of beauty and the various types of beauty we live with are necessary for developing multiple qualities global citizens should attain—qualities such as the following: kinder sensibilities toward people; fuller acceptance of racial and cultural differences; greater appreciation for the preservation of nature; clearer expression of beauty in everyday personal and public space; keener observation and judgement of artistic beauty; higher levels of curiosity and vision; and most importantly, a consistent willingness to engage and grow with aesthetic contact. In addition to such qualities, beauty provides pleasure and invites what Elaine Scarry calls “radical decentering” of self.1 This happens because beauty momentarily forces our consciousness to rest on Beauty itself resulting in multiple responses such as awe, wonder, amazement, surprise, excitement, gratitude, intense pleasure with its gift, and a desire to create beauty beyond the immediate moment. Indeed, beauty awakens human responses that exist beyond culture, socio-economic status, religion, or nationality. Roger Scruton leans on Kant, who thought that “beauty, or the pursuit of it, should be a human universal.”2 John Lane takes this a step further in Timeless Beauty when he says that “beauty is timeless, universal and intrinsic; like the woof of a fabric it runs through every cell, every creature, every artist.” 3 This leads me to believe that humans have an innate propensity for noticing beauty in order to find bearing in life and to conclude that beauty is never insignificant. Why then, do we tend to overlook beauty or take it for granted, especially since it has the potential 1

Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), 78. 2 Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2011), 49. 3 Thomas Lane, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life (Totnes, Devon: Green Books Ltd., 2003), 33.

118

Chapter Nine

to carry us into deep noticing when we remember to see it, value it, and feel it? Fortunately, a practice of deep seeing can assist us in acknowledging beauty every day. I use beauty as a topic to initiate deep seeing in my university courses (specifically those focusing on nonfiction writing, literature, and film studies) because I believe beauty can increase the quality of our life—not only as an enhancement but also as the core of our strength. A pedagogical focus on beauty is not an easy endeavour, however; it is even countercultural for it demands deep noticing of the smallest and the largest details. It also requires intense self-reflection and identification of what speaks to the individual spirit. Moreover, any response we have to beauty engages a level of abstraction that most people have yet to find comfortable or for which they have developed any appreciation. In other words, to state it more simply, beauty engages the whole person as it engages the abstract and the concrete expressions of life, but consciousness of it tends to be taken for granted by most of us. Beauty is perhaps one of the most important aspects of life. Life would be unbearable without it. So, why then is the world around us today so filled with what I call “the uglies”? John Lane answers this question when he suggests that western culture is “obsessed by hedonism, consumption and the acquisition of wealth [and] for a century or more it seems that we have been running away from silence, stillness and beauty.” 4 This also explains how and why beauty has been sapped out of most commercial products for the sake of low production cost, instant manufacturing speed, and cheap, high quantity. The tendency to want something quickly places a higher value on what is easier than on what is worthy. Such a tendency erodes our appreciation for effort, for long-term achievement, and for tasks that require sustained focus. All this further erodes our ability to sit quietly and blocks deep noticing or any willingness to engage abstractions. As a result, our thinking becomes dulled and our patience thins; if we can't get a quick answer on Google, then it is likely that we will throw away the question. This behaviour starts the slide into mediocrity and superficial living. Beauty, however, can turn us in the opposite direction, for it awakens us by restoring our ability for deep noticing, at times in baby steps, at other times with giant steps. Lane says, “Beauty has always been an ageless source of human regeneration. It has also and above all else, been the great teacher of respect, reverence if you prefer.” 5 As beauty regenerates us thus, we find happiness, peace, joy, awe, and even see 4 5

Ibid., 152. Ibid.

When Beauty Guides Learning

119

deeper into beauty and its potential. Indeed, we tap our innate capacity to create, change, and grow. Generally speaking, western culture today moves fast and values that which is fast, even that which is instant. Social media trends verify this. However, such a value for the quick and instant creates an ironic climate when encountering beauty. Judgements of beauty almost always instantly occur from within a process of evaluation that we rarely think about, especially if we are a little sad, depressed even, or preoccupied with a problem. But when we are directly asked to validate our judgements we have to stop and think about them; then we begin to notice more deeply. For instance, when strolling in the park on a sunny July day, we automatically “see” the beauty of flowers or the Canada geese in the pond, even if at first we do not appreciate the beauty. We do not stop to think about the symmetry or the balance created by the visual scene before us. Instead, we embrace the pleasure, even peace or joy, caused by beauty in the flowers and geese. As we continue the stroll, we might encounter a young mother with her baby and stop to ‘ooooo’ and ‘ahhh’ over the tender beauty of the child. Maybe a dog-walker is approaching from the opposite direction with a lovely little spaniel or beagle that just begs to be petted. The softness of dog fur and bright eyes of appreciation for attention from a stranger creates physical and emotional beauty; albeit it momentary, it is, nonetheless, enjoyable. If we are sad or preoccupied, these little encounters may even lift us away from whatever might be blocking our awareness. And so, this is how we walk forward in life, encountering beauty at nearly every turn; but rarely do we stop to analyse it or to even acknowledge its importance. We simply expect it and let it whiz past us. Yet, our desire for beauty is endless, and we seek it in daily life. Who will not return to the park to seek out flowers, geese, babies, and dogs, but it is not in the object that holds the beauty that we seek when we do return, it is the pleasure beauty brings to us. Even if the beauty we experience seems to be of the instant quick type, that which is momentary, we still seek it out. Beauty compels us forward in our search, but it also sends us looking backwards as we seek pleasures we have already experienced. As Scarry points out: The very pliancy or elasticity of beauty—hurtling us forward and back, requiring us to break new ground, but obliging us also to bridge back not only to the ground we just left but to still earlier, even ancient, ground—is a model for the pliancy and liability of consciousness in education.6

6

Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just, 46.

120

Chapter Nine

Oscillation such as this can be extended beyond instant moments to counter the cultural patterns, which threaten to weaken our quality of life. As some of us know, when we are aware of such oscillation, and utilise it with careful deliberation, our focused consciousness of beauty grows stronger and becomes our guide for learning and for living. When we learn something new, we change. Even in instances when change appears to be insignificant or too small to mention, learning something new modifies the self. Naturally, we are more pliable and labile at certain moments than others. When we accept a learning environment or situation, our consciousness is strong, as are our expectations for change. Our acceptance and expectations invite change and invite growth. We all agree that social structures, such as schools, are intense environments for change and growth. Students enter the doors of learning institutions with great hope that their experiences will transform them into productive people valued by society. Even so, few students understand that they are complicit in supporting and creating these environments for their transformation. Most professionals, teachers and administrators, who are responsible for providing and creating opportunities for such transformation, understand the societal role we assume, and we approach our responsibilities knowing that we must continue to grow as professionals. Thus, professional development activity is vital and necessary. Nothing stands still. All of us constantly undergo change. Ironically, such a climate is not unstable, because the goal of education is to manifest change. Actually, the goal would be lost if we became static. Promoting beauty as a guide for learning ensures dynamism and serves as a shield to protect us from becoming static. As Roger Scruton says, “beauty makes a claim on us: it is a call to renounce our narcissism and look with reverence on the world.” 7 Beauty achieves this naturally by repeatedly calling us into a position of deep-noticing deeply and radical de-centering. Over time, we stretch deeper and deeper, moving into greater insight of self and reverence for the world. Awareness of beauty steadily increases and establishes habitual deep-noticing that sustains a continuum of change and growth. To recognise beauty is, firstly, to judge something as beauty. Of course, some will use the old adage that says "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." This introduces a level of relativism into the discussion that is erroneous, for the adage and its use forgoes the reality that beauty is an "experience."8 Scruton, who argues this point, concludes by stating that: 7 8

Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, 145. Ibid., 163.

When Beauty Guides Learning

121

[beauty] challenges us to find meaning in its object, to make critical comparisons, and to examine our own lives and emotions in the light of what we find. Art, nature, and the human form all invite us to place this experience in the centre of our lives. If we do so, then it offers a place of refreshment of which we will never tire. But to imagine that we can do this, and still be free to see beauty as nothing more than a subjective preference or a source of transient pleasure, is to misunderstand the depth to which reason and value penetrate our lives […] . The judgement of beauty orders the emotions and desires of those who make it. It may express their pleasure and their taste: but it is pleasure in what they value and taste for their true ideals.9

Deep-noticing of beauty around us serves to bring us into full recognition of our true ideals and promises to provide a self-selected pathway to refreshment that is available throughout our entire life. When we begin to consider our reasons of judgement, we also begin to connect with others, particularly those who “create” beauty. More often than not these connections occur indirectly, but even so, if we are thoughtful people we are catapulted into questioning the source of our experience. We look into our inner self, into our soul for answers. O'Donohue says to enter into the gentleness of [our] own soul changes the tone and quality of [our] life […] [we] gain a new respect four [ourself] and others and [we] learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is.10

On the other hand, if we are not thoughtful people, we take our experience of beauty for granted and simply move along in a banal fog that renders us insensitive to beauty and blocked from its joy. Such blockage invites apathy, thwarts growth, and establishes susceptibility to any con game offered up. It does not lead to a meaningful life. Such a miserable state of being is easily rectified, however, through deep noticing and self-reflection of the reasoning behind our judgements of beauty. As Scruton reminds us, “the judgement of beauty demands an act of attention.”11 While this may sound easy to do, it requires a strong desire to know ourselves and the world of which we are a part. It requires that we make connections with others in meaningful, significant relationship. To this end, educational opportunities should be created to stimulate such acts of attention. 9

Ibid., 164. John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (New York, New York: Harper Perennial, 2004), 78. 11 Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, 13. 10

122

Chapter Nine

As a topic to guide learning, “beauty” is a never-ending source of surprise for learners and teachers. The abstract and concrete expressions of life, which contribute to our judgement of beauty, function below the surface when our consciousness of beauty is low. However, when beauty guides learning, our consciousness awakens, and both abstract and concrete elements call for attention. As a person deeply aware of beauty, I was drawn first to Scruton's theory, then to others. I first began designing coursework around the topic of beauty when teaching film and literature, and then branched out to graduate courses in nonfiction. Inevitably, curiosity about how the topic would work at lower levels led me to using it in my university composition competency courses. I found “beauty” to adhere nicely to holistic and spiritual approaches to learning as well as to facilitate academic objectives set forth by my university. More importantly, though, most of these (not all) pedagogical experiences have underscored John O’Donohue’s definition of beauty. He says, “beauty is possibility that enlarges and delights the heart.” 12 The question here is, whose heart? My heart, to be sure, but what of the students' hearts? Not all! Why not? Obviously, the radical decentering Elaine Scarry writes about is counter-cultural to the hedonistic social media culture that is consuming them daily. And it is true that thinking, talking, and writing about abstract ideas that require deep noticing are challenging new endeavours. Such acts of attention many students simply lack readiness to meet. They have to slow down and think about the world, but the western culture wants everyone working at top speed eight or ten days a week. Many people do not know how or do not want to slow their lifestyle. Beauty, on the other hand, serves to introduce a slower process of being, because as Lane says, it is one of beauty's sweetest attributes that its appreciation slows things down; it can never be savoured in a rush or fret. Quite the opposite; its enjoyment “depends [my italics] on patience, silence, calm and respect. And an openness of mind.”13 Beauty serves as a guide into a slower lifestyle, one that invites comfort with deep noticing. Beauty further serves to shift people away from the hedonistic culture that has anaesthetised their ability to see. Beauty opens them to a vast field of possibility for transformation as it stimulates creativity and learning. Creativity—as a self-motivated action that connects the individual's inner life with exterior social and environmental exigencies—is a process that beauty can ride. Those who “create” beauty—poets, artists, writers, musicians, chefs, architects, and the list goes on—strive to bring about 12 13

John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, 139. Thomas Lane, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, 153.

When Beauty Guides Learning

123

something new and original into the world. We revere their work when it fits our taste and when we judge the work as beautiful. This assumes, of course, that we have slowed down long enough to see it, to experience it, to judge it. Those who create, hold out a promise of transformation to us, and we meet their work hoping to receive the promise. When the promise is delivered, we feel a range of responses such as awe, wonder, amazement, thrill, respect and reverence for creativity and beauty; but frequently we also feel distant from our own creative abilities. We think, “Oh, I could never paint/write/sing like that.” Unfortunately, such distance prevents us from attempts to be creative. We remain passive, content to gaze simply or listen. This is tragic, because the world needs more beauty in it, and it needs it from us! Lane tells us that: Once faith in our own creativity has been rekindled there is no reason, no excuse, for a day to pass without the pleasure—and the responsibility—of adding to the beauty of the world. And creative opportunity can be found in regard to everything.”14

Not only do we need to open our eyes and see deeply the beauty around us, we need to be those who put beauty in the world. It isn't enough to see without creating. Therefore, since creativity is inseparable from beauty, educators need to engage creative activities so that beauty can guide learning. Since I have students for a sixteen-week semester, my goals to raise awareness of beauty are modest. In writing classes, I pair two books: Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, by Roger Scruton, and Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, by John O'Donohue. These books offer similar views, but they present them in different styles. Scruton's academic formal style is based in history, philosophy and cultural analysis. O'Donohue's conversational voice draws from Celtic spiritual knowledge and quotes numerous sources from philosophy, history and literature. In upper-level courses, students read both books. Students in lower levels are provided specific quotations I select from Scruton, and they freely select quotes from O'Donohue. They also must keep a daily journal in which they record a self-selected quotation for reflection and inclusion in their essays. All students are expected to use both authors to support their own ideas about beauty. Writing assignments are organised around four classes of beauty Scruton identifies: human beauty; natural beauty; everyday beauty; and artistic beauty. These essays range from personal narratives to research supported arguments and meet course objectives established by the 14

Ibid., 159.

124

Chapter Nine

English department. In film and literature courses, both Scruton and O'Donohue are used in ways similar to what happens in writing classes. The main difference occurs when the subject matter for assignments shifts to accommodate literary and cinematic texts. I also ask students to “map” literary texts and complete “creative projects” that replace a standard final exam and as a vehicle for creativity to bring forth beauty. Since the four classes from Scruton are universal to human experience, each one is easily identifiable in literary and cinematic texts. The variety of expression of each within literature and film further provides an endless supply of examples to analyse and to use as a developmental pathway for deep noticing and transformation. I primarily use these four classes, because, as a “veneer” to the institutional curriculum, they require students to see the world through specific lenses of beauty that can awaken them to their own responses to the world. Scruton tells us that “to understand beauty, we must gain some sense of the variety of our responses to the things in which we discern it.” 15 In general, people take beauty for granted or ignore it. But every day we encounter it and judge it without even thinking about how or why we do it. I believe greater awareness of our responses to beauty moves us like ripples on a lake and create in us wider and wider arcs of experience and knowledge. The sixteen weeks I have to inculcate this experience in students is a modest time span, to be sure, but it is enough to start the ripple effect that judgement of beauty entails. If we were standing on a threshold that led to a beautiful, peaceful way of life, we would step forward. If we opened our mind to the various beauties that shape such a life, we would intensify activity to share and preserve it. If we decenter our self in aesthetic acts of deep seeing, keener observation and judgement of artistic beauty will evolve, and appreciation for beauty will lead us into increased levels of curiosity, vision, and creativity. These will ripple into significantly transformative experiences that are not unreasonable or unavailable when we consider that “aesthetic judgement brings one experience to bear on another, and so transforms it. […]. The resulting transformation can bring unexpected insight into the human heart.”16 A course of action for transformation, therefore, hinges on a willingness to engage with aesthetic experience. Deep noticing automatically arises out of such engagement, and beauty to guide learning offers a way to begin.

15 16

Roger Scrunton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, 61. Ibid., 103.

When Beauty Guides Learning

125

References Lane, Thomas. Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life. Totnes, Devon: Green Books Ltd., 2003. O'Donohue, John. Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. New York, New York: Harper Perennial, 2004. Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999. Scrunton, Roger. Beauty: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2011.

We com me to relate to thhe particular beiing of the whitee-throated sparrrow, not as ‘othher to be noted’’, but as a being g to which we aare relationally connected. c

CHAPTER TEN THE ART OF LISTENING DEEPLY: LAYERS OF POSSIBILITY THROUGH EDUCATIONAL ORIENTATION AND DIRECT ENCOUNTER WITH AND IMMERSION IN THE NATURAL WORLD SEAN BLENKINSOP AND CHRIS BEEMAN

Introduction We propose to describe three “layers” of listening, each progressively deeper and more nuanced, as a way to help educators and educational researchers to think into both the practices and potential transformations of nature-based programming. At each layer, we will offer pedagogical considerations and theoretical constructs to help the reader consider the educational implications of listening. The overarching reason for noting the early layers is to support an ongoing process of orienting students towards the possibility of encountering the natural world in more direct, less mediated, ways. Ultimately we will end by pointing towards an educational and immersive practice that might contribute to expanding the modern western cultural way of being in the world. We hope this will offer more ontological possibility for all students while also enabling educators to respond to the growing challenges of ecological degradation. The three layers to be explored are: tuning in to the world, informed immersion and the practice of deep listening, and flexing the ontos (the Greek word meaning “the authentic ethos of being”).

Part I – Tuning in to the world In actuality, this layer of tuning in to the world is already deeper and more nuanced than what might be called standard urban listening. In an

130

Chapter Ten

urban world, we are so bombarded by sound that we train ourselves to not hear most things. The sounds of birds, or the breeze in the trees, the random conversations of total strangers, or the buzzing of myriad lights, ear-inserted iPod music, and tired trudging feet all disappear from consciousness. It is a world where things that we are really meant to attend to are accompanied by loud, shrill, and, at times, painfully monotonous sounds. Noticing the sound of an emergency vehicle, we become alert, hearing the honk of a horn we panic slightly, and responding to screech of the school bell we stop what we are doing and prepare to move. But this is not really even listening: this is hearing coupled with learned ignoring. So, in this paper, we begin where listening is intentional, and the listener understands that there is nuance and possibility floating in every soundscape. In this form of listening, there is a waiting, an openness on the part of the perceiver, but the connection between the perceiver and the phenomenon of sound is very direct. It is relatively unmediated by the world of thought. It is 5:30 in the morning and I am brought out of a deep sleep by the clearly recognisable "O Canada, Canada, Canada" of a chipper White Throated Sparrow. A compatriot from further down the lake quickly takes up the melody and others of the same species fill out this morning libretto. As I slide further into my sleeping bag, part of me secretly hoping they all decide to fall silent, I realise that each of these wee fairly indistinct birds has their own unique voice. Tone, timing, and delivery varying from white throat to white throat, tuned to the uniquenesses of size, shape, vocal chord length and the particularities of their surroundings. If you don't believe me concerning surroundings, try reciting your favourite poem in various settings and see how the produced sound changes. Words float and reverberate upwards out of a grove of Trembling Aspen while being pulled to ground and hushed by the deep shadows and thick needle duff of the Black Spruce bog. I am now fully awake revelling in the robust resonances and careful nuances of this northern morning sound. The music is subtle and layered, obviously located in this place at this moment, for soon other singers will join the concert, the wind will rise accompanying the sun, and the clatter of my hiking partner scrabbling for coffee will indicate that the next movement of this living symphony has begun. In this form of listening, there is a sense that one is immersed in a vibrant and inter-connected, intercommunicating world. Educators and theorists have done work to draw our attentions in this direction. In the late eighties and early nineties a group of environmental educators at the International Earth Institute created a series of activities that would allow

The Art of Listening Deeply

131

learners to “sense” the world around them more closely.1 Activities called acclimatisations focused on first asking the student to notice a particular sensory ability and then use it to notice some of the nuances in their immediate forested surroundings. One of the classic listening activities involved the teacher first pretending to be a conductor. They would stand in the middle of a meadow or forest glen and crazily wave a baton as if in charge of a wild symphony. This would then lead into the students being asked to locate an individual spot and record, in whatever scored form triggered their fancy, the music of their surroundings. Those with musical training would often produce actual notes on musical clefs signifying the falling trill of the vireo while others might draw pictures of the sound creators and add symbols for beat and rhythm. The goal was, as with most of these activities, to allow students to slow down, take a beat as it were, and notice that which is often unnoticed. Although not connected with this group, Canadian musicologist R. Murray Schafer took this concept much further through the recording and naming of what came to be known as soundscapes.2 In this work Schafer would record the sounds of an urban locale and present them as actual concerts. This work challenged listeners both to notice the sounds around them while reconsidering their meaning and importance and recognising how sound shapes our world whether we acknowledge its presence or not. In other words, the learned ignoring of sounds, which we noted earlier, was replaced by attentive listening. The latter work became what is now known as the study of acoustic ecology and has had an influence on musicologists, communication theorists, and urban planners. Schafer also put together various educational activities such as sound walks and found music work, where students would make music and create performances based on the sounds that could be made with anything immediately available.3 All of this work was really about the act of creating sound, and of listening to it more consciously. We have, with very little effort, the ability to hear much more carefully, to recognize the voice of the white-throated sparrow, and to understand what is being said to us and shaped for us (or for others) if we can simply find ways to attend more carefully and consciously to the sounds around us. When we are not quietly ensconced 1

Steve Van Matre, Acclimatizing: A Personal and Reflective Approach to a Natural Relationship (Martinsville, Indiana: American Camping Association, 1973). 2 R. Murray Schafer, Creative Music Education: A Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher (Merrimac, Massachusetts: Destiny Books, 1983). 3 Ibid.

132

Chapter Ten

in our tents, for example, that same white-throated sparrow might make sounds about us to its neighbours. Educationally it is quite noteworthy, in light this discussion, how bereft of diverse sounds our schools are, how dominated that world is by sight, and how we are programmed into just hearing those sharp, singularly intrusive sounds of bells, yelling teachers, and the joyous chorus of being in the play-ground.

Part II – Intellectually and experientially informed knowing: Immersion and the practice of deep listening At 3:35 the nearest field sparrow avows, in a clear tenor chant, that he holds the jackpine copse north to the river bank, and south to the old wagon track. One by one all the other field sparrows within earshot recite their respective holdings. There are no disputes, at least at this hour, so I just listen […]. Before the field sparrows have quite gone the rounds, the robin in the big elm warbles loudly his claim to the crotch where the ice storm tore off a limb […]. The robin's insistent caroling awakens the oriole, who now tells the world of orioles that the pendant branch of the elm belongs to him, together with all fiber bearing milkweed stalks nearby, all loose strings in the garden, and the exclusive right to flash like a burst of fire from one of these to another […]. The indigo bunting on the hill asserts title to the dead oak limb left by the 1936 drought […]. Next, the wren—the one who discovered the knothole in the eave of the cabin— explodes into song. Half a dozen other wrens give voice, and now it is bedlam. Grosbeaks, thrashers, yellow warblers, bluebirds, vireos, towhees, cardinals—all are at it.4

This second layer of listening will build upon the first while lacking the ontological shift that will be proposed in part three. In the passage from Leopold, quoted above, we can hear not only the voices of birds: we also hear the time spent in place, the gentle humility of a human who has realized that there is much going on in the natural world which has little to do with him, and the active work that has been done to study and come to know more than most humans do about their local environment. For Leopold, and for educators interested in helping students build this kind of knowledge of and relationship with the natural world, this vignette is the result of a mature place-based practice. It is important to note that the practice is not solely about naming specific birds, being able to locate them via their songs, or adding them a to growing lifetime list. It expresses 4 Also Leopold, The Sand County Almanac, Sketches from Here and There (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1989).

The Art of Listening Deeply

133

an understanding of the complexity of the natural world that results from time spent there; it is about a recognition that these sounds are more than just sex and danger, and it is about realising that there is an agency and complexity in play that is not reliant on human mediation. Nor are the songs necessarily even meant for or about the lone human sitting by his cabin and eaves-dropping. Thus, this form of listening and engagement requires some undercutting of many modernist/postmodernist formulations of the world: these birds have agency, they are able to communicate within and amongst themselves. This is going on and, most importantly, meanings are being transferred independently of human interpretation. In educational terms, supporting this kind of “orientation” towards the world around would involve, at the very least, a significant increase in the students’ time spent outdoors. At the schools5 we have been researching over the last five years, the students spend at least half of their day, each and every day, rain or shine, outdoors, and it has been clear that their attunement to and engagement with the natural world is noticeably different from those who spend their days indoors. Let us take a quick walk through one of the outdoor learning sites at the Maple Ridge Environmental School with Eco-boy,6 a fifth-grade student:7 We walk toward the fort village, and Eco-boy stops at a muddy patch to look at the tracks. "Looks like dog," he says. I agree, and we look for claw marks. Satisfied with our identification, we keep walking. He is walking in front of me and again, I'm surprised when he goes off trail away from the fort village. He detours to take a look at the river. "That would be good cover for a fish," he says, pointing to the overhanging tree branches. "There's a dead fish below; you can see it there?" he asks. "Oh neat," I say, looking to see the body caught in a whirlpool created by a mossy log. Ecoboy moves closer to take a picture, "Whoa, there is a whole bunch washed up over here!" he calls me over. I peer down to see about twenty-five dead fish. "Wow!" It's that time of year after the salmon spawn when the fish begin to die off. As we are leaving, Eco-boy points a large hole in a log below our feet. "Maybe that's a home for a marten," he decides. As we enter the fort village, he stops and looks in another hole at the base of a tree. This surprises me because he's walked this route many 5 We have been working with two schools in BC’s Lower Mainland. The Maple Ridge Environmental School (http://es.sd42.ca/) and the NEST program at Davis Bay Elementary School (http://www.sd46.bc.ca/index.php/nature-program). 6 This name was chosen by him. 7 This vignette comes from one of our researchers’ research journal. We have kept its length in order to give the reader a genuine sense of the journey and the listening/noticing involved.

134

Chapter Ten times. Yet, he still stops to look closely at things as he is walking. He reminds me of his fort from last year and we decide to go and check on it. We have to cross a long mossy log about two feet off the ground. Eco-boy is sure-footed and walks slowly in front of me because it has been raining all day, and it's slippery. I follow behind him. "I haven't been back here in a while." he says, "I remember the water gets so high here so you have to build the floor high. There's the bird's nest." He points out a mossy ball hanging from a tree branch. "I think it's abandoned now," he declares, peering up at it. He takes a photo of it. "If I had my waders on I'd go down in there." He looks at the pool of water where his old fort used to be. I laugh and say, "Be careful," as I watch him cross a slippery muddy slope. "There's probably frogs in here now," he says. We look into the pool, checking for that splash of green and listening quietly to see if we hear any movement in the water. As we wait, I realise that instead of simply showing me his fort, Eco-boy has been stopping along the way to show me a community of living creatures that also share this spot and call it home. The tracks in the mud, those fish in the river beside the village, the bears that he has seen pass through, those holes at the base of the trees, that mushroom growing on the fort, the bird's nest, the frog pond; he has taken the time to pause and attend to all of these things. I normally walk quickly on the trail all the way here, and he asks me to divert off of it. I normally only see the human impact on the area in the fort village, and he asks me to crouch down and look at the small mushroom I would've easily missed. I thought we were going on a walk to hear about his fort when really Eco-boy has been teaching me what Hartman calls “halted travelling”,8 pausing to find the wonders under foot and above the head which everyone else passes blindly by. He's busy soaking up the signs and clues that surround him.9

By providing the context, the time, and the community support, Ecoboy has been allowed to develop the kind of knowledge of, experience in, and orientation towards the natural world that Leopold’s morning chorus was suggestive of and which this form of listening implies.

Interlude: A new metaphor Thus far we have been working with the metaphor of bird song, its connection to an overall ecological symphony, and the kinds of listening 8

Glen Hartman, Wordsworth's Poetry 1787-1814 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1964). 9 Sean Blenkinsop and Laura Piersol, "Listening to the Literal: Orientations Towards How Nature Communicates," Phenomenology and Practice 7, no. 1 (2013): 48-49.

The Art of Listening Deeply

135

and knowing that might be involved and in fact teachable within the context of the modern global West and North. There is no necessary conflict between worldviews here. However, we want to bridge into another kind of listening, and to do so we add a second metaphor— learning a language—to try and help us make the point that this other kind of listening is not simply an extension or deepening of the previous two. In fact, it likely requires a very different context, educational structure, and relational environment, particularly with the more-than-human. Let us begin by postulating that the two previous ways of listening might parallel the process of learning a second language by someone who is already aware enough to understand to some level of sophistication what language is and does. This might be because of their own ability to use a first-language, because they are old enough to do the conceptual work, or because they understand that the act of teaching and learning a new language is a transfer of information rather than part and parcel of a beingstate. Initially, in the learning of a language, several approaches may be taken. In one rudimentary approach, say when one has been placed in a new culture, one might master certain words such as nouns, for certain things one needs or predicts one will need: water, food, toilet, room. Or one might pick a few verbs that might be useful: drink, eat, use the toilet, sleep. Using this simple approach, one might be able to comfortably survive. This perhaps would correspond with the initial felt awareness and identification of a white-throated sparrow, and the understanding that there is communication happening even though we are missing most of it. But as the practice deepens and one wants to genuinely communicate in the language, to have more complex, meaningful conversations, one will need more sophisticated language. One might want to learn certain commonly used phrases, both those which stand for various intellectual ‘moves’ common to one’s original language and the new one and perhaps new moves in the new language: on the other hand, by contrast, similarly, a certain I don’t know what, relative positions in time and space, and so on. One might wish to learn simple ways of referring to the past or future, with various levels of certainty, and to learn forms of address suited to different people. And, of course, most modern instruction in second language education combines various learning styles with contextual learning. The result might look like the kind of conscious and interpretive ability in the language that Leopold appears to display concerning the morning chorus he attends in front of his cabin. The point here is that one needs information of a simple word-supply and translation kind, certainly, to become basically competent. And to become really functionally competent in a language, one also needs more

136

Chapter Ten

complex information, but also some contextual experience, in order to recognise the difference in meaning between, for example, “on the other hand” and “quite the opposite”. This meaning may come in terms of how the language is actually used. But beyond this, if one is seeking to have the kind of linguistic ability that parallels the knowledge Leopold seems to possess with regard to the avian community surrounding him, one’s learning needs to go substantially beyond a sophisticated knowledge of the inner workings of the language. Here immersion is necessary; one needs to encounter and begin to make sense of the living, breathing nature of the culture to which the language belongs. To understand the common implications of a “David and Goliath story” is to know a bit about the history, religion, and values out which the story arises. Thus, at the truly competent second language level, one must not only be able to survive, communicate, and do a basic job, but also understand the jokes, some of the history, the cultural underpinnings, etc. In the Leopoldian example noted early in this chapter, we can see a deep knowledge of the avian community, the preferred living accommodations of each species, the acknowledged preferences of ‘territory’—possibly derived from observations made in his own locale—and the target audience of the songperformance (often not Aldo himself). And yet, no matter how immersed the second language learner is, there are always things which appear that confirm that person as not quite of the culture and place. The accent that hints, the missing of a particular punch line, the rare sound that the mouth and larynx cannot quite shape themselves to make: all these bespeak the absence of the early immersive time spent in the terroir of the language. But learning a second language is not, and can never be, the same as learning one’s mother tongue. Not only is there a difference between how one is oriented as an infant to one’s first language and how a second language comes, as it were, always in the presence of the first. Knowing the first language shapes our understanding of how language works. The learner already possesses a concept called language: in other words, a second language, contrary to a mother tongue, is always learned in the shadow of the first. Also, the first language is being learned within the context of also learning one’s orientation towards the world, the ‘mother culture’, and the ‘mother place/locale’. 10 It is here where things become much more complex: here lies the rusty, old screwdriver in the otherwise tidily natural, humous-laden forest floor. For the moves of second language10

Unfortunately, for many of us, that first locale where we learn out mother tongue is not the actual locale out of which that language was born, and we shall return to this important point later.

The Art of Listening Deeply

137

learning to work, there has to be an understanding, if not conceptually, then at least at the level of enactment, of what it is that language does. For this there has to be, at root, first, something like an understanding that there are beings who want to let you know what is going on inside them; second, something like an understanding that symbolic representation is possible: that things like words can stand for other things like refrigerators, aspen and irony. And even if there is not a sense of ‘self,’ the conglomerate of senses that is most proximate to what comes to seem like a being with agency—the I that I live—is differentiable in some way from other things. The I has a sense of holding together in a way that is separate, or at least separatable, from the rest of the world. The point is that in learning a second language one already has an orientation towards the world that presupposes the possibility of language, and finds language to be useful. If that orientation is different from that of the second language, then the project of learning it becomes infinitely more difficult. Concerning our larger goal of listening in, to and with the natural world, there is irony in this metaphor of language learning. The irony is that it is precisely the sense of self that is noted above—one which, in the orientation towards the world that supports English, tends to separate humans from the rest of the world—that can aid and abet the destruction of the world. In other words, the second language metaphor takes us in the opposite direction to the point we want to make with the overall direction of this paper. We want to move to a kind of listening to the world that entails an ontological shift, making possible a deep connection with the world. Saying that, we return to the implication that the third kind of listening we are tracing cannot, in fact, be reached by doing more of the same with regard to the second language metaphor. By implication, this suggests that we must conceptualise how to make listening to the natural world, in this third form, an ontological, rather than a linguistic, shift. Taking this metaphor and its accompanying discussion, we move into the next section where we are going to suggest that there is a form of listening that rises out of a different ontological orientation.

Part III – Flexing the ontos: Conversing across the bounds of self and other In the final part of our discussion, we will offer an example drawn from research we have done at the Maple Ridge Environmental School that suggests that what might be at stake in this other way of listening is an ontological shift. With this discussion, we explicate what the ontological

Chapter Ten

138

divide we claim exists might look like, what bi-ontological, or at least more metaphysically flexible, education might look like, and what the educational practices might be in support thereof. Our hope is that this chapter offers a story of educating for listening from the position of another ontos than that which is normally enacted in the modern, global North and West. Thus our students may become more sophisticated interpreters of their world, and have an expanded range of options for the I that can exist, there- or within. We begin with a conversation with Raven, a fourth-grade student at the Maple Ridge Environmental School. It was recorded by one of the researchers and starts with Raven being asked what it is like to listen to the natural world after she mentions that she feels like she can talk to plants. Researcher: “So do you hear the plant?” Raven: “Yeah, but you have to hear it through your heart.” Researcher: “I was going to ask where you hear it, do you hear it in your heart?” Raven: “Little words curl into your mind. You have to know that you’re not thinking.” Another day I (the researcher) ask her again what the process of listening to the natural world is like for her … Raven: "This sounds funny, you're focused on something, but you're not actually thinking about it. If you're thinking, then you're not really listening. See I can’t do it now when I’m talking.” Researcher: “Do you feel like you have ‘conversations’ with the natural world?” Raven: “It’s not exactly like that, it’s not ‘speaking’ it’s more like energy or signals. You don’t hear it out loud. It’s something that your mind and only your mind can understand because nature is that open to any language. So if you were just thinking, not even in your language, just showing pictures, it would still work.” Researcher: “The conversation you mean?” Raven: “Yes, it doesn’t have to be ‘speaking’”. Researcher: “So you mentioned ‘energies’ and ‘signals’ what did you mean by that?” Raven: “Well see you speak your way, they speak different ways, like thousands of different ways. Billions. It’s like the birds with those signals, like when you see a bird flapping up in the sky and a flock of birds how they all move at the same time, it’s because they tell each other like through mental speaking.”11

11

Ibid., 53-54.

The Art of Listening Deeply

139

Raven's conversation is nuanced and sophisticated for a ten-year-old, and it is also noticeably different from those of Eco-boy and Leopold shared above. For Raven, who is experiencing a world that she is in conversation with, listening has an element to it that is not coupled to sound per se. She is also manipulating the more standard concept of speaking and relating within the BC mainstream conventional school system. One is left with the sense that she has a more expansive sense of self, of language, of listening, and a different experience of relationality to the world around her. She appears to be immersed in the world in an unusual and ontologically different way. The ontological condition we refer to is not something that can be taught, as a second language can be. It may seem clichéd to say it, but it must be lived. The previous sentence is not an invocation—‘you gotta live it, man!’—but a necessary condition. That is to say, that another state of being, by its nature, is not so much understood as encountered; it is never only conceptualised without the experience of enactment; it inherently involves an embodied consciousness in an external and independently existing world.12 And it is this independency of world that allows for the kind of interaction with it that constitutes, in our estimation, a different ontological condition. For the sake of simplicity, we propose an ‘ontos’ to describe the being-state that is enacted when learners are allowed to orient towards another way of being in the world. For Raven, her being-state does not appear to be an intentional result of the school so much as a natural proclivity that has been fostered by her caregivers and which the school, given its outdoor quality coupled with its incredibly supportive nature with regard to each child, has not gotten in the way of. The ontos to which we refer is one, not of separateness (a prerequisite of language use),13 but of connectedness to the other beings and overall being of the ecosystem. In other words, in this state, we come to relate to the particular being of the white-throated sparrow, not as ‘other to be noted’, but as a being to which we are relationally connected. And this relationship is not ‘known’ or ‘understood’ as the words in the previous 12

It is not that this world is not, in some part, constructed; it is rather that the constructed-ness of this world is much more limited than current post-structural discourse would make it. Some version of what humans think of as world exists, relatively similar to this one, with or without humans’ perception. We interfere selfishly and change it of course, and in a trivial sense, we can imagine ‘world’ as only humans can. But we are a product of it, more than it is of us. 13 Although, as the reader can see by now, the form of separation and the lines of division vary across languages.

140

Chapter Ten

sentence are. It is enacted only (as far as we know) through a particular lived relationship with the world. This lived relationship is one in which the give and take of eco-centric balance, between human and broader ecosystem needs, are not known conceptually, in the way one understands the ideas written in this sentence, but enacted in the proximal context of the ecosystem. In other words, the idea that represents this state, while hopelessly diluted by the words needed to describe it in contexts such as an academic paper like this one, is a state of being—an ontos—in which human eco-system well-being is assured, in moment by moment interactions, with (at least from the human position) consciousness accompanying this interaction. This is a tall order. There are few who live this state for long periods of time. Perhaps some small-scale farmers do, scattered about the ragged edges of the project of globalised advance. And some of the First Nations Elders of our acquaintance move between the being state of the modern, global North and West, and the being state we have called attentive receptivity or autochthony. 14 They describe this state of being, just as Raven appears to do, not through words like these, but through the things that happen to them when they are, for example, hunting. In this being state, animals “are presented” 15 to them. The language immersion metaphor that we used earlier might work here but it is only a metaphor, and as discussed with regard to learning one’s ‘mother tongue’ might also require learning that language in the place where it germinated—as if the mother tongue is actually the locally situated ‘mother earth tongue’. To be clear, we are not suggesting a generic, pan-global mother tongue but a multiplicity of tongues each created in their own unique and different locations and contexts and shared by myriad generations of denizens who have co-existed in these places over time.16 Thus any speaker is grounded in the language that is itself autochthonous to the place. And, in a way, previous generations of white-throated sparrows,17 morning choruses, and all the rest have been party to and made offering towards. Thus, a mother earth tongue and the kind of listening and orientation required to be fully a member thereof is only learned through deep immersion at the 14

Chris Beeman, "A Cosmopolis of All Beings: Cosmopolitanism, Indigeneity and the More-Than-Human," Encounters/Encuentros/Rencontres on Education 14, no. 1 (2013), 71-83. 15 Alex Mathias Elder of the Teme Augama Anishinaabe, quoted in "Another Way of Knowing and Being" (Doctoral diss. Kingston: Queens Unibersity, 2006). 16 The metaphor of ‘tongue' might, in fact, be misleading here as many have no tongues to speak with/of. 17 In those places where they are indigenous and have been over time.

The Art of Listening Deeply

141

ontologically formative stage in the place, the sounds, and in relation to the other members thereof from which that language arose. Thus, in hunting, animals are not found by the skill of the hunter, alone. The proper time and place to hunt are in part rationally determined, but, in part, they are also determined by the apparently spontaneous actions of the hunters. Often ‘rational’ arguments for actions are neither given nor sought. There is a present-ness to interactions and actions. The place is one with whom, (some say), 18 one is interacting. As an active agent, place speaks, gives guidance, indicates direction; in short, place in this state of being is an ‘other’ with whom communication is possible. One is in constant conscious interaction with the ecosystem as a whole. One is listening, rather than giving rational arguments for; one is in a state of absorbing, rather than determining; one is an immersive agent, rather than a person with the stir-stick and ingredients list. Perhaps, more crucially, this is not simply a ‘cultural’ practice that is passed down. In our experience, it is something that occurs through longterm interactions with relatively wilder places, when people willingly adopt the position of wanting to be in communication with these places. Communication comes from give and take: that is the fun of it. But humans of the global, modern West and North have learned only to interact with the world as a distant other, and certainly without any possibility of agency or the capacity to communicate. However, it appears that even though this idea of an actual lived communication between equals would normally be ridiculed it still exists as a possibility, at least for some.

Conclusion Long ago, in his Republic, Plato suggested that the only way to achieve significant cultural change would be to begin with focused attention on the new generation, the infants and small children, while at the same time removing the entire generation/s above who were already deeply enculturated in the ways of being and relating that one was focused on undoing. Complete removal has never been an option, but Plato's real point is that cultural change is an incredibly difficult and likely glacially slow process. In some ways this chapter is offering, through thinking about listening, an educational response to the cultural change challenge that climate change, the anthropocene, and human vs. more-than-human alienation posit. 18

Robert Hamilton, personal communication, 2015.

142

Chapter Ten

If our focus on ontos in Part III is correct then it would appear that young children who are allowed to spend significant amounts of time in the natural world and who are supported by adults to do so without imposing, or at the very least actively tempering, the modern North and West orientation have the ontological flexibility to enter into different relations with the other-than-human. We are imagining the infant learning, instead of only the lesson of individuation from parents, others and the world, a different lesson. This would be one of interconnectedness, as the life that is enacted with the world permits of communication with it. And the learning would not be about the concept of interconnectedness. It would be the lived interdependence with the world, such that interconnectedness, and the possibility of relationship with the world, become the foundations upon which being is enacted. The elders we know are aware of this, and sometimes live this. They live this because the world they live in contains the answers that they need to survive. This relationship of ‘mutually-guaranteed survival’ is becoming more tenuous as time passes and as practices are lost; that is to say, as the way of life of the modern, global West and North predominates. A petro-fueled economy can provide (in the short term) for many needs and it does not need to ask any questions. But this other way of being still does exist, and its capacity for existence remains unchanged. The question we pose is, what if another kind of relationship with the more-than-human world were to be encountered, not by theorising, as we are doing here, but by leading a different kind of life? In this life, we would need to encounter the world as a being from whom we needed answers, and that was capable of giving answers. We would need to encounter the ‘culture' of the more-than-human world, not as we do now: as the caricature of American tourists who think all cultures are aspirations to themselves, but rather a culture that has agency, its own internal ways of doing things, and is capable of communication. And so, with regard to the more problematic generation, that which already exists and has already separated itself from communication with and relation to the natural world, the educational response might be more along the lines of Parts I and II. In this educational practice, students are supported to begin to listen more carefully, to recognise the nuance of sound, the presence of different forms of speaking, and the possibility that this speaking is often happening without direct reference to ourselves. Then as this orientation begins to appear educators might start to add the informed knowledge so apparent in the Leopold quote such that the natural world ceases to be an amorphous backdrop and begins to be known in richer detail. Alongside this there would also be an attempt to have

The Art of Listening Deeply

143

students spend significantly more time immersed in their local areas, diving deeply into their places, and beginning to recognize the patterns, the forms of interaction, and the major components of the surrounding language and ways of being that would allow them to move from the basic understanding of the second language learner to the more complex position of an integrated immigrant or, to push a metaphor too far, a landed alien.

References Beeman, Chris. "Another Way of Knowing and Being." Doctoral dissertation. Kingston: Queens University, 2006. —. "A Cosmopolis of All Beings: Cosmopolitanism, Indigeneity and the More-Than-Human." Encounters/Encuentros/Rencontres on Education 14, no. 1 (2013). Blenkinsop, Sean, and Laura Piersol. "Listening to the Literal: Orientations Towards How Nature Communicates." In Phenomenology and Practice 7, no. 1 (2013). Hartman, Glen. Wordsworth's Poetry 1787-1814. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1964. Leopold, Also. The Sand County Almanac, Sketches from Here and There. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1989. Schafer, R. Murray. Creative Music Education: A Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher. Merrimac, Massachusetts: Destiny Books, 1983. Van Matre, Steve. Acclimatizing: A Personal and Reflective Approach to a Natural Relationship. Martinsville, Indiana: American Camping Association, 1973.

How often do we actually tak ke the time to t sit quietly annd listen to the ‘other’ ‘ life thaat’s unfolding around a us?

CHAPTER ELEVEN WHAT THE LAND IS TELLING US: LISTENING TO LEARN FROM INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES MIKE HANKARD

I dedicate this chapter to my Mother Eleanor Hankard (1929-2015), an Abenaki Grandmother and my first teacher, Gici wliwni for showing me how we think, learn, and do differently.

Preface How often do we actually take the time to sit quietly and listen to the ‘other’ life that’s unfolding around us? My chapter explores this question through Indigenous learning approaches. It includes Indigenous teachings I have learned from Elders since the early 1990s and makes them visible for Western academic learning. Doing so creates an opportunity to apply Indigenous methods across terrains of learning and explore how Indigenous forms of ‘noticing deeply’ can broaden learning environments. It is my hope that this chapter provides educators with an awareness of Indigenous learning and understanding enough to use it in their classrooms.

First, throw rocks! The primary classroom for Indigenous people is the natural world. 1 Within this environment, there is much learning that can be attained, if 1 Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1976); Gregory Cajete, Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education (Skyland, New Mexico: Kivaki Press, 1994); Leanne Simpson, Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence (Toronto, Ontario: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011).

148

Chapter Eleven

only one is willing to engage with it. The primary means for this learning begins with the ability to listen, and within that capacity, to learn from this experience. This form of learning parallels contemporary Western academic models, but also contains differences worth exploring to help education systems evolve for the benefit of students. The following story illustrates Indigenous learning principles2. Some years ago a young woman offered a Kokum 3 (Grandmother) tobacco4 to learn sage picking.5 Prairie sage is used by First Nations for smudging, a practice that cleanses mind, body and spirit. This was the first time that she went sage picking. Being a good oskâpêwis6 (helper), and wanting to make a good impression, she closely watched everything Kokum did. Kokum walked to the edge of the field, stopped, picked up a handful of small stones and tossed them into the field. Next, she offered tobacco and prayers, and then went into the field to pick sage. Oskâpêwis followed this exactly—walking to the edge of the field, picking up a handful of small stones, throwing them into the field, making an offering of tobacco and prayers, and then picking. After finishing, they went their separate ways. When they next met, Kokum asked about her sage picking practices. Beaming with pride, Oskâpêwis exclaimed that she follows all ceremonial protocols. First, she offers rocks into the field, then tobacco and prayers, and only then does she pick sage. Hearing this, Kokum howled with laughter. Oskâpêwis responded with a blank stare: what could possibly be so funny? After her laughter subsided, Kokum explained that she throws rocks into the field to avoid baby rattlesnakes that sun themselves on the sage plants.

This story illustrates a First Nations learning process. By assuming that throwing stones always preceded sage picking, Oskâpêwis had awareness but not understanding. She could duplicate the process, but did not know 2

This is a true story. Kokum is the Cree word for grandmother. It can be used formally to describe one’s own grandmother or in a more casual, but respectful manner to describe an Elder woman who may be known to others through her knowledge, wisdom and life experiences. The author uses this term because his Indigenous teachings are rooted in the Cree and Ojibway culture. 4 Tobacco constitutes a formal request for sharing knowledge or asking permission. 5 Kokum Kris Kenset shared this story with me in 2013 at Spring Ceremonies in British Columbia. 6 Spelling according to the Online Cree Dictionary, http://www.creedictionary.com/search/index.php?q=osk%C3%A2p%C3%AAwis &scope=1&cwr=31185. Accessed August 15, 2015. 3

What the Land is Telling Us

149

the reason for it, while Kokum Chris only wanted to avoid the rattlesnakes! This also highlights an important aspect of Indigenous learning: how to coexist with nature. Throwing rocks temporarily disturbs the snakes and makes them move away, but free to return. In contrast, non-Indigenous responses would likely take measures to rid them from the field forever.

Indigenous learning Indigenous learning is multidimensional. It encompasses seeing, hearing, freely touching and connecting mind, body and spirit with Creation. Within it are levels distinguishing differences in understanding and knowledge, but also awareness and wisdom. It is seemingly simple but astoundingly complex in depth. Philosophically, it is rooted in the notion that we are connected to Creation. Our teachers are the elements within which we participate in our everyday living. This learning is developed through daily relationships drawing from our senses. We may choose to learn, develop these relationships, and strengthen our connection to the land, but we must pay attention to it. Indigenous learning is a process. 7 It begins with awareness, or experiencing a first sight, sound, touch or exposure; to understanding, when knowing processes behind the activity become apparent; into the stage of knowledge, where information and the ability to replicate a process occur, and where places of its application become apparent; and finally, into the stage of wisdom where information learned has been practiced to the extent that it can not only be explained with a degree of expertise but also expanded and applied across other Indigenous teachings. This contrasts substantially with those of contemporary academic systems8. Indigenous learning is participatory. This is illustrated in my story. Oskâpêwis could duplicate Kokum’s actions, but lacked understanding, or insight into the reasons for them. In this type of learning, there are differences between replicating a learned activity and understanding it. One must also distinguish levels of understanding progressing beyond awareness. Absentmindedly throwing the stones conveys awareness as well as a lack of understanding (how it worked). Because she only had awareness of the sage picking ceremony, she could imitate it, but did not 7

My knowledge of Indigenous learning and its concepts come from Michael Thrasher (LLD, honoris causa), a Cree elder of Western Canada and my mentor for the past 15 years. 8 For example, the “learning hierarchy” described by Norris G. Haring & Marie D. Eaton, The Fourth R: Research in the Classroom (Ohio: C. E. Merrill Pub. Co, 1978).

150

Chapter Eleven

know the reason for doing what she did. Feeling drives each stage of learning. This links our heart or spirit to process. Developing and maintaining a feeling connection makes us remember. This cycle can be repeated many times, either developing new awareness’s, understandings, knowledge and wisdom or remaining within specific levels--none are wrong, and learners are not expected to develop in a hierarchical way. This is where First Nations conceptions of respect apply. This is accepting different learning gifts and capabilities, learning styles, and individual personality. Finally, learning is tied to earning. Earning necessitates a sacrifice of time, relationship, self and life. In Indigenous culture, knowledge keepers are required to earn the right to carry traditional knowledge. This is not a simple matter. Consider, for example, learning/earning a ceremony song. This may take years because one not only has to learn its words, their translation and meaning, purpose, where/who it comes from, but also its intended feeling and, actual intent and ‘hidden’ meaning of the song. This takes place on three levels—mind, body and spirit. When singing occurs, the mind is engaged through focus on the words of it, the particular rhythms and so forth; the body is making sounds through voice and active participation in drumming; and the spirit is engaged by feeling that projects it from the spiritual realm to those in Ceremony. It is only when a song is learned, practised and incorporated into an individual's everyday ‘operating system' instead of only for Ceremony that it is considered to have been properly learned/earned.

Indigenous listening Indigenous learning draws from our five senses—sight, sound, touch, smell and taste, but listening has a unique place of importance. Indigenous listening is theoretical, spiritual, subtle, and abstract. It progresses through stages, develops over time, and requires commitment. From a traditional knowledge perspective, it includes the mind, body and spirit, our connection to Creation, and the system of Great Laws and Natural Laws9. Clearly, this is more than just hearing sound. Listening is embedded within Indigenous beliefs. It connects us to family, community, and Creation from elements within which we participate 9

These laws reference how humans coexist and exist within a greater framework of Creation. Great Laws are those that organise the universe, the stars, the Sun, the Moon and the galaxy. Natural Laws are those organising the Earth, such as the seasons, migration of animals and calendar of harvest, hunting and fishing, for example.

What the Land is Telling Us

151

and exist. Through this, we absorb important information that often goes unnoticed to the unacquainted. Simply through listening, and developing this skill through active participation and relationships, Indigenous people connect to the land. This ability includes seeing, hearing, feeling, and interacting with Creation. It is paying attention to the behaviour of animals, birds and other aspects of Creation, linking these to our own lives and spiritual journey, and using this to guide us. It is a form of ‘wide-awakeness' that opens ourselves to Creation, through interconnectedness and feelings of reciprocity, and solidifies the connection between mind and spirit. Listening is an important aspect of oral tradition. It continues through families and communities, often conveying lessons and important understandings. This is rooted in cultural survival. Information learned and carried through oral tradition survives more effectively compared to written words. For example, consider information lost through the burning of ancient Mayan texts by Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s.10 There are also struggles today to understand ancient Egyptian symbols and symbology, ancient Celtic symbols and words, and those of other cultures dependent on written text. In contrast, it is still possible to travel within Canada and find Indigenous people who carry historical and cultural knowledge about the earth and universe. Given the strong emphasis on listening, how can we develop this to notice the ‘other’ life that is unfolding around us? What actions are happening, how are we connected to them (and they to us), and what links them and us together? We do this by learning how to listen.

How to listen To hear what the land is telling us, we must first learn how to listen to it. To understand this more fully, we refer to Thrasher’s stages of learning. From an Indigenous perspective, it means understanding what makes something happen, what is required for it to occur, where and when it takes place, and the reason for it. This also requires tuning in and focusing. It forces learners to focus, hear between and around words, visualise concepts and terms, tie it into their own lives, and become aware of both sides of discourse. It draws imagination and creativity into participation, activating the switch of learning and turning initial thought into knowledge. 10 Ronald Wright, Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas (Toronto, Ontario: Penguin Group, 2003).

152

Chapter Eleven

Learning to listen requires paying attention to the natural world and relating to it. This means respecting it—accepting it for what it is and is not, spending time with it, having empathy for it, and demonstrating caring behaviour toward it. Listeners must be engaged within the three segments of our being—the mind, body and spirit. The mind thinks, the body does, and the spirit feels. How many times have you heard the expression—the lights are on, but nobody’s home? This is because listeners are present physically, but disconnected on other levels. In addition, to listen to the land, time must be spent with it. This seems to be happening less frequently among our youth. For example, a recent survey of North American youth found that 70% spend less than one hour per day outside11 compared to roughly 7 ½ hours per day using entertainment media indoors. 12 To form a relationship with the land and listen to it requires spending more than one hour per day with it. Ceremony illustrates Indigenous listening in practice. It transforms the often mechanical state of daily existence into one of connection with Creation. This recalibration of our bodily clocks, mental and spiritual processes and quiets the ‘noise’ of everyday living. When listeners find this and lose it by returning to the distracted life of modern society, they inwardly mourn its end. In contrast to joyfully returning to the modern world with its distractions and noise, ceremonialists often seek the wind, trees, and birds singing at sunrise, the mice, squirrels and others, as they quietly conduct the business of Creation. It is our ability to listen in this way fills and renews our connection to the land. It strengthens the sacred circle: ourselves, our families, our communities and nations. The listening process requires these aspects to work together. When learned and practised, through repetition and application, it becomes a way of life that can be applied to all of our undertakings. One must learn how to listen before they can listen to learn. If one is unfamiliar with this process, but only has awareness of how it is done, they may retrieve information, memorise aspects of it and even be able to distinguish differences within it, but still lack understanding. This can lead to misinterpreting and misunderstanding our relationship to Creation.

11

David Suzuki Foundation, Youth Engagement with Nature and the Outdoors: A Summary of Survey Findings, (September, 2012). 12 Victoria Rideout et al, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds: A Kaiser Family Foundation Study, (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, January 20, 2010).

What the Land is Telling Us

153

Conclusion: Listening, learning and respect The Indigenous worldview supports new forms of learning. It enables drawing from diverse learning experiences, both within the natural environment and the classroom and applying these to everyday life. The question of how we learn and settings in which we learn remains critical to Indigenous people. Educators should consider the concepts I have discussed when applying Indigenous knowledge approaches—remembering that putting these into practice can be challenging. Not only must educators have learned how to listen ‘Indigenously’ but also possess the skill to identify and apply this within learning environments. In other words, teachers must have understanding and knowledge before attempting to teach others or run the risk of having awareness and knowledge, but not understanding. When knowledge precedes understanding, gaps in the process remain. Second, Indigenous learning challenges disciplinary borders. It requires holistic approaches and making connections across disciplines. Listening to learn is embedded within Indigenous knowledge and learning systems, making the necessity of applying cultural relevance to learning settings and bridging gaps in cross-cultural learning. Third, bridging the listening and participatory aspects can narrow the gap between Indigenous ways of learning and those of contemporary society. Indigenous learning processes can make visible Indigenous knowledge and privilege Indigenous oral tradition. Doing this can also apply Indigenous knowledge to contemporary academic programs. This can help make Indigenous teachings relevant within contemporary learning models and illustrate how learning and teaching environments can be expanded to include this knowledge. It is important to re-emphasize that Indigenous ways of learning are rooted in feeling. This is where the land becomes the teacher. If we can truly learn to listen to it, the spiritual connection becomes apparent. How do you feel when you spend time with the land? What thoughts, emotions, feelings, and ideas come to you when you are out there? Our people still recognise this. It is known that certain places are healthier, full of good life, and supportive of our ability to learn. Fourth, listening to learn solidifies our relationship with the land and decisions we make about it. From an Indigenous standpoint, respect is a key element of decision-making. To do this, we examine an issue from all sides, knowing that our decision has significant impacts on present and future generations. We must consider not only how the mind, body, and spirit are affected, but also how the segments of Creation—mineral, plant,

154

Chapter Eleven

animal and human dimensions are potentially affected. We need to consider how all of the elements within Creation are affected—the land, air, water and fire will be impacted and the potential long-term effects of proposals under consideration. This is Indigenous decision making that upholds our responsibility to Creation. Listening to learn, or being able to understand, make sense of what the land is telling us, and respect it correspond to Natural Law. Being able to listen and learn requires finding a place within these laws, pausing from the daydream state of daily existence, and participating within the natural world. It recalibrates our bodily clocks, mental and spiritual processes, leaves behind the ‘noise’ of everyday living and transforms our connection. Most of all, listening to learn is about learning to listen to ourselves. It is this ability, listening with our mind, body and spirit, then figuring out what it means—the learning part—-that fills and renews our connection to the land. Doing this allows us to participate within Creation, connect dots with the life around us, and form a relationship with the good life within which we exist. It is from this natural world and its often hidden and unseen mysteries that we can learn about ourselves and all that we are connected to. If we accomplish these simple tasks, we move closer to respecting the cycle of natural law and our place within it.

References Cajete, Gregory. Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education. Skyland, New Mexico: Kivaki Press, 1994. Haring, Norris G., Thomas C. Lovitt, Marie D. Eaton, and Cheryl L. Hansen. The Fourth R: Research in the Classroom. Ohio: C. E. Merrill Pub. Co, 1978. Johnston, Basil. Ojibway Heritage. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1976. Simpson, Leanne. Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence, and a New Emergence. Toronto, Ontario: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011. Wright, Ronald. Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas. Toronto, Ontario: Penguin Group, 2003.

nce beauty juxtaaposed with diffficulty and Throuugh mutuality we can experien challenge.

CHAPTER TWELVE RE-“MIND”-ING NATURE THROUGH DALCROZE, SCHAFER, AND GREENE DAVID BULEY

He is over there. Look closer. He's sitting, immobile, on top of that enormous chunk of granite. Let your eye follow the edge of Wildcat Lake to the jack-pine: the one that's almost parallel to the water– –right there where the shore juts in sharply. Yes–that's where he is. Except for the curving wisp of smoke coming from his pipe, he is all but hidden on the rock. Watch him intently: an arm draped casually over his knees. Overhead a pair of geese flaps noisily, and he squints to look at them, following them as they flutter down onto the lake, and then disappear into the taller reeds by the marshy shoreline. A squirrel scurries over some dried leaves by our feet. Breathe in deeply and let the sweet smell of aspen and earth enter your soul. Murray reaches down by his foot and gently caresses a piece of the twitch grass that is growing from the section of rock where his foot is resting. He is completely absorbed in the activity around him. Turning his head slowly to one side, he gazes out across the lake. Something has caused a ripple at the water's edge.

Such is the soundscape of R. Murray Schafer—a world where smelling, seeing, touching and tasting are woven together in the fabric of sound. In his compositions, he hopes to evoke these soundscapes, to activate them in his audiences’ minds and souls. It is his hope that the activity of hearing will occur with persistence—not merely as entertainment, but as a transformative source of life. “Schafer's music is rooted in a vital

158

Chapter Twelve

personal commitment to the inner, sometimes repressed will of individual expression. Finding the authentic illusion [...] by which to communicate this commitment is the real story behind Murray Schafer.”1 After a short period of study at the University of Toronto in the mid1950s, (with Alberto Guerrero, John Weinzweig, and Marshal McLuhan) Schafer went to Europe and spent nearly five years engaged in a selfdirected study journeying through Europe, especially in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Germany, and France. He eventually returned to Canada and initiated a campaign for a musical education and culture that would honour individual expression.2 Schafer also immersed himself in the creation of a wide array of compositions, including the monumental works of music theatre, many of which are intended for performance in wilderness areas. These latter works coalesced in the very exciting Patria Cycle.3 Émile Henri Jaques was born in Vienna on July 6, 1856. Initiated into keen interests in music through his mother, Julie Jaques—a music teacher in the Pestalozzi 4 tradition—he was also attracted to the theatre, and performed with a travelling troupe. He studied in Paris with the Comédie Française, but also began to explore music more deeply, studying composition with Leo Délibes and Gabriel Fauré. For a short time, he worked in Algiers and apparently encountered Arabian rhythms there. Further explorations with the Swiss theorist Mathis Lussy may have influenced his ideas about rhythm and movement. Anton Bruckner, in Vienna, was also one of his teachers of composition. Not wishing to be confused with another composer whose surname was Jaques5, he adapted his name to Émile Jaques-Dalcroze between 1886 and 1888. Jaques-Dalcroze composed copiously, but his primary influence came in the teaching of music, which he did with joy, passion, and considerable humour. 1

Thom Sokolowski, in R. Murray Schafer, Patria: The Complete Cycle (Toronto, Ontario: Coach House Books, 2002), 26. 2 R. Murray Schafer, The Rhinoceros in the Classroom (London, England: Universal Edition, 1975). 3 R. Murray Schafer, Patria: The Complete Cycle (Toronto, Ontario: Coach House Books, 2002). 4 Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746 – 1827) promoted innovative teaching strategies during the latter part of the 18th Century and early 19th Century. From his homeland of Switzerland, his ideas permeated various countries, and also eventually influenced the ideas of John Dewey in the United States. Pestalozzi understood that education should consist of providing learners with opportunities to make discoveries. While Pestalozzi was not a musician himself, he believed that music is a fundamental aspect of anyone’s full education. 5 N.B.: This information may be apocryphal, but I have heard it from numerous sources and so include it here.

Re-“Mind”-ing Nature through Dalcroze, Schafer, and Greene

159

Dalcroze Eurhythmics offers a social-constructivist learning environment through which a complete and thorough musical education conjoined with the learning of life skills can be accessed. The Dalcroze approach perfectly exemplifies authentic engagement in and through music. 6 Dalcroze practitioners believe that we can learn much about ourselves through awareness of how music moves in our bodies, and from that we can discover more about self in relation to other. Deshalb haben wir denn unter allem Denkbaren die Musik zum Element der Erziehung gewählt, denn vor ihr gehen gleichgebahnte Wege nach allen Seiten.7

Maxine Greene’s passion for delving into ideas of justice and empathy through aesthetic education was unbounded. She asserted that authentic engagement with the arts would foster “a ‘wide-awakeness’. [...] the alteration of consciousness that accompanies the opening of new perspectives and the funding of meanings over time.”8 Culminating in the ideas nurtured and continuing in the work of Lincoln Center Education,9 Dr. Greene has helped teachers to consider ways to lead and be led by their students in engagements and explorations of works of art that offer profound, personal, and memorable moments of resonance between the student and the work of art being explored. Beginning with a work of art teaching artists develop a line of inquiry out of which experiences are offered that enable participants to notice deeply, and connect more freely to the art being experienced. I believe that there are correlations among the ideas of followers of Maxine Green, and Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. Both situate students’ experience of art through a scaffold-building and continually revisited series of appetizers—explorations of ideas, skills, self-awareness and noticing of other. Permit me, now, to attempt to lead you through this sort of experience guided by R. Murray Schafer's Snowforms10. As an aside, I want to provide some background to the work of art that I will explore 6

Eva Nivbrant Wedin, Playing Music With the Whole Body: Eurhythmics and Motor Development, (Stockholm: Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, 2015), 13-17. 7 from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre: “We have chosen music as a base to education from all that is conceivable, because from it similar lines are drawn in all directions.” (translation by Dominique Porte found in The Dalcroze Experience. (London: Dalcroze Society, 1997), 4. 8 Maxine Greene, "Foreword," Community in the Making: Lincoln Center Institute, the Arts, and Teacher Education, ed. Madeleine Fuchs Holzer and Scott NoppeBrandon (New York, New York: Teachers College Press, 2008), x. 9 For further illumination, please see: 10 R. Murray Schafer, Snowforms. (Indian River, Ontario: Arcana Editions, 1982).

160

Chapter Twelve

with you. As a Canadian, I have a yearly relationship with snow: intriguing, inspiring, invasive, incorrigible. In 1982 Schafer composed a short choral work entitled Snowforms. I have performed this work with numerous choirs, and I know something of this music's ability to evoke a connection to snow within performers and audience. How does Snowforms evoke a sense of mystery and beauty? How can we prepare ourselves to engage with the reality and, perhaps, the necessity of snow in ways that help us engage positively with this fundamental environmental aspect of Canadian life? How might engagements with snow become metaphors for action in and with the world? Let us consider juxtapositions of ideas about snow with the question, “what experiences do you have of snow?” Before reading further, please find some ways to answer that question. Here are some of the answers that you might have had: beautiful (the sun sparkles on a In a Dalcroze Eurhythmics white encrusted tree) group experience, the variety horrible (digging out a car before of answers would be shared driving to work) orally. soft (falling in snow) harsh (blowing in your face, driving in your face) cold (no gloves - making snowballs, finding car keys that you drop) warm (you are a dog: roll in the snow in the sun on a hot day) falling on your tongue (running to catch the snow) crunch under foot (stepping on burned toast) falling through the snow crust (walking on top for a while, then falling through) skiing on the top (swoosh) - what are some sounds? sliding on a toboggan (the anishnabemowin word is daabaagan) annoying (makes me late for something) dangerous (heavy snow can make buildings collapse, avalanche) Possibly you have never experienced snow. But can you imagine it? Experiences or imaginings of snow bring with them some sort of emotional connection, perhaps. Let's simply hold on to that for a bit. Now let's explore some words for particular types of snow: SNOW: there are numerous Inuktitut words. Let us notice some of them in a combination of dialects from various parts of Nunavut and Nunavik in Northern Canada.

Re-“Mind”-ing Nature through Dalcroze, Schafer, and Greene

161

Inuktitut words for snow: (N.B.: these are transliterated versions of the words) aput apingaut mauyuk qanit sitidlorak pokaktok tiltuktortok mauyaolertok akelrorak

I have chosen these words because Schafer has employed them as carriers of the pitches and rhythms of Snowforms.

Try out the sounds of these words in your mouth. What do they feel like? What sensations do they cause on your teeth and tongue? Now move your body in relation to the sounds of one or two words of your choosing. How might the sounds of the words be shown through your body's movements? Can you show these sounds another way? Find a way to move your body in relation to the word's “meaning.” aput - (snow across the ground) apingaut (first snow fall) mauyuk (something into which one sinks - in the case of snow: very soft snow) qanit - or qanik (falling snow) sitidlorak (hard snow) In a Dalcroze eurhythmics class, pokaktok (snow like salt) movement to sound is normal. tiltuktortok (snow beaten down) Sound and music are shown through mauyaolertok (snow spread out) movement in the body. akelrorak (newly drifted snow) Now, can you ‘layer’ the movement of your word with an attitude about that word?

162

Chapter Twelve

Inuktitut is a language that is understood to be agglutinative: its words generally comprise a base element or radical term that provides the fundamental meaning, in combinations with affixes that are added to clarify and/or modify the fundamental reference. New words can therefore easily be created from another term. For example, in the vocabulary related to snow, if the word qanik refers to “falling snow,” qanittaq (aq = added, thus “added snow”) refers to freshly fallen snow.

Can you find a way to layer your ‘word’ and its literal meaning with an emotional reaction to that word? What if you could imagine how the snow might feel about your emotion: Become a snowflake yourself. Do you–as a snowflake–feel rejected, empowered, or.........? Do you want to melt or fly further? Do you–as the snowflake–feel lonely, overwhelmed? Do you want to attach to another snowflake?

Participants in a eurhythmics class are free to explore, individually, how that sound is shown–each in his or her particular and unique way.

How can you show some of these emotions in the movement of your body or attitude? Now I invite you to listen to the music of Snowforms11 composed by R. Murray Schafer. As you listen, allow your body to move in relation to the musical elements that are coalescing in this soundscape. After listening to this piece, have a look at one of the pages of its musical score12. What do you notice? Now, listen to the music again exploring that sense of the snowflake's emotion. Do you experience the music and its emotions differently? In writing about the important influences of John Dewey on education, Greene says: “If education was to mean anything at all it had to involve a heightened reflectiveness with respect to lived experience, a more

11 12

There is a recording of this piece at There are examples of the musical score at

Re-“Mind”-ing Nature through Dalcroze, Schafer, and Greene

163

conscious and thoughtful way of being in the world.”13 She concludes her chapter with this exhortation: “It is up to us in the present day [...] to reach beyond Dewey, expanding in the direction of social justice, equity, mutuality, and enhanced existence in a not always hospitable world.”14 In her 1995 book, Releasing the Imagination, Greene references Rainer Marie Rilke's poem, With Strokes That Ring Clear15: With strokes that ring clear and metallic, the hour to touch me bends down on its way: my senses are quivering. I feel I've the powerand I seize the day. Not a thing was complete till by me it was eyed, every kind of becoming stood still. Now my glances are ripe and there comes like a bride to each of them just what it will. There's nothing so small but I love it and choose to paint it gold-groundly and great and hold it most precious and know not whose soul it may liberate..... Rainer Marie Rilke

Greene's determination that imaginative education leads toward social justice was central to her mission for education and the arts. She, herself, was consistently intrigued by art, presence, and freedom, and actively encouraged teachers and artists to be open to the possible, to notice, to act. When I have led groups through this sequence of experiences and invitations to engage with thoughts about snow, movement and the music of Snowforms, reactions have included a wide variety of observations. Common among them is the sense that through mutuality we can experience beauty juxtaposed with difficulty and challenge. There is also a fanciful elegance in the interaction of people imagining themselves as other: a collective wistfulness and graceful experience of humour aligned with intrigue. In a typical Dalcroze eurhythmics experience, meaning is 13 Maxine Greene, "Experience and Education: Context and Consequences," John Dewey. Experience and Education. 60th Anniversary Edition (West Lafayette: Kappa Delta Pi 1998), 119. 14 Ibid., 129. 15 Rainer Marie Rilke, "With Strokes That Ring Clear," The Possibility of Being: A Selection of Poems, ed. Theodore Ziolkowski (New York, New York: New Directions, 1977).

164

Chapter Twelve

constructed by participants both as individuals and in relation to others sharing in the experience, and this social-constructivist approach grows in a spiraling expansion of awareness. Habits of building society through education that invests in ‘wide-awakeness’ are, I believe, crucial for constructing a world in which all contributors are seen as integral to the whole. The 2013 film About Time16 written and directed by Richard Curtis, explores a young man's (Tim) ability to travel in time so that he can relive events in his life that have not gone particularly well. This ability is something passed on to him from his ageing father. Tim eventually discovers that an added advantage of this skill is that he can relive days in ways that help him appreciate and enjoy the minutiae of diurnal details that occur. Ultimately he learns to live his days primarily in ways in which he is wide-awake to those minutiae. Consequentially, he needs not revisit them at all, but can immerse himself in the beauty and joy of each moment of his existence as it occurs. But those of us who cannot manage time travelling in this way, can, perhaps, remind ourselves that being wide-awake is a natural way to immerse ourselves in all that can be best in the world. Maxine Greene tells us this. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze provided an educational model that upholds this. And R. Murray Schafer has given us some media through which this might be practiced. What are your thoughts about mutuality when you encounter snow? Are there metaphors for snow among the people and situations that you encounter in your daily progress? Do you have a student who is the akelrorak of your class? How do you move when you are tiltuktortuk? Why do you react as you do to encountering the mauyuk of faculty meetings or the evening commute? How will you act when you see pokaktok at the laundromat, or qanit waiting for something that may never arrive?

References Curtis, Richard. "About Time." 2h 3m. London, England: Working Title, 2013. Greene, Maxine. "Experience and Education: Context and Consequences." in John Dewey. Experience and Education 60th Anniversary Edition. West Lafayette: Kappa Delta Pi, 1998. 16

Richard Curtis, "About Time," (London, England: Working Title, 2013).

Re-“Mind”-ing Nature through Dalcroze, Schafer, and Greene

165

—. "Foreword." In Community in the Making: Lincoln Center Institute, the Arts, and Teacher Education, edited by Madeleine Fuchs Holzer and Scott Noppe-Brandon. New York, New York: Teachers College Press, 2008. Rilke, Rainer Marie. "With Strokes That Ring Clear." In The Possibility of Being: A Selection of Poems, edited by Theodore Ziolkowski, 127. New York, New York: New Directions, 1977. Schafer, R. Murray. Patria: The Complete Cycle. Toronto, Ontario: Coach House Books, 2002. —. The Rhinoceros in the Classroom. London, England: Universal Edition, 1975. —. Snowforms. Indian River, Ontario: Arcana Editions, 1982. Wedin, Eva Nivbrant. Playing Music With the Whole Body: Eurhythmics and Motor Development. Stockholm: Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, 2015.

SECTION FOUR EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ENGAGEMENT

A number of terms could be used to express elements of our discussion so far. These terms might include, but are not limited to: experiential learning; place-based learning; and even transformative learning. We might also apply such terms as: deep and/or critical reflection; shifting consciousness; process or system thinking; inquiry; relationships; and/or praxis. However, given the philosophy and background, we tend to think of our discussion so far as representing elements of ‘holistic ways of knowing, and ways of being’. We might also call them ‘authentic ways of knowing and ways of being’1. To that end, we believe the overwhelming perspective that is being represented is one that is described best as Holism. In its twentieth-century incarnation, it was Jan Christiaan Smuts, the ex-South African Prime Minister, who coined the term Holism in his seminal book Holism and Evolution2. He said: Th[e] character of “wholeness” meets us everywhere and points to something fundamental in the universe. Holism [...] is the term here coined for this fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in the universe. […] wholes are not mere artificial constructs of thought. They point to something real in the universe.3

The underlying principle of Holism is that: […] everything exists in relationship; in a context of connection and meaning—and that any change or event causes realignment, however, 1

See Hilary Dencev and Rupert Collister, "Authentic Ways of Knowing, Authentic Ways of Being: Nurturing a Professional Community of Learning and Praxis," Journal of Transformative Education 8, no. 3 (2010). 2 Jan Christiaan Smuts, Holism and Evolution: The Original Source of the Holistic Approach to Life, ed. Sandford Holst (Sherman Oaks, California: Sierra Sunrise Publishing, 1999). 3 Ibid., 94-96.

Section Four

168

slight, throughout the entire pattern. [It] means that the whole is comprised of a pattern of relationships that are not contained by the parts but ultimately defines them [my emphasis].4

This principle essentially means that in order to gain greater understanding of the world and our existence within it, any single entity, relationship, experience, or phenomenon should be considered in the broadest, deepest, most interconnected and interrelated context possible, including the context of time. When we apply this principle to the teaching and learning relationship, we understand that all teaching and learning experiences exist within a complexity of contexts which continually impact those experiences and their participants in a myriad of observable and unobservable ways. Engaging in, and experiencing holistic ways of knowing provides the possibility that we may experience, ‘Instances of Wholeness’5. These shifts of consciousness or so-called a-ha moments, peak experiences, or moments of clarity are instances when we become aware of the interconnected nature of the universe and our part in that existence. We might call these moments Instances of Wholeness because they are invariably brief and because they act as portals to an existence beyond the context created by the worldview we inhabit. Heraclitus noted that we can never step in the same river twice because between the first time we step into the river and the second time, both we and the river have changed. We cannot recreate an Instance of Wholeness that we have already experienced. However, it is possible to create the conditions where the experience of an Instance of Wholeness is possible6. In a general sense Instances of Wholeness allow us to gain: x x x

a deep understanding of the Self (oneness), a deep understanding of our connection with and place in, our community (common oneness), a deep understanding of our connection with and place in, our immediate and wider context (common oneness), and

4 Ron Miller, Caring for New Life: Essays on Holistic Education (Brandon, Vermont: The Foundation for Educational Renewal, Inc., 2000), 21. 5 Rupert Collister, A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2010). 6 Collaborative conversation with Robert London, 4th January, 2007.

Empowerment through Engagement x

169

a deep understanding of our connection with and place in the great mystery of the known universe and beyond (universal oneness).7

Holism and holistic ways of knowing bring together the knower and the known as one. There is no separation between the Self and the experience, and of course, there is no separation between the Self and the contexts in which they exist. Therefore, there is no, so-called, objectivity8. In this way, for any person, experience, relationship, or phenomenon that is engaged with, such an engagement is grounded in multiple layers of social, cultural, vocational, educational, physical, emotional, spiritual, temporal, and dimensional contexts. This engagement naturally represents the “hidden wholeness” within which all life is immersed and upon which all life depends9. Ultimately engaging in holistic, transformative ways of knowing is to engage in, what Skolimowski calls, a “Yoga of Transformation”, that is to: 1. Become aware of your conditioning. 2. Become aware of deep assumptions which you are subconsciously upholding. 3. Become aware of the most important values that underlie the basic structure of your being and of your thinking. 4. Become aware of how these assumptions and values guide and manipulate your behaviour, action, thinking. 5. Become aware which of these assumptions and values are undesirable. 6. Watch and observe the instances of your actions and behaviour. 7. Articulate alternative assumptions and values by which you would like to be guided and inspired. 8. Imagine forms of behaviour, actions and thinking that would follow from the alternative assumptions/values. 9. Deliberately try to bring about the forms of behaviour, thinking and actions expressing the new assumptions. Implement your new

7

Rupert Collister, A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2010), 77. 8 John Heron, Sacred Science: Person-Centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle (PCCS Books: Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 1998); Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco, California: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993); Henryk Skolimowski, The Participatory Mind: A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe (London, England: Arkana: Penguin Books Ltd, 1994). 9 Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey; and A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004).

170

Section Four assumptions in your daily life. Watch the process, repeat the process. Practice is important. 10. Restructure your being in the image of those assumptions…[author’s emphasis].10

This type of process, which is necessarily rooted in self-examination and deep reflection, allows the individual or group to co-create an epistemological, ontological, axiological, methodological, rhetorical, emotional, and spiritual context. If “reality’s ultimate structure is that of an organic, interrelated, mutually responsive community of being, [then] relationships—not facts and reasons—are the key to reality; as we enter those relationships, knowledge of reality is unlocked” 11 . As our insight deepens, our experience of reality also deepens and we are able to participate more fully in this ultimate community and collaboration by sharing in the wisdom, insight, and praxis therein.

References Collister, Rupert. A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2010. Dencev, Hilary, and Rupert Collister. "Authentic Ways of Knowing, Authentic Ways of Being: Nurturing a Professional Community of Learning and Praxis." In Journal of Transformative Education 8, no. 3 (July, 2010). Heron, John. Sacred Science: Person-Centred Inquiry into the Spiritual and the Subtle. PCCS Books: Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, 1998. London, Robert. 4th January, 2007. Miller, Ron. Caring for New Life: Essays on Holistic Education. Brandon, Vermont: The Foundation for Educational Renewal, Inc., 2000. Palmer, Parker J. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004. —. To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. San Francisco, California: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Skolimowski, Henryk. The Participatory Mind: A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe. London, England: Arkana: Penguin Books Ltd, 1994. 10

Skolimowski, The Participatory Mind: A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe, 240-41. 11 Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, 53.

Empowerment through Engagement

171

Smuts, Jan Christiaan. Holism and Evolution: The Original Source of the Holistic Approach to Life. (1926) Edited by Sandford Holst. Sherman Oaks, California: Sierra Sunrise Publishing, 1999.

Openin ng the door to yyour identity and d allowing others to comee in is incredibly y difficult.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN OPENING THE BOX: MAKING ROOM FOR CRITICALLY CONSCIOUS STUDENTS AIMEE MYERS

Introduction Developing a classroom environment that encourages risk-taking and authentic writing can be a complex challenge. Fear of judgment, apathy, and defensiveness can all complicate students’ abilities to look deep within themselves or the world in which they live. However, when students are given the support and framework to pull back the curtains on identity through critical reflection, they can begin to feel empowered. This empowerment motivates students to develop a self-actualization that can develop a powerful voice in their writing and allow them to become more critically conscious citizens. We all have boxes. Most of us fail to recognise these boxes for a large part of our lives, but they are the places where we feel secure, places we feel valued, places that have shaped our identity. Depending on where you come from and your life experience, your box might have a giant library, a chandelier, and beautiful violin music playing in the background. However, my box might have graffiti, a street lamp, and hip-hop vibrating the walls. Even though we think we have left elements of our past behind, we often still carry it around with us in our box, blissfully unaware of our containment. We also unconsciously use it to separate ourselves from others. While someone might cringe at my graffiti-filled box and the yellow glow of my streetlight, this is where I feel safe. We all feel comforted by the predictability of our box. When life gets tense, it is the place in which we flee. Unfortunately, many of us lack the selfactualization to recognise the elements of our identity that constrain us. The only way to develop an awareness of the restraints of our boxes is

176

Chapter Thirteen

through critical reflection. The problem is that critical reflection does not come naturally or easily; therefore, it is often missing in classrooms. In a room of many different boxes, students are fearful of exposing too much. This lack of critical reflection exists mostly because judgment from their peers—even more often judgment from the teacher—can decrease a student’s willingness to examine their self. Without a support, students will rarely take the risks to develop an authentic voice in their writing. In addition, an examination of self will seldom take place within an environment of boxes with closed doors. Students need to be aware that each person’s disposition and habits impact their practices. An examination of these dispositions and habits can encourage personal, social, and intellectual growth. ‘Doxa’ is what Pierre Bourdieu calls our unquestioned, unexamined dispositions1. This doxa can lead to conflict both internally and externally. Within a student, the lack of self can lead to apathy and lack of motivation. Externally, this can lead to mistrust and resistance in the classroom among peers and with the teacher.

Defining critical reflection John Dewey values reflection as one of the highest aspects of inquiry2. Reflection asks us to examine our foundations, but it does not necessarily include analytical awareness. By critical reflection, as opposed to Dewey’s reflection, I mean a framework for students to move beyond awareness and into empowerment. Critical reflection expands basic examination to include transformation. Through this process “learners interpret and reinterpret their experience which is central to making meaning and hence learning” 3 . Transformative learning is the development of the whole person: psychological, convictional, and behavioural. Beyond mere examination, critical reflection encourages action and growth4. Through critical reflection, students are encouraged to participate in selfexamination, which can motivate reluctant writers to find purpose and vision leading to a sense of empowerment.

1

Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72. 2 John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 63. 3 Jack Mezirow, "Understanding Transformation Theory." Adult Education Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1994): 222. 4 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Continuum, 1970), 80-81.

Opening the Box: Making Room for Critically Conscious Students

177

Empowering writers Through critical reflection activities, students are encouraged to become aware of the aspects that have shaped their own identities. This use of critical reflection is not meant merely to get students on board with curriculum or school subjects. It often raises achievement, but more importantly, this consciousness allows for growth. Michel Foucault reveals that the ethics of self has transformative powers. Foucault's ideas on individuals empowering themselves were a part of ancient classical school ideals and are now being revisited. “In ancient schools of thought philosophy was considered to be a way of life, a quest for wisdom, a way of being and ultimately a way of transforming the self” 5 . This ethical examination of self, and an attempt to transform ourselves, leads to writing that is full of voice and sincerity.

Moving towards a classroom of critical reflection How do we take a classroom of diverse students and motivate them to take a risk in their own writing? A foundational aspect of an English classroom that can support a footing for risk-taking and authentic writing is critical reflection. We will start with teacher critical reflection as a means to understand the impact of critical reflection. An examination of my own dispositions, or my own box, helped to establish a modelling of behaviour for my students. A willingness to be vulnerable and takes risks led to an awareness of my own teaching methods, along with assumptions and biases aimed at students. Then we will progress to student-critical reflection as a means for establishing motivation through empowerment.

Teacher modelling As educators, we cannot step into a school and shove our way of life and views into the sheltered boxes of our students. I learned this lesson the hard way while teaching at a private college prep school. Previously, I had taught at a school with wide diversity. There were many students from working class families, many sustaining themselves with government assistance. I connected with these students, mostly due to my own experience with government assistance and being deemed an “at-risk” student myself. I came to see my background, my box, as a foundation of 5

Tina Besley, “Foucault, Truth Telling, and Technologies of the Self in Schools,” The Journal of Educational Enquiry 6, no. 1 (2009): 87.

178

Chapter Thirteen

strength. Because I had to struggle, I felt like I had a deeper sense of “reality” as opposed to sheltered students. As a result, when I began teaching at the private school, I went in with a white-knight mentality. I was going to save these overindulged students from their exclusive life of privilege and ignorance. However, this did not lead to better teaching. This was a mistake. I didn’t save anyone or awe anyone with my real world knowledge. Rather, my attitude led to defensive students. It led to being authoritative and flaunting my superior worldly knowledge. Before my position at the private school, I had never taken an authoritative stance in a classroom. Suddenly, I was forced to reflect on the student resistance that was taking place in the classroom. This moment was a wake-up call for me. I would be furious if someone had stepped into a school of lower socio-economic standards or large amounts of minorities and treated students this way; yet, I was doing the same thing to my students. While teaching at a school with students who looked like me and had been through similar struggles, I constantly encouraged a learner-centered classroom. I stayed open to the development of dialectical exchanges. I hoped to support a freedom founded in community that Maxine Greene describes. "There have been those who saw the relation between participation and individual development, between finding one's voice and creating a self in the midst of other selves"6. This sense of community was easy for me when most of the boxes looked similar to mine. However, when I left the neighbourhood of similar boxes, I became defensive and thus went on the offensive. Our boxes shape our identity and worldview. Sadly, it is easy to judge each other's boxes. Someone living in a luxurious box filled with art might feel like my environment has no value and want to pull me out of that box to show me a better world. The problem is that many in a graffiti box feel that the box with a library and chandelier lacks real depth and culture; from their perspective, this luxurious box lacks reality and therefore lacks value in their world. Trying to pull me out of my graffiti box will only cause me to fight harder to stay there. However, if you are willing to visit my graffiti box, I might be more willing to come and visit your chandelier box, and read your books, and consider your violin concerto. Through an examination of my own habitus, I was able to understand my defensiveness and turn my reflection into “transformative instructional

6 Maxine Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom (New York: Teachers College Press, 1988), 116.

Opening the Box: Making Room for Critically Conscious Students

179

actions”7. Critical reflection forced me to examine my dispositions at this new school, but it also compelled me to adapt my teaching practices. Being aware of assumptions, authoritative presumptions, and habits born out of disparate situations will help develop a critical consciousness of accountability for the teaching practices maintained in the classroom 8 . Before stepping into a classroom of assorted boxes, teachers should attempt to examine their own box and how this relates to the identities of those who they are teaching. It is not enough to partake in reflective practices; these practices must also be shared with the students. We expect our students to open up, view different perspectives, learn from each other, and engage in higher critical thinking. However, many times, these ideas are incredibly abstract for them. We must model these practices for our students, and modelling begins with a dialogue of reflective methods. At the private school, a dramatic shift took place after I shared my own critical reflection. In the past, I had attempted to shatter their bubbles by teaching at them. They were not only dodging what was being thrown directly towards them, but they were building defences. After my own critical reflection, I began to approach various topics differently. The topics were approached with questions, formative assessments, and dialectical exchanges. Instead of standing as the authority, I allowed the students to teach me their perspective and to teach each other. Through many discussions of these real-world topics, I shared my own assumptions and failures due to past practices. As I began to share more of my own box, I also began to allow them to grow from each other. The students began to engage me in questions on the topics and see me as a resource for a different perspective, as opposed to an authority that contested their way of life. The defences were down on both ends, and active learning was taking place. Allowing for an authentic dialogue allows for students to become insiders. Involving them in the learning process includes sharing what we are going to be doing and why we are doing it. While the students are becoming insiders of the teacher’s world, the relationship is often reciprocated. The students will slowly allow the teacher to become an insider to their world. The binary roles of teacher/student can become a blended community learning together and empowering each other.

7

Geneva Gay and Kipchoge Kirkland, “Developing Cultural Critical Consciousness and Self-Reflection in Preservice Teacher Education,” Theory Into Practice 42, no. 3 (2003): 186. 8 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 70.

180

Chapter Thirteen

Student growth through critical reflection Opening the door to your identity and allowing others to come in is incredibly difficult. As teachers, we will always have our own boxes, and opening the door to my box was risky but rewarding. It is incredibly important that we remember that our students have boxes too. When we walk through the fluorescent-lit halls of our schools, many different boxes float past us. Upon entering a classroom, the neighbourhood of boxes is often not completely uniform. There might be boxes with college-educated parents, some expendable income and lots of cultural capital9. Some boxes might seem sturdy from the outside-made with costly materials—but the inside is rife with conflict or illness. Other boxes might show the wear and tear of life on the exterior walls and be painted with defence mechanisms to keep people from getting too close. However, we need students to venture out of their own boxes and visit the boxes of other students. This process can lead to increased perspectives and more critical thinking. However, becoming vulnerable within a group of diverse identities is difficult. All classes are diverse. Even a classroom that has been deemed the allencompassing “urban” or “lower class” has diversity. Some students might live below the poverty line or right at it, but they might have some cultural capital like parental involvement from a nuclear family and access to the arts. However, some students might live in a household with an absent father, a mother with no high school education, and no transportation. There are various ranges of boxes a student might reside in even within what seems like a homogenous school. The same is true for schools that have been termed “middle-class” or “affluent-professional” schools 10 . These schools might seem to lack diversity, but, even within these classrooms, you might have students who come from rural backgrounds. They have been plucked out of their box and placed into a large city. Additionally, even within the more affluent schools, many students will be dealing with parental addiction or absence. Some students from these schools are in a box of foreign countries or various religious differences. Regardless of the boxes your students reside in, these boxes provide security and insecurity. No one's box is without issues or flaws. In the end, these boxes will shape our students' worldviews, efficacy, and achievement. Every diverse individual can benefit from reflecting on his or her own 9

Pierre Bourdieu, “On the Fundamental Ambivalence of the State,” trans. Roger Bebe with Helen Thompson. Polygraph 10 (1998): 22. 10 Jane Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” Journal of Education 162, no.1 (Fall 1980): 1250.

Opening the Box: Making Room for Critically Conscious Students

181

identity. While working with individuals from different culture circles, Paulo Freire shares, “Apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other”11. Students within my own class participate in critical reflection activities throughout the entire year. We often begin small, examining specific aspects of our individual identity with a microscope. This small step allows for a less overwhelming avenue of reflection. A student might choose any aspect of their self, their identity: Catholic, Muslim, Guatemalan, Choctaw—even being a cheerleader or a skater. Through non-threatening art explorations or brainstorming activities, we break this identifier down into all its different aspects. Some of these are positive, and some are destructive. This cleansing is often inspiring for students. Shedding the negative aspects of our identities gives us power over the things that have controlled us. By acknowledging the destructive aspects, we are then able to purge ourselves of them. Once we rid ourselves of the destructive, we can then celebrate the positive. Students then use this reflection to write in various genres: poetry, argumentation, expository, narrative, and even fragmented writing art collages. Through this process, students can free themselves of unwanted components of their box and attempt to free other students of any restraints. By examining the ugly, we are able to examine the beginning or the sowing of the seed. Through critical reflection, a student can begin shedding light on the ugly parts of their individual identity. Whether it be racism, elitism, low self-worth, or fear the student can then begin the process of purging this darkness. If you are not aware of the ugly within your box, you cannot clean it out. Critical reflection allows students to transform their boxes by opening the curtains in order to get a better view of what resides in the box with them. The other benefit of opening these curtains through reflection is a new view of the assets within their own box. They may never have noticed that inner strength lingering in the shadows, but now it is illuminated because the curtains have been opened. Critical reflection requires students to rearrange their box. They clean out the ugly, and now there is more room for the beautiful aspects to be showcased. In addition, room has been made for new viewpoints to be added. This attempt to become aware and continue to be cognizant that you are aware

11 Pierre Bourdieu, “Fundamental Ambivalence of the State,” Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 71.

182

Chapter Thirteen

connects to Freire’s idea of conscientizaçƗo12. This new awareness can lead to a feeling of emancipation. Without self-awareness and individual growth, Freire argues that there will be no social growth. Individuals must critically look in before looking out. By missing out on individual growth, you miss out on the opportunity to help your society grow. The process of looking beyond our own walls can lead to new growth of ideas and expanding perspectives. It is not just an attempt to be independent or autonomous, it is a community-based objective with a purpose and vision13. The development of a critical consciousness is the foundation for awareness of society.

Conclusion The educator must remember that this is a dynamic process. It must be continually embedded throughout the school year and allowed to grow in a non-linear manner. This process gives meaning to the classroom experience by giving students a vision or purpose. Students begin to feel valued by the teacher, by themselves, and by their peers. This neighbourhood of boxes is no longer confined by closed doors and boarded up windows. The light penetrates into unexplored crevices, and a fresh breeze drifts through the open windows bringing in new perspectives. Upon stepping out onto the porch, students can see aspects of their own lives added to the décor of their fellow students’ boxes. This feeling of worth allows for more risk-taking. Students are not as afraid of falling because they know that they have a supportive teacher and supportive learning community to catch them. In this new neighbourhood of empowerment, writing that is both creative and critical can flourish and grow.

References Anyon, Jane. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” in Journal of Education, 162, no. 1 (Fall, 1980). (located in Sociology of Education: Major Themes, Stephen J. Ball, ed. New York: Routledge, 2002.)

12

Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1987),157. 13 Maxine Greene, The Dialectic of Freedom (New York: Teachers College Press, 1988), 16.

Opening the Box: Making Room for Critically Conscious Students

183

Besley, Tina. “Foucault, Truth Telling, and Technologies of the Self in Schools,” In The Journal of Educational Enquiry 6, no. 1 (2009). Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. —. “On the Fundamental Ambivalence of the State,” trans. Roger Bebe with Helen Thompson. In Polygraph 10 (1998). Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1938. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 1970. Freire, Paulo and Donaldo Macedo. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Westport, Connecticutt: Bergin & Garvey, 1987. Gay, Geneva and Kipchoge Kirkland. “Developing Cultural Critical Consciousness and Self-Reflection in Preservice Teacher Education.” In Theory Into Practice 42, no. 3 (2003). Greene, Maxine. The Dialectic of Freedom. New York: Teachers College Press, 1988. Mezirow, Jack. "Understanding Transformation Theory." In Adult Education Quarterly 44, no. 4 (1994).

 "Unfortunnately, it is hum man nature for us u to only learn and grow from m a place of emptiiness. It’s hard to t learn when we w are winning and on top of th he world.” —Yeehuda Berg

CHAPTER FOURTEEN CULTIVATING COMPASSION FOR CHALLENGING TEXTS: A CONTEMPLATIVE APPROACH DANIEL J. WEINSTEIN

Introduction The following is a rationale and guide to a sequence of reading and responding activities. It takes the stand that (1) reading is an active performance of perceiving, interpreting, and countenancing the ideas of a text, and proceeds from the view that (2) it is only when texts are met with calm and accepting attention that they most deeply communicate, and that (3) readers should strive to read and respond to texts in a spirit of communion, with an open heart and mind. In the lesson described at the end of this chapter, short quotations on the theme of “emptiness” are offered for students to work with. The same technique can be used with longer texts. If that is the case, excerpts representing moments from a single text may be used instead of brief quotes from a variety of sources. For the workshop described in this chapter, quotes from various sources are used to maximize the sense of polyphony created in the workshop and increase the chances that students will find quotes that resonate with them. The same prompts could be used with excerpts from a longer text. Either way, the activities described in this chapter are based on meditative and contemplative practices from Buddhist traditions. These are intended to work together to help readers set-aside alienating qualities of mind that would separate them from the texts they read and assist them to cultivate wholesome inner qualities such as emotional stability, empathy, and compassion that bring them closer to the texts they engage. I offer this framework in the hope it might help all readers listen more deeply to the texts they encounter, and even to themselves as they dialogue with texts (perhaps a bit more intentionally, thanks to these activities) in

Chapter Fourteen

188

the creative act of reading.

On becoming a mindful reader When students are tasked to approach a text, particularly an unfamiliar and challenging text all at once, the meeting may be marked by fear and resistance. However, when students are introduced to the same text a bit at a time, along with strategies that allow them to build, on their own and with their classmates, original and meaningful contexts in which to greet and entertain the text, their response to this stranger in their midst may shift dramatically from flight or fight to one of curious, compassionate encounter. In the spring of 2007, when my son was five years old, I read a book on mindful parenting. I do not remember the book’s title. It was a book by a psychologist written and published independently to support her particular parenting class. But I can attest that the qualities of mind the book espoused, when I adopted them and supported them with what I have since maintained as a daily practice of mindfulness meditation, thoroughly transformed my relationship with my son. As Duncan, Coatsworth, and Greenberg explain in their article, “A model of mindful parenting: Implications for parent–child relationships and prevention research”, a mindfulness-based approach to parenting is characterised by a particular attitude of mind. 1 This attitude, one of “openness” and “nonjudgmental acceptance” of carefully observed moment-to-moment experience, is supported by meditative practices that help parents cultivate both “emotional awareness” and “self-regulation” in their relationships with their children. As a result of cultivating these capacities, it is possible for parents to become better equipped to interact more patiently and receptively with their children, and to respond to them from the heart, non-reactively, with compassion and skill. It was not until seven years later, in the spring of 2014, that I began to think seriously about how the mindfulness practices I had adopted for myself, and which had helped me “tune in” to what my son, through his words and deeds, was really trying to say, might also serve my students in their efforts to listen deeply and respond skillfully to the texts we discussed as a class. By that point I already knew that my own attitude in 1

Larissa G. Duncan, J. Douglas Coatsworth, and Mark T. Greenberg A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research (Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730447/), 1.

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

189

the classroom, my own orientation toward situations that arose in my teaching, had been positively affected by the shift in my mindset my meditation practice had brought about; however, it took me that long to begin to wrap my mind around how I might integrate mindfulness-based practices into my teaching in ways that would encourage my students to develop a similar attitude with respect to their encounters with challenging texts which, for one reason or another, might make them uncomfortable. I had to internalise, sufficiently, my own practice first in order to perceive its patterns. Only then could I gain the perspective I needed to design practices that would encourage similar qualities of mind to take shape for my students in the context of our study of reading and writing. What I came up with was a sequence of activities that eventuated in a two-hour workshop in contemplative reading sponsored by the Mindfulness Living Learning Community at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and which I presented in a shortened format at the 2014 Annual Conference of the NCTE 2 Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning. The workshop consisted of a sequence of activities designed to encourage a deep attention to texts. Texts, which might at first, seem strange, unapproachable, daunting. I hoped that in the calm, open minded, open hearted atmosphere created through these activities, students would begin to develop an attitude of gentle receptivity and compassionate response toward the quotes I asked them to read. I hoped that they would subsequently apply the same attitude to their reception of any text they might encounter and, taking the procedure further, use it as the basis of a thoroughly inter-textual and compassionate orientation toward their literacy practices in general, this on the understanding that: Recognising that texts get their meaning from other texts is the first step toward thinking carefully and creatively about how forging and reconfiguring linkages to other texts and even other contexts can shift meaning in ways both subtle and profound.3

In the activity I describe at the end of this chapter, students are introduced to a list of brief quotations, each of which represents a different stance in relation to the same central concept (in this case, the concept is emptiness, chosen for its rich range of connotations and affect across various cultural contexts). By design, the quotations represent a range of 2

National Council of Teachers of English. Linda Adler-Kassner, and Elizabeth Wardle, eds. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 2015), 46.

3

190

Chapter Fourteen

perspectives on the concept, not all of which are likely to agree with the students’ own immediate associations. The motivating hope is that, by purposefully calming and focusing the mind on moment-to-moment perceptions, then enacting a personally meaningful dialogue with a text, a bit at a time, students will be able to give even the toughest texts a compassionate reception and a skilful response. Because a reactive mind is such a tough beast to tame, some groundwork needs to be done before the quotations' introductions. The purpose of these preliminaries is to help students first “tune in” to themselves and prepare to listen deeply to their own moment-to-moment responses as, eventually, they read one or two of the quotes and contemplate, by themselves and with others, the central concept each quotation treats in a different way. Thus, the sequence includes both mindfulness meditation, aimed at helping students soften and objectify their reactions to potentially alienating material, and contemplative practices designed to focus their attention on particular aspects of a text before they attempt to apprehend it as a whole, and in relationship with other texts. If successful, this process will allow students to put a face to the text, to humanise it, even personify it, and respond to it with a critical yet composed and compassionate intelligence. As I have mentioned, the approach to responsive reading instantiated by this sequence was inspired by my exposure to a mindfulness-supported approach to parenting. Through a teacher’s guidance and my own meditation practice (thirty minutes a day of quietly sitting and observing my breathing while letting my thoughts come and go as they would, without judging them), I gained the ability to transfer the same quality of attention to my interactions with my son (noticing deeply his moment-tomoment changes) as he looked to me for guidance in navigating the challenges of his young life. In this way, my own meditation served as a training ground for our relationship, which grew less contentious and more collaborative thanks to this shift in my disposition. It is a common characteristic of meditative practices that they serve as training grounds for the cultivation of generalizable dispositions and skills. As I found to be true in my relationship with my son, daily concentration on the breath, and the concomitant, nonjudgmental noticing and letting go of thoughts, can establish in oneself a more equanimous disposition that allows one to abide with or countenance (a word I like to use in this context because it denotes tolerance while, at the same time, it evokes a face), even upsetting reactions to thoughts that arise, without becoming attached or “clinging” to these reactions. This, in turn, affords one the emotional distance one needs to perceive oneself and others with empathy

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

191

and respond with compassion (wise action arising from empathy with another’s situation), without dulling one’s ability to think critically about what one is noticing. The work of researchers and teachers of mindfulness practices back up these impressions. At the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Jon Kabat-Zinn has famously helped patients use mindfulness meditation to cope with chronic pain. His pioneering protocol involves more than relaxation. The treatment is an introduction to the kind of inner awareness associated with mindfulness meditation more generally, not just as it is implemented in the context of medical treatment: an awareness of oneself as an impermanent, loosely connected arrangement of constituent parts that dynamically work together to create the illusion of a permanent body, and which are interrelated, in one way or another, with everything else in existence. Through their participation in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, Kabat-Zinn’s patients learn a new way to orient their attention in relation to their pain. Through their practice, they learn to regulate their emotionally-driven negative and self-defeating reactions to the painful sensations caused by their illnesses and injuries. These they trade for mindful responses that acknowledge their sensations without clinging to the negative reactions they have to them. They learn to reframe their pain in a more wholesome way, to view it as a natural manifestation of arising and subsiding conditions in a system seeking wholeness and health. In his book about the MBSR program, Full Catastrophe Living, KabatZinn writes of the life-changing impact the cultivation of mindful attention can have on one’s health and well-being. “Your mind changes”, he writes, and then,” […] when your mind changes, new possibilities tend to arise.”4 Kabat-Zinn points to the development of a “larger perspective” that arises from an increased ability to pay deep attention to small phenomena of the body and their moment-to-moment changes. Chief among these phenomena, of course, are his patients’ reactions to pain; however, remembering that the effects of mindfulness practices are generalizable, this same pattern may be observed in other contexts, including encounters between readers and texts, which, like any object, can be taken in many ways. It is enabling and illuminating to view texts in much the same way Kabat-Zinn helps his patients see their bodies, as self-coherent systems within larger systems (in the case of texts, larger semantic systems) that exist and inform each other in an expansive ecology. Viewing them this 4

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. (New York: Random House. 2009), 154.

192

Chapter Fourteen

way can help us appreciate texts as permeable instead of permanent, modular rather than monolithic, dynamic as opposed to static. In the same way, as Duncan, et. al write in relation to parenting, and as I have found in my own family, a parent’s relationship with a child (also like a reader’s relationship to a text, in a way), if marked by the same quality of deep and abiding attention and suspension of reactivity, can also become a site of enlightened compassion. You will notice that in making the last statement, I am moving my consideration of reading a step closer to a model of deep interpersonal interaction. From considering texts, initially, as objects relating to environments, I am moving to a description of texts as stand-ins for human subjects participating in living relationship with readers. This move may be equated with the move from breathing or walking meditation to a meditation on compassion in which the meditator sets her attention on a mental image, a visualisation, of a person in order to establish a bridge of empathy based on a recognition of shared traits. The sequence of activities in the lesson plan follows a similar progression, from viewing a text as a lot like the breath that gives rise to perceptions in the reader to also viewing the text as a breathing thing with its own sense of wholeness that interacts, in its own right, with the reader and is brought into conversation with at least one other participant in the workshop. Deep listening, in the context of a parent-child relationship, involves the parent in the cultivation of a compassionate attitude toward the child with the intention of “improve[ing] interventions” in the course of the child’s life. To cultivate such an attitude, the parent must first listen deeply to her own reactions to the child’s behaviour, regulating them in order to clearly see what is happening, then respond to the behaviour from a place of balance and insight. In the program described by Duncan, et. al., mindfulness practice undertaken by the parent supports the development of dispositions that in turn, nurture the relationship between parent and child. The authors credit the practice with helping the parent abide, moment-to-moment, with her reactions to the child’s behaviour, no matter how upsetting that behaviour may seem to the parent, and read that behaviour for clues to the child’s inner condition with the intention of providing the child with compassionate support and building an “authentic and caring relationship”. Specifically, the set of dispositions for the parent to cultivate, according to Duncan, et. al., include the following: x pay close attention and listen carefully to their children during moment-to-moment parenting interactions;

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

193

x become more aware of their own emotional states and the emotional states of their youth; x become more likely to adopt an accepting, nonjudgmental attitude when interacting with their youth; x regulate their own affective reactions during their interactions with their youth; and x adopt a stance of empathy and compassion toward their children and themselves5. It turns out this gentle abiding is one of the best things parents can do to improve their relationships with their children. Doing so provides emotional consistency and a good behavioural model for the child. It also helps the child feel heard, another wholesome outcome. Noting emotions but not getting caught up in them and seeing the child’s behaviour without “distortions” (ideas propagated by unmindful reactions), parents become better able to shift attention between witnessing specific behaviour and evaluating it with reference to a larger perspective informed by the intention to nurture the relationship. To recap, the rationale for the mindful and compassionate reading workshop outlined at the end of this chapter assumes the following claims to be true: 1. A text can be compared to a body in that it is made of parts (words, sentences) that work together to create the illusion of a permanent whole. 2. In spite of the illusion of wholeness or unified purpose they create, the words of a text may serve other meanings in other systems at the same and/or other times. 3. A text that bothers or confuses someone can be compared to a child who throws a tantrum to get attention (only, instead of tantrums, texts tend to use other strategies such as authority and rhetoric to try to get their way). 4. Readers, like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s patients and their pain, should learn to note their judgmental reactions to textual features without getting caught up in these reactions; they should let a text have its say before intervening with a mindful interpretive response.

5

Larissa G. Duncan, J. Douglas Coatsworth, and Mark T. Greenberg, A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research (Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. accessed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730447/), 1.

194

Chapter Fourteen

Ideally, it is the aim of a mindful and contemplative approach to reading to foster these awarenesses and achieve these ends.

On becoming a flexible and compassionate reader One should not downplay the difficulty of achieving the sort of change this meditative/contemplative approach to reading hopes to support. The implied training, including the development of dispositional qualities favouring curiosity, equanimity, compassion, and self-reflection overreactivity and automaticity, should be understood as a lifelong project. Nonetheless, it has been my experience that even a lesson as modest as the one I shall describe may serve as an inspiring and instrumental introduction to meditative and contemplative practices as reliable supports for deep intellectual and even spiritual engagement with all manner of texts. Conditioned reactions die hard. It takes a strong, supple mind to let go of reactive perceptions, see what is there, and frame a measured, appropriate analysis. Two sources that have helped me find language to describe some of the difficulties, as well as the opportunities that attend this kind of liberation, and think through the setup and rationale for the workshop, are the work of Joseph Goldstein and the work of Marshall B. Rosenberg. Well known for decades as a highly respected teacher of vipassana or insight meditation, Joseph Goldstein has much to say about the qualitative experience of meditative practice. Always a clear communicator on the subject of the Buddhist path to enlightenment, Goldstein’s recent works, the books Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening and 7 Treasures of Awakening: The Benefits of Mindfulness, rank among the most accessible and satisfying I have read in his tradition. In Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, Goldstein writes that it is all too easy for our perceptions to fall prey to delusions. Our natural tendency, he says, is to reify conditioned responses. Flying on autopilot most of the time, we tend to overlook what is happening and jump to conclusions. This is particularly true when we are tense, headstrong, or defensive. This is why it is so useful for us to cultivate a relaxed attitude, for a relaxed attitude supports mental clarity and deep listening by giving us some distance from automatic responses (especially judgmental ones). The calm, focused feeling we gain through meditation becomes a place to which we can go and from which we may look out. Goldstein calls this process of calming perception becoming “disenchanted”. It is an experience, he says, “waking up to a fuller and greater reality” of ongoing

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

195

processes rather than staying trapped in a reactive and/or static sense of how things are, were, or should be.6 Goldstein urges us to loosen our commitments to all but the conditions that allow clear insight into the nature of reality and in which the only constant is change. Informed of this reality, and having released the sense that anything can be permanent except the fact of change itself, one also becomes better able to drop views and understandings that no longer accord with changing conditions, or, in light of new information, never did accord with conditions in the first place. In fact, so important to a Buddhist sense of a wise and skillful attitude toward life is this loosening of attachment to views that Plum Village, a Buddhist meditation centre founded by Thích Nhҩt Hҥnh and Chân Không, prominently promotes this goal as a fundamental teaching: Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practising nonattachment from views and being open to other’s insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. Insight is revealed through the practice of compassionate listening, deep looking, and letting go of notions rather than through the accumulation of intellectual knowledge. We are aware that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless, absolute truth. Truth is found in life, and we will observe life within and around us in every moment, ready to learn throughout our lives.” 7

Cognitive flexibility, as opposed to its antithesis, cognitive rigidity, is the goal of developing such suppleness. An open attention to whatever comes up, rather than selective attention that puts on blinders as a defence against inconvenient truths, is a hallmark of a relaxed and receptive mind. Such openness enables empathy, the ability to identify with another’s feelings. One step beyond empathy lies compassion, the ability to respond to empathetic insight with critical judgment (the wholesome kind of judgment). Such action harks back to Duncan, et. al.’s sense of “improved intervention”, educated response, in the context of mindful parenting. Just as parents in that mindful parenting program have to learn to make wise choices about how they respond to their children’s behaviour, so readers can often use some professional help to learn wise ways to regulate their 6

J. Goldberg, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. (Boulder: Sounds True Publishing. 2013), 31. 7 “The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings” (Plum Village Mindfulness Practice Center. http://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/the-14-mindfulness-trainings/).

196

Chapter Fourteen

interpretive responses to texts. To help students learn to respond with empathy and compassion to the subjectivities represented by the text they read, I needed some help myself. It took some time, but I finally found the work of Marshall Rosenberg, whose method of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) was just what the doctor ordered. In Rosenberg’s approach to conflict mediation and nurturing relationship, I found the language I needed to lead my students to compassionate reading. Rosenberg’s guidelines look past the superficial circumstances of conflicts to their roots in feelings, values, and needs. His facilitation style helps people respond to each other in ways that serve the interests of both parties. After reading Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, I adapted those methods of responding to speaking I found most relevant to reading and used them to inform the writing prompts used in the meditative/contemplative reading workshop lesson plan. The prompts follow in the “Activity” section. x Slow down your speaking to interrupt habitual patterns of speech and thought that might interfere with deep listening and response. (I ask students to give short reading responses, sometimes as short as one word, before offering longer responses.) x Ask short questions (I augment Rosenberg’s slow talking with a writing exercise in which students use very short sentences to paraphrase a quotation they are working with.) x Repeat the other person’s language to help yourself empathise with his position. (I ask students to integrate their interpretation with the words of the text and what a partner has said about the central concept under discussion.) x Own your experiences, realising that they arise from your perceptions and reactions. (I ask students to reflect not just on what a text means, but on why they think they have construed it that way. I ask them to investigate the origins of their interpretations in their own conditioning, particularly as they originate in values and needs.)

Activity The following are instructions for the aforementioned workshop in mindful and contemplative reading. Participants should be equipped with notebooks and a pen or pencil to write with. The activities are at first

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

197

individual, shift to involve dyads, then become individual again. A large group debriefing is recommended following the completion of the sequence. x Meditate. Sit comfortably in your chair or on the floor with your back straight, your eyes closed, and your hands in a comfortable position, noticing the breath as it comes in and goes out at your belly or your nose, for five minutes. As thoughts arise, note them, then let them go. Keep returning your attention to the breath. x Write, for another five minutes, whatever words want to come out. Write whatever is on your mind with the intention to clear your mind of these surface thoughts. When you have written for five minutes, set the pages aside or put them away. You will not need this writing again during our time together. x Write for one more minute. This time, your purpose in writing is simply to establish and commit to your purpose for being here and participating in this experience. Copy the following words, saying them to yourself as you write them: I am here to explore my sense of the meaning of emptiness. I am here to explore how others perceive emptiness and how my understanding of emptiness compares to theirs. x Write loosely for five minutes. Focus your mind on the concept of emptiness. Write everything that comes to mind when you think of emptiness, what it feels like to be empty, what causes emptiness, what comes out of emptiness. x List three adjectives you associate with your sense of emptiness x Write three sentences, using these sentence starters: x Emptiness is . . . x When I feel empty, I . . . x Out of emptiness comes . . . x Note feelings, particularly any negative ones that arose during the process of writing the sentences for step six. x Share your sentences with the person next to you. Take note of what they say. Summarise their comments back to them. You will use their comments in a later step. x Select one of the quotations about emptiness listed in Appendix A. Work with the quote in the following ways: x Paraphrase the quote. You might try rewriting the quote as a monologue using about three times as many words as the quote itself contains. Keep your sentences short. Let your imagination

198

Chapter Fourteen

take over as you imagine the quote representing a person speaking in this way. x Examples: 1. Original: I think probably one of the important things that happened to me was growing up in Idaho in the mountains, in the woods, and having a very strong presence of the wilderness around me. That never felt like emptiness. It always felt like presence. —Marilynne Robinson8 2. Rephrased more conversationally for dialogue with the text: You know, when I was young, I spent a lot of time in the woods. I walked in the mountains, too. This was in Idaho. I was young. I was growing up. There was a lot to deal with. I had a lot to handle. There were not many people up there then. There was not much human activity in those places. Often no one but myself up there. Some people might see that as a problem. Some people think that, without human activity, these places are empty, like they lack something important. But I did not feel that way about these places. No, I did not. I felt like when I went to them I was visiting them, like one visits a friend. I felt their company, and I think the quiet sense of communion I felt there nurtured and sustained me.

x List at least three feelings the quote inspires in you. Explain why it made you feel that way. To what needs are these feelings linked for you? x Note at least one feeling you think informs the quotation (how the quote suggests the speaker of the quote might be feeling). x List three adjectives the quote brings to mind for you. Explain why each adjective applies. x Now use the same sentence starters you used before to write three sentences that represent the quotation’s perspective toward emptiness (it’s okay to repeat some of the ideas that came up for you when you wrote for step 13): 3. Emptiness is . . . 4. When I feel empty, I . . . x Out of emptiness comes . . . x Write a paragraph of introspective prose that stages an integrative meditation on your writing for steps 4, 5, and 6, your neighbour’s speech, the quotation you chose, and your writing for step 14. x Share your paragraph with your neighbour (read it through one time). 8 Quotes on Emptiness provided by thinkexist.com. http://thinkexist.com/search/searchquotation.asp?search=emptiness.

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

199

x Listen to your neighbour’s paragraph of writing, too. x Discuss with your neighbour the needs and values that motivate these thoughts on emptiness. x Reflect on this experience in private writing. How does what you have written today reflect on you? Are you thinking about emptiness differently now than you did when you wrote for step 4?

Conclusion The approach to reading represented in the above plan has the potential to change readers’ basic orientation when interacting with texts. Adopting this approach, a reader may shift from viewing texts as imponderable strangers to accessible beings in their own right, complex semiotic systems that emerged, like themselves, from conditioning circumstances, possessing traits inspired by needs with which readers may empathise and interact. In Buddhist traditions, the concept of “big mind” refers to an expansive awareness of the interconnectedness of all things. The practices described in this chapter encourage readers to embrace a textual analogue of big mind, what I would call big text—the idea that all texts in some way(s) interconnect, participating in a web of significations greater than themselves. So begins a lifelong dialogue with all texts, all of them forever more approachable due to readers’ experience of having listened deeply to what a very brief text had to say.

References Adler-Kassner, Linda and Wardle, Elizabeth, eds. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. 2015. Duncan, Larissa G., J. Douglas Coatsworth, and Mark T. Greenberg. "A Model of Mindful Parenting: Implications for Parent–Child Relationships and Prevention Research." In Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 2009. Accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730447/. “The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings.” Plum Village Mindfulness Practice Center. Accessed at: http://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/the14-mindfulness-trainings/ Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Random House. 2009.

200

Chapter Fourteen

Goldberg, J. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True Publishing. 2013. Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. 2nd ed. Encinitas, California: PuddleDancer Press. 2003.

Cultivating Compassion for Challenging Texts

201

Appendix A: Quotations on the theme of emptiness9 Instructions: 1. Objectively describe and/or paraphrase the quotes (below). 2. List three adjectives the quote brings to mind for you. Explain why each adjective applies. 3. List at least one feelings the quote inspires in you. Explain why it made you feel that way. To what needs are these feelings linked for you? 4. List at least one feeling you think informs the quotation. Explain why you think so. The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling? —Saint Augustine Unfortunately, it is human nature for us to only learn and grow from a place of emptiness. It’s hard to learn when we are winning and on top of the world. —Yehuda Berg a) I think one of the important things that happened to me was growing up in Idaho in the mountains, in the woods, and having a very strong presence of the wilderness around me. That never felt like emptiness. It always felt like presence. —Marilynne Robinson b) Once I knew only darkness and stillness [...] my life was without past or future [...] but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. —Helen Keller c) “Boredom is an emptiness filled with insistence.” —Leo Stein d) I think about that ‘empty’ space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I’ve had to learn that over the years - because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce. —Meredith Monk e) We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness. —M. Scott Peck

9

Quotes on Emptiness provided by thinkexist.com http://thinkexist.com/search/searchquotation.asp?search=emptiness

 I see . . ., I think . . ., I wo onder . . . .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN SOULCRAFT IN THE CLASSROOM RICHARD L. GRAVES AND SHERRY SEALE SWAIN

In the public mind, schooling and the acquisition of information are very much the same. “What did you learn in school today?” Mom asks, unconsciously betraying this widespread assumption. When outside agencies speak of educational reform, they often mean the acquisition of information, usually information acquired in the process of reading that can be quantitatively measured. Within limits, this goal is appropriate, but when introduced prematurely or applied inappropriately, much mischief can occur. Experienced classroom teachers know that to teach also means to inspire, or inspirit. Cognitive learning is at its best when personally relevant, at its worst when it is a dull litany of obscure and meaningless facts. Here, we explore this intangible, oft-neglected aspect of learning. We use the word "soul" (borrowing from James Moffett1, “Soul School” and Matthew B. Crawford 2 , “Shop Class as Soulcraft”) as a broad overarching category to explain some of the parameters of this hidden curriculum, so vital at every level and in every aspect of learning. We describe seven aspects of “soul” that might be profitably adapted in the classroom at various grade levels, in different subject areas, and in different forms. For this to occur, we envision a teacher, experienced enough and wise enough to make the adaptation seamless and smooth, appropriate for the local situation and cultural milieu.

1 James Moffett, "Soul School" in The Spiritual Side of Writing: Releasing the Learner's Whole Potential, ed. Regina Foehr and Susan Schiller (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1997), 5-14. 2 Matthew B. Crawford, "Shop Class as Soulcraft." The New Atlantis, no. 13 (2006), 7-24.

206

Chapter Fifteen

“I am alive” It has been said that Gautama Buddha was asked, toward the end of his life, the difference before and after his enlightenment. He paused for a moment and responded, “I am alive.” This suggests that deep within us lies an enormous reservoir of energy, generally untapped during everyday life. Such energy can provide the motivation to overcome lethargy and dissolve depression, to rise up, take hold and move forward. It can lead us to work hard, day after day for long painful hours, to achieve some worthy goal. Teachers ask, “How can I help my students to find their own reservoir of energy and release it?” And the answer comes back: Model it for your students. The bad news is that there is no one-size-fits-all formula. The good news is that the solution lies dormant within each of us, but it takes courage and persistence to find it. The first step is to overcome our fears, especially the fear of being different or unpopular or unconventional. The second step is to strip away all false personas and come to the place that is the real you, the authentic, the distinct, yes, the unique you. One teacher called this, “the best part of me." Finally, we must find that delicate balance between the expectations of school and society and the individual personality. Mr. T is a superb example. He was the high school band director in a small college town in the rural South. Year after year, for almost 30 years, his bands were ranked best in the state. Some of his students followed professional careers in music, achieving success on the national stage in places like New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Mr. T was a master teacher who pushed his students to achieve levels of success beyond their expectations. But what separated him from other music teachers was his wry, cutting-but-gentle sense of humour. He did not raise his voice. He listened, and each band member believed he was listening to him or her alone. His irony cut through bad performance. In the process, a rich chemistry developed between teacher and students. They loved him and knocked themselves out for him. Mr. T found his own voice and his students found the musician within themselves. Another teacher, however, with other students and other subject matter would likely meet with disaster trying to emulate him. Successful teachers learn from other teachers but do not try to emulate them. They find their own voice and their own way so that the best within the teacher brings out the best within the students. This, we believe, is what it means “to be alive” in the classroom.

Soulcraft in the Classroom

207

Making connections Some worry that young people find the school experience foreign to their own life experience and family history. They see the school day as a huge obstacle, impossible to overcome, with little relevance to everyday life. And so the question arises, “How can we build bridges between the young people we teach and the processes of learning?” Oddly, we tend to forget that bridges have two ends, the student at one end and deeper knowledge at the other end. How much easier it may be for the student, if the trek across the bridge begins at the ‘student end’ rather than the ‘knowledge end’. Scholar James Britton3 advises that we should offer experiences with which learners can readily connect4. In other words, relevance and motivation begin with the learner. The act of framing questions is a powerful heuristic, but we should remember that the power lies in the asker. For example, in a lesson aimed toward understanding Chris Van Allsburg’s The Polar Express5, we begin with questions—from the students’ side of the bridge6. Reading slowly, page by page, we pause and ask: “What questions do you have after reading this page?” Students respond, and we record their questions on chart paper. Was there a track in the yard? Did the parents hear the train? Whether working with younger or older students, the questions become deeper as we proceed through the book: Why are there fierce wolves in the peaceful forest? What did the hole in his pocket represent? Is there a hole in my pocket? Why didn’t the parents hear the bell? After some discussion, each student chooses a question from the chart and answers it in writing. Responses spark discussions of metaphor and symbolism, textual evidence, fact versus fiction—among students of all ages, from primary on up, each group using their available vocabulary to speculate, and each person investing in connections to the text. As we all know, written text is not always what’s lying in wait on the “other” side of the bridge. In a K–2 art class, one skillful teacher displays a work of art, invites students to observe the painting or sculpture and then complete three sentences: I see . . ., I think . . ., I wonder . . . . The last sentence, I wonder. . ., brings forth a hypothesis from the young 3

James Britton, Language and Learning (London, England: Penguin, 1970). Ibid., 247. 5 Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express (New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1985). 6 Richard L. Graves and Sherry Seale Swain, "Toward a Transcendent Theory of Literacy Learning." English in Texas, no. 39 (2009). 4

208

Chapter Fifteen

student: I wonder why the artist painted the sky with circles. I wonder if that triangle behind the tree is the roof of a house. I wonder if the people in that boat are frightened. With assistance from classmates, and under the teacher’s gentle guidance, each student becomes more adept at articulating and forming questions. There is much a teacher can learn from observing students as they form questions. Questioning: one simple strategy with myriad possibilities across the curriculum. We realise that beginning on the student side of the bridge assumes that students know enough to ask questions. They do. Whether encountering a social issue, a scientific concept, fine art, or a piece of literature, student questions can lead the journey. The notion of learnerinitiated questions connects directly to the notion of lifelong learning. We experience; we question; we investigate and learn.

Community building In classroom communities, teacher and students work in groups—in pairs or triads, small groups of five or six, the class as a whole. The past model of the classroom, rows of desks anchored to the floor, the teacher being the single source of information and omnipotent director of learning, has almost disappeared. Now, moveable desks and chairs and tables offer opportunities for flexibility, for group inquiry and community activity. How do such activities lead toward a deeper quality of learning? First of all, group dialogue enhances understanding of others in the group, their perspectives, differences, opinions, and cultural backgrounds. Dialogue makes visible the depths and roots of diversity. This may be more important now than in previous times. Further, group activity opens the door for collaborative problem solving: distinguishing between fact and opinion, listening to all sides of an argument, coming to discover truths, building consensus, arriving at the best possible solutions. Group work introduces the concept of peer learning, providing a distinctly different voice from the voice of the teacher. We have seen for ourselves that students learn best when they are engaged in this kind of collaborative project or discussion with their peers. With these expanded opportunities for talk, the classroom as community promotes individual learning as well. James Britton7 advises that in order for us to understand what we know, we need to say it or write it ourselves8. 7 8

James Britton, Language and Learning (London, England: Penguin, 1970). Ibid., 7.

Soulcraft in the Classroom

209

In classroom communities, opportunities for rich dialogue, back and forth discussion, questions and answers abound. Someone asks, "Johnny, have you ever experienced prejudice?" Johnny responds and tells a story. The class listens, spellbound. Johnny's story adds perspective and depth to the experience of all class members, enriching options for classroom discussion. Britton9 tells us that in the process of developing a personal worldview, we are influenced by others and in turn are influenced by others within the community10.

The power of story Over the past years, the education of young people has focused on results—tests, scores, rankings, and so on. In the process, we have reduced the individual student to a set of numbers and, unintentionally, neglected the deeper aspects of personality. Numbers tell a story but not the whole story. In his book The Call of Stories, Robert Coles11 describes the role of story in the healing process as well as life in general. The power of story became abundantly clear during his internship in the psychiatric ward at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Upon his arrival there, he was assigned a patient, a tall thin woman with black hair and blue eyes, who had been there for several years. She was known as “the hiker,” for she constantly paced, even moving her feet while she took her meals standing up. The doctors, nurses, and therapists were all baffled by her behaviour. Coles had two supervisors. One was a brilliant theorist who urged the young intern to read more in the literature of psychiatry to understand her illness. He urged Coles to formulate a therapeutic strategy and used several technical terms in the field. The other supervisor was less theoretical but offered insights that were “pure common sense”12 . In his weekly meetings with Coles, he mostly listened without giving much direction. He urged the young intern to listen to his patients and not rush to judgment: The people who come to see us bring us their stories. They hope to tell them well enough so that we can understand the truth of their lives. They

9

Ibid. Ibid., 19. 11 Robert Coles, The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989). 12 Ibid., 7. 10

Chapter Fifteen

210

hope we know how to interpret their stories correctly. We have to remember that what we hear is their story.13

After working for months unsuccessfully with the hiker, Coles one day asked her to tell a few stories about her life, something she might consider important, something happy or sad. From this simple request, she responded, revealing information about herself no one in the hospital had heard before, "For the first time in my short career in psychiatry,” he writes, “I saw a noticeable and somewhat dramatic change take place in a patient…”14 Coles came to see the woman, not as a case or a problem but a human being. As she told her story, the seeds of her illness began to appear as well as the path to healing. The students who come to our classrooms also have stories to tell. Unlike the medical intern, who may see six or eight patients a day, we have twenty or more students in our classrooms, sometimes changing every hour. How can we manage to hear their stories and still fulfil our responsibility to teach? Classroom management is the key here, especially as students work in pairs, in small groups or in the whole class. The teacher too has stories to tell, personal accounts as well as stories about the school, its history and customs, about young people who overcame adversities, their small victories, unlikely achievements. Story provides a personal dimension to the classroom, portraying “students” and “teacher” as living human beings. Students’ stories often become the most memorable part of the classroom experience, lasting longer than the details of school subjects. In his internship, Robert Coles was cautioned by one of his supervisors about not letting his patient’s agenda take over. As teachers we sometimes feel that stories get us “off task” and “waste time.” In those moments, we might consider the balance between lesson plans and the personal dynamics of the individuals in our classrooms. The more deeply we look into the whole of the learning process and the young people in our classrooms, the greater the value of story will likely become.

13 14

Ibid. Ibid., 11.

Soulcraft in the Classroom

211

Finding beauty everywhere Although it is gratifying to encounter beauty in an unexpected place—at the laundromat, in stop-and-go-traffic, in the dingy hallways of a high school—what, we wonder, could that possibly have to do with learning? Try it, we say. For a day, list (with pen or with mental notes) a few beautiful sights, sounds, or happenings. Just the mindset to notice beauty opens us to both appreciation and learning from unexpected stimuli and in unexpected ways. Just recently we have noted the peeling bark of a crepe myrtle tree, a helpful young man giving directions, one lone pear that squirrels failed to steal from the tree, the opening sentence of a student’s writing, ‘an array of rusty interwoven railroad tracks . . .’. Finding beauty in the ordinary is not so much about the hunt as it is about the mindset. One who sees beauty in everyday life is not the same person who sees only the superficial, the surface of the physical world. What we find beautiful, we often remember and articulate either to ourselves or someone else. Sometimes we translate that beauty into art, craft, or poetry. Recognising beauty elevates our brains into another level. A colleague recently offered this account of finding beauty. I began to notice frazzled mothers wielding tired children for lateafternoon shopping. I imagined that these women had worked a full day and now had the evening duties of mothering ahead of them. They looked exhausted, and so did their children. Without wanting to intrude, I thought about what had perked me up as a young mother. “What a fine handsome boy you have there,” I said as my buggy passed a mother in the vegetable section. “Oh, thank you,” she smiled, and then she smiled at her son, who in turn grinned full-faced at his mother. I have continued this practice, always in sincerity. The compliment feeds my own soul and I hope my comment has a positive effect on the children and mothers. Often, the families smile and wave as I leave the store.15

Declaring beauty verbally, as our colleague did, confirms the experience on the brain and supports that pattern of behaviour. We would like to think that the brief moment also inspires others to recognise and declare beauty in everyday life. As a classroom assignment, however, we fear that finding beauty might quickly devolve into a chore; instead, we recommend offering occasional opportunities to recognise beauty in unlikely places. In times of stress, we might ask: What's beautiful about exam week or what is beautiful about this day? 15

(L. Smith, personal communication, June 15, 2015).

212

Chapter Fifteen

Within particular units of study, we might ask: What was beautiful about WWII or is there beauty in the vein structure of a leaf? Measured and appropriate comments about beauty might become the crux for helping our students develop positive mindsets about their surroundings and their own learning.

Beyond competence and success The essential idea of schooling is that hard work leads to competence, and competence leads to success. In the outside world, success is measured by financial gain; in school by grades. In this sense, school accurately reflects the values of the culture. Although acquiring good grades is a worthy goal, there is a feeling that some young people tend to place more emphasis on grades than learning. An account from a freshman English professor illustrates an excessive preoccupation with grades. One of my students came by my office and asked, “What is it you want in this class? Business style? Formal? Informal? Good grammar? Just what is it? I’ll do whatever you want. ” “What I would hope for you,” I responded, “is that you find good topics for writing, find a passion for writing, develop your writing style and find your own voice.” “No, you don’t understand,” she said, “I need to make an A in every class I take because I want to become a business executive and must have a perfect grade point average to get the kind of job I want”16.

The resolution to this conflict is not easy or simple. The key question is this: How can we help our students find a balance between working for good grades, on one hand, and on the other, discovering the inherent value of work and the possible deep personal connections within each academic subject? At every level of schooling, we can emphasise the joy of work, the pride in a job well done, a satisfaction deeper than phone conversations, social media, and other brain drains. We illustrate personal connections to schooling in this account from an acquaintance. I grew up in Nebraska, where I was an indifferent student, working part time and having friends who had little interest in school. In the eleventh grade, I discovered American literature, mostly poems and short stories that drew me to them. We read Sidney Lanier’s “Song of the Chattahoochee” and “The Stirrup Cup.” I liked these, so in the library, I 16

(B. J. W., personal communication, October, 1994).

Soulcraft in the Classroom

213

found a book of Lanier’s poems and came across the poem “Tampa Robins.” I chose it as a project for my printing class. After high school, I joined the Air Force and was stationed in Tampa. I met a girl there, whom I married and whose parents were farmers. Some fifty years later, after her parents died, the children inherited their farm and orange grove. Now on winter mornings, when I walk through the grove, the air pungent with ripening fruit, sunlight filtering through the trees, almost cathedral-like, the words of the poem come to me again: “Time’s scythe shall reap but bliss for me,/ --Sunlight, song, and the orange tree.” How unlikely, how prophetic, this connection between the sixteenyear-old boy and the eighty-year-old man. I don’t remember the grade I made in the English class or the name of the teacher or who my classmates were. But I remember the words of the poem. They will likely be with me forever.17

This story reminds us that the classroom experience is like an iceberg: so much on the surface we see, but so much below the surface remains unseen. We make our lesson plans, for the day or for the week, routinely, never suspecting that some elements may remain with our students for years. Of course, so much (mercifully!) is forgotten, but how strange it is, these shards that remain. Our deepest hope is that whatever form they may take, whatever is remembered or misremembered, it will all turn out for the good, deeply beneficial in some positive way.

Shift of consciousness Perhaps the least understood but most profound aspect of soul is the shift of consciousness. Such an experience represents a change at the deepest level of the personality. Rudolph Otto18 characterised it as an encounter with the “numinous”19. D. T. Suzuki20 described as cataclysmic, similar to a violent storm or earthquake21. Carl Jung described it from a psychological perspective: An experience with the numinous is at the

17

(W.G. personal communication, March, 2011). Rudolph Otto, Mysticism: East and West (New York, New York: Macmillan, 1932). 19 Ibid., 159. 20 Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1956). 21 Ibid., 83. 18

214

Chapter Fifteen

core of all true healing experiences22. A former warden at Raiford Prison in Florida described such an experience in the life of one of the prisoners there. You can keep water out of a watch for ninety-nine years, but you cannot keep out dust. Some of the men who are incarcerated at Raiford are like social dust, destined to spend their whole life here. So it seemed with a young man who was abandoned by his parents in New England and came to Florida to live with relatives. He had been in and out of prison, then back in again. A few days before Christmas, he requested an appointment to see me. Our conversation was brief. “Warden,” he said, “I just want you to know that I have been a fool.” I asked him to explain what he meant. “A few days ago I was lying on my bunk, and over the radio came a song, ‘If ever so humble, there’s no place like home.’ Lying there, I began to realize how wrong I have been all my life.” From that point forward he became a model prisoner. When his time for parole came up, he was released and became a productive citizen, never to return to prison.23

The warden’s account reveals some of the characteristics of a shift of consciousness. First, each experience is deeply personal, specific to the individual life. The experience is remembered, usually for a lifetime, by the physical surroundings, the place, the time of day, but the internal event itself is difficult or impossible to describe. The event is preceded by a period of incubation, mostly unconscious, like water accumulating behind a dam. The experience carries within it a certain wisdom, a sense of authority that points toward a new direction, and a changed life. Anyone who has had such an experience wants to tell someone about it, a trusted friend, an authority figure, someone willing to listen and not judge, maybe just a good bartender. Since such experiences are more psychological than educational, they do not play a role in the formal school curriculum. Nevertheless, a teacher may fall into the category of trusted friend, someone who understands and encourages and listens, the kind of listening suggested in the title of this collection, “noticing deeply.” Furthermore, since these experiences lead toward changed behaviours, it is not unreasonable to see them as precursors for more focused study habits. In other words, 22

John A. Sanford, Mystical Christianity (New York, New York: Crossroad, 1997), 151. 23 (Personal communication - Lecture at First Baptist Church, Tampa, Florida. February 1952).

Soulcraft in the Classroom

215

such an experience may play a vital role in student learning, even though it is not a part of formal schooling. Classroom teachers can be ready to understand the nature of such experiences, recognise them when they occur, and encourage their positive direction. At first glance, these seven elements of soul may appear as discrete entities, but underlying them all is a single unifying theme, the idea of "deeply." Currently, the teaching profession is in a state of change, characterised by slogans such as “the whole child” or “college and career ready.” In contrast, we have tried to describe some of the eternal verities of teaching and learning, abiding truths from the ages underlying all the surface change. Classroom teachers who read this chapter will likely see some of our blind spots. The truth is that soulcraft is vast, and we have only scratched the surface. Some may see our efforts as merely theoretical, obscure and irrelevant, but at the same time, some elements of soulcraft are occurring, simply and gloriously, without any fanfare, in classrooms around the world. Some teachers are working alone, but more are finding support from colleagues who share their values and insights, sometimes forming groups for mutual benefit. We have provided a glimpse, knowing that much is beyond verbalization. Dr. Suzuki reminds us that all this can be had only through personal experience, not through books or lectures or formal learning. And so, in conclusion, we embrace the wonder of it, welcome it wherever it is occurring, and realize that its presence makes the learning process more satisfying and our lives much richer.

References Britton, James. Language and Learning. London, England: Penguin, 1970. Coles, Robert. The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Crawford, Matthew B. "Shop Class as Soulcraft."in The New Atlantis, no. 13, 2006. Graves, Richard L., and Sherry Seale Swain. "Toward a Transcendent Theory of Literacy Learning." in English in Texas, no. 39, 2009. Moffett, James. "Soul School" in The Spiritual Side of Writing: Releasing the Learner's Whole Potential, edited by Regina Foehr and Susan Schiller. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1997. Otto, Rudolph. Mysticism: East and West. New York, New York: Macmillan, 1932.

216

Chapter Fifteen

Sanford, John A. Mystical Christianity. New York, New York: Crossroad, 1997. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1956. Van Allsburg, Chris. The Polar Express. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

[…] if you are here unnfaithfully with h us/you’re causing terriblle damage. —Rumi

CHAPTER SIXTEEN MEANINGFUL WORK: EXPERIENCING THE SACREDNESS OF THE TEACHING AND LEARNING RELATIONSHIP RUPERT COLLISTER

Introduction According to Parker Palmer, many of us live “a divided life”. He continues by saying: “I yearn to be whole, but dividedness often seems the easier choice”1. The dividedness Palmer describes is given more power when we do something which we know is contrary to our natural way of being, or when we don’t do something that we know, or feel deep down, that we should. Such dividedness takes a heavy toll on, not just ourselves, but also on all those around us. As Palmer says: How can I affirm another’s identity when I defy my own? A fault line runs down the middle of my life, and whenever it cracks open – divorcing my words and actions from the truth I hold within – things around me get shaky and fall apart2.

This chapter will explore the concept of meaningful work as it emerges from the work of Collister,3 Fox4, Goodman5, Palmer6, and Palmer and 1

Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004), 4. 2 Ibid., 5-6. 3 Rupert Collister, A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2010). 4 Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time (New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994). 5 27th September, 2006.

220

Chapter Sixteen

Scribner7. It will also touch on how teachers experience the sacredness of the teaching and learning relationship in relation to a synthesis of some of the work of these same writers, thinkers, and practitioners.

My story I was born in the north of England. I left school at 16 with no qualifications at all. I went to a technical college, earned some qualifications in a trade, and worked in that trade for 12 years, doing I suppose, quite well but never feeling fulfilled. I was able to move through the workplace structures and in due course was able to gain department head positions. This ‘achievement’ was all possible on the basis of my craft certificates, practical experience (skills gained on-the-job) and, unfortunately, the adoption of some of the attitudes and behaviours of that were common across the industry at that time. However, it didn’t come cheap. It involved working in thirteen cities (two of them twice) in four countries and over a span of twelve years, making and developing lasting relationships difficult. The industry I had chosen was all consuming. It included long working days of usually between ten and fifteen hours per day, often six and occasionally seven days a week, for generally poor pay in relation to the working conditions. The work was high-pressure and high-stress shift work. There was a certain level of community in that everyone worked in the same environment and felt the same stress that provided a common bond. However because of minimal staffing, when one person had a rostered day off, it was likely that their colleagues would be working. If someone were on recreational (vacation) or sick leave then this would dramatically increase the pressure on those who remained. This, in turn, caused resentment of those who were absent, and this resentment might be maintained for weeks or months after the person returned. This pattern of behaviour led to isolation or intense socialisation that invariably occurred late at night. The bonds of community or common oneness8 with family, friends, and community were eroded and ultimately destroyed, only to be replaced by new relationships formed through the 6

Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004). 7 Parker J. Palmer and Megan Scribner, The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal, Tenth-Anniversary ed. (San Francisco, California: JosseyBass: An imprint of Wiley, 2007); ibid. 8 Michael Bopp and Judie Bopp, Recreating the World: A Practical Guide to Building Sustainable Communities (Calgary, Canada: Four Worlds Press, 2001).

Meaningful Work

221

work environment that were often mutually destructive. These new relationships facilitated drug and alcohol abuse, violence, antisocial activity, health issues, relationship breakdown, depression, and meaningless sex. I experienced many of these factors myself, and frequently observed all of them. Far from being one’s true business9 or vocation10 then, for many people, including myself, these experiences were soul-destroying. Because such behaviour was common to those in the same work community and viewed as normal, there was little or no respite possible without changing one’s workplace, or one’s whole career. This pattern of behaviour was endemic at all levels of the industry at that time. At a personal level, I spent twelve years being tired, stressed, anxious, and at times scared for my well-being. I kept a semblance of balance through the inclusion of drawing, music, film, reading, cycling, and nature-hiking in my life. However, this period was one where I experienced an ongoing negative transformation of my way of being. As a result, this shaped the patterns of behaviour that would continue for at least a decade and a half and which still inhabit my Soul’s darker moments today. I moved to Australia and managed to gain a job teaching my trade to adults from a variety of backgrounds: many from long-term unemployed situations, people returning to the workforce after long absences, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, and people from non-English speaking backgrounds. In short, I worked with people who had largely been marginalised by society and people who had been marginalised by the formal education system as I had been. I felt a connection, a stirring of passion. I quickly realised that the adult education system in Australia wasn’t working for these people. This was a shock for me. Rather than facilitating a transformation in the lives of my students, it was simply contributing to their increased marginalisation. I was struck by the potentiality for social, cultural, educational, and vocational violence to be inherent in formal education. I started to look at alternatives. This point in my career coincided with a requirement that adult educators gain a diploma-level qualification. I undertook this study with trepidation. However, in my study, I was able to relate the content to the context in which I was working. It allowed me to make connections between my own experience and the course. I gained the qualification and my appetite for learning was beginning to stir. I began by reading professional journals and saw an advertisement for a position requiring 9

John Dewey, "Democracy and Education," accessed at: http://www.ilt.colombia.edu/projects/digitexts/dewey/d_e.html. 10 Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Company, 2000).

222

Chapter Sixteen

someone with an adult education degree to work with people who were working in the industry. Not expecting to get the position, I decided to apply. I was offered the position and undertook the programme by distance learning so I could keep working. Again I found that I could very easily relate my experiences to the course content. However, this formal study simply reinforced my view of the marginalising effects of formal education, and I began to read widely. First, my reading was in the areas directly related to my study, and then I would see a quote I liked, and I'd source it and read around it. Throughout the period when I was working, I was reflecting on my work, my studies, and my reading, although it was a while before I realised what I was doing! Then one day I came across this quote from Ukrainian educator, V.A. Sukhomlinsky: I am firmly convinced that the human personality is inexhaustible; each may become a creator, leaving behind a trace upon the Earth […] There should not be any nobodies—specks of dust cast upon the wind. Each one must shine, just as billions upon billions of galaxies shine in the heavens.11

This quotation literally changed my life. I realised I had found my vocation. I also discovered the first theorist I connected deeply with, shaping not only my view of education but also my view of life and of work.

Meaningful work Stress is endemic within the workforces that support the structures and institutions of Western worldview. It is a symptom of the marginalising tendencies within this worldview and is apparently and largely caused by the fact that “no attempt is made to match persons to their meaningful work (or in education, to assist them toward the self-knowledge that such matching requires)”12, as shown from my own experiences (above). Bethel goes on to say that “persons who by accident or good fortune find their meaningful work are extremely few and the vast majority, having no experience to the contrary, endorse the prevailing view that work is an 11

Vasily A. Sukhomlinsky, Pis'ma K Synu [Letters to My Son], trans. Alan Cockerill, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1987), 116. 12 Dayle Bethel, "Work, Community and the Development of Moral Character," in Creating Learning Communities: Models, Resources and New Ways of Thinking About Teaching and Learning, ed. Ron Miller (Brandon, Vermont: The Foundation for Educational Renewal, Inc., 2000), 260.

Meaningful Work

223

unpleasant necessity”13. Despite the interconnectedness of all things, life is a journey shaped by decisions and choices. The ‘divided life’ that Palmer describes is a phenomenon that can certainly be observed in the high levels of stressrelated illness and death in our society, not to mention in self-destructive behaviours such as addiction, self-harm, and suicide referred to earlier. Through this process of division, naturally communal and social human beings become insular and, what Dr. Ed O’Sullivan would describe as, ‘Self-encapsulated’14. Such high levels of stress and ‘self-encapsulation’ are particularly visible amongst faculty and administrators at all levels of education, from K-12 to postgraduate. The Afghani/Persian poet Rumi said “[…] if you are here unfaithfully with us/you’re causing terrible damage”15. When we experience and embody such stress as is described above, we can never be ‘here faithfully’. I have described elsewhere 16 a series of vignettes, which highlight recurrent themes in the nature and culture of teaching today. The most prevalent theme was one that echoed my own experiences, perhaps ironically both within formal education and in my previous career. That is: A significant number of faculty17, some of whom had been in their roles for decades, found that they were not happy. Some felt that their work was becoming less meaningful for both them and their students. Typically, the faculty loved the process and act of teaching, they loved the process of passing on what they knew to others, they loved the experience of engaging with students in research, exploration, and debate, and they loved the possibility that sometimes they were changing lives. Unfortunately, they typically disliked the emerging context they were beginning to be embedded in. They didn’t like the increased casualisation of the faculty. They didn’t like what they perceived to be a lack of professional freedom. They didn’t like the seemingly constant changes in institutional policy and

13

Ibid., 260. Edmund O'Sullivan, Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21st Century (Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Inc., 1999). 15 Rumi, "Forget Your Life," The Enlightened Heart, ed. Stephen Mitchell (New York, New York: Harper Collins, 1989), 56. 16 Karen Hamilton and Rupert Collister, "The Context of Teaching, Meaningful Work, and Engagement in Direct Knowledge of the World," in International Conversations of Teacher Educators: Teaching and Learning in Global World, ed. Mary Jane Harkins and Zhanna Barchuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University, 2014). 17 In this chapter the term ‘faculty’ is used to represents tenured, part-time and contract professors, instructors and trainers, teachers and tutors. 14

Chapter Sixteen

224

process. They didn’t like the directives for increased use of technology, and they especially didn’t like the seeming depreciation of pedagogy simultaneously with the elevation of technology. Finally, they didn’t like what they perceived to be increased workload and responsibilities as well as increased stress; all to service, as they typically saw it, the institution's bottom line. Overall, faculty seemed to feel that, although they loved teaching, they increasingly didn't like the ‘context' being a teacher meant they were immersed in18.

Although these vignettes take place over fifteen years and two continents, these themes infer, empirically at least, that the constantly emerging and evolving context of education is causing feelings of a loss of meaning in the work of teachers and facilitating the divided life of which Palmer spoke. As many of us know, making our way back from a divided life is often a journey that never ends. As we each take on such a divided life, such self-encapsulation19, we bear a cost that Palmer again suggests is manifested in: x x x x x x x

The sense that something is missing in our lives and, though we search for it, we do not understand that what is missing is in us. The feeling of being fraudulent, even invisible, because we are not in the world as we really are. The belief that the light within us cannot illuminate the world. The belief that the darkness within us cannot be illuminated by the world’s light. The way we project our inner darkness onto others, making “enemies” of them and making the world a more dangerous place. Being inauthentic and projecting in such a way that making real relationships is impossible, which leads to loneliness. Tainting our contributions to the world with duplicity, depriving them of the life-giving energies of true-self.20

In 1972, Studs Terkel, a well-known American journalist and broadcaster of the time, interviewed hundreds of people about ‘what they do all day and how they feel about what they do’. He interviewed factory line workers and professors, doctors and prostitutes, office workers and teachers. He interviewed people from all walks of life and from across the 18

Ibid., 17-31. Edmund O'Sullivan, Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21st Century (Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Inc., 1999). 20 adapted from Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004),16. 19

Meaningful Work

225

United States. Over one hundred and thirty stories were published in a 580-page book called ‘Working’. Studs Terkel begins this classic book with the following statement: This book, being about work, is by its very nature, about violenceto the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us. The scars, psychic as well as physical, brought home to the supper table and the TV set, many have touched, malignantly, the soul of our society. More or less […]. It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this bookǤ There are, of course, the happy few who find a savor in their daily job […]. But don’t these satisfactions, like Jude’s hunger for knowledge, tell us more about the person than about his [sic] task? Perhaps. Nonetheless, there is a common attribute here: a meaning to their work well over and beyond the reward of their paycheck. For the many, there is a hardly concealed discontentmentǤʹͳ

I wonder how many of us, as educators, recognise our experience with work in these few sentences, at least to some degree? I suspect, quite a few, though in varying degrees. As with all my previous work22, although influenced by a number of other writers, thinkers, and practitioners, this chapter is deeply rooted in my own social, cultural, vocational, educational, and spiritual experiences because: "the story of my journey is no more or less important than anyone else's. It is simply the best source of data I have on a subject where 21

Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, 3rd ed. (New York, New York: The New Press, 2004), xi. 22 Diana Bailey et al., "Reflections on Collaboration: Perspectives and Practices," ed. Mary Jane Harkins, Zhanna Barchuk, and Rupert Collister, International Conversations of Teacher Educators: Collaboration in Education (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University, anticipated 2016), www.msvu.ca/teacherconversations; Collister, A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning; Hamilton and Collister, "The Context of Teaching, Meaningful Work, and Engagement in Direct Knowledge of the World." ibid.

Chapter Sixteen

226

generalizations often fail, but truth may be found in the details" 23, and “propositions about human experience that are the outcome of […] research are of questionable validity if they are not grounded in the researchers’ experience”24.

Conclusion Each person’s journey is unique and yet we are all journeying together, co-creating this reality we call life. Engagement in meaningful work requires constant self-examination and deep reflection into our moral, ethical, and spiritual self. Such examination and reflection necessarily explores the activities and work we are engaged in and involves asking questions such as: x x x x x x x

‘What kind of work are we engaged in?’ ‘What is the effect of this work on me and my co-workers?' ‘What is the effect on those who experience the ‘output’ 25 of my work?’ ‘What is the effect of my work on the environment both now and into the future?’ ‘Who makes decisions about the work that I do and its effects?’ ‘Whose methods, assumptions and values dominate in the workplace and in the provision and experience of its ‘output’?’ ‘Who does and who does not benefit from my work?’26

Although they can be answered in a superficial manner, I intend that these are metaphysical questions. Such constant examination, exploration, and reflection reveal that simply engaging in any kind of work is not ipso facto fundamentally better than having no work at all. This also shows that any kind of work cannot automatically be considered to be of benefit to the individual workers, our families, our communities within which our workplaces are situated, the wider society, the environment, or indeed the planet itself. 23

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Company, 2000), 16. 24 John Heron, Co-Operative Inquiry: Research Into the Human Condition (Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Ltd, 1996), 20. 25 I have come across teachers who feel the word ‘output' is overly mechanistic. However, that was not my intent. My intent was to ask a question that could equally be applied to faculty, administrators and support staff. 26 adapted from a collaborative conversation with Goodman.

Meaningful Work

227

In 1984 Theodore Sizer wrote his book, “Horace’s Compromise”. This was one of a series of three books that resulted from a five-year-long inquiry into adolescent education called ‘A study of high schools'. Sizer opens the book with a case study of a teacher he refers to as Horace. Horace is an amalgam of a number of teachers that Sizer and his colleagues met during their study. Sizer concludes his case study with this paragraph. Most jobs in the real world have a gap between what would be nice and what is possible. One adjusts. The tragedy for many high school teachers is that the gap is a chasm, not crossed by reasonable and judicious adjustments. Even after adroit accommodations and devastating compromises […] the task is already crushing, in reality, a sixty-hour work week. For this, Horace is paid a wage enjoyed by age-mates in semiskilled and low-pressure blue-collar jobs and by novices, twenty-five years his junior, in some other white collar professions.27

It seems to me that, through my own experiences as well as my admittedly loose empirical research, many faculty members experience a life that is closer to Horace’s than not. If we consider that it is likely that these experiences are more common across professions, then not only education but also society, in general, is in trouble. I often wonder: What is the role of the teaching and learning relationship in addressing this calamity?

References Bailey, Diana, Brittany Eliuk, Christina Miladinovic, and Rupert Collister. "Reflections on Collaboration: Perspectives and Practices." In International Conversations of Teacher Educators: Collaboration in Education, edited by Mary Jane Harkins, Zhanna Barchuk and Rupert Collister Halifax, Nova Scotia: Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University, anticipated 2016. http://www.msvu.ca/teacherconversations. Bethel, Dayle. "Work, Community and the Development of Moral Character." In Creating Learning Communities: Models, Resources and New Ways of Thinking About Teaching and Learning, edited by Ron Miller. Brandon, Vermont: The Foundation for Educational Renewal, Inc., 2000. 27 Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), 20-21.

228

Chapter Sixteen

Bopp, Michael, and Judie Bopp. Recreating the World: A Practical Guide to Building Sustainable Communities. Calgary, Alberta: Four Worlds Press, 2001. Collister, Rupert. A Journey in Search of Wholeness and Meaning. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 2010. Dewey, John. "Democracy and Education." Accessed at: http://www.ilt.colombia.edu/projects/digitexts/dewey/d_e.html. Fox, Matthew. The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994. Goodman, Anne. 27th September, 2006 Hamilton, Karen, and Rupert Collister. "The Context of Teaching, Meaningful Work, and Engagement in Direct Knowledge of the World." Chap. 2 In International Conversations of Teacher Educators: Teaching and Learning in Global World, edited by Mary Jane Harkins and Zhanna Barchuk, 17-31. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University, 2014. Heron, John. Co-Operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Ltd, 1996. O'Sullivan, Edmund. Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21st Century. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Inc., 1999. Palmer, Parker J. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Imprint, 2004. —. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Company, 2000. Palmer, Parker J, and Megan Scribner. The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal. 10th-anniversary ed. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass: An imprint of Wiley, 2007. Rumi. "Forget Your Life." In The Enlightened Heart, edited by Stephen Mitchell, 56. New York, New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Sizer, Theodore R. Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 1984. Sukhomlinsky, Vasily A. Pis'ma K Synu [Letters to My Son]. Translated by Alan Cockerill. 2nd ed. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1987. Terkel, Studs. Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. 3rd ed. New York, New York: The New Press, 2004. 1972.

BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Beeman is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University. He has research interests in Indigenous, place-based, and experiential educations. Sean Blenkinsop is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, with a cross appointment at the Centre for Dialogue. He is also the primary investigator for the environmental school project, a year-around outdoor public elementary school in Maple Ridge, BC. David Buley is an associate professor of music education in the Faculty of Education at Laurentian University. A practitioner of Jaques-Dalcroze eurhythmics, he loves making music and spends quite a bit of time singing outdoors with the largest choir on earth. Jan Buley is addicted to teaching and learning, and shares her love for literacy and drama education with teacher candidates within Laurentian University’s Faculty of Education. She runs from apathy. Jan’s Ph.D. from New York University examined the assumptions, beliefs and contradictions associated with family engagement in schools. Jan is also very involved in arts education with marginalised communities. Rupert Collister has worked in the post-compulsory education for over eighteen years, and his experience reflects the diversity of the sector in its broadest sense. His first book, ‘A journey in search of wholeness and meaning’, was published in 2010 by Peter Lang Publishers (Switzerland). His current research project is to develop a holistic approach to curriculum for initial teacher education and later for ongoing professional development. Cindy Derrenbacker moved to Sudbury, Ontario several years ago from Vancouver, BC, where the Sudbury landscape has had a profound effect on her. Cindy’s background is as a library director for two graduate theological libraries on the campuses of the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto, respectively. She currently serves as the Architecture Librarian for the newly opened School of

230

Biographies of Contributors

Architecture at Laurentian University. Libby Falk Jones is a professor of English and Chester D. Tripp Chair in Humanities at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky. She teaches creative, critical, and professional writing, including courses in contemplative writing and photography. Her photographs have been exhibited locally and regionally, and her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various journals and anthologies. She has presented her research on contemplation and creativity at several national conferences. Lochran C. Fallon spent his early life growing up in central Pennsylvania. He currently holds two Masters degrees from Millersville University in English and education. He is currently working on an original theoretical perspective called “Mys-theory” for his dissertation, which draws on poststructuralism, queer theory, and postmodernism, as well as an array of transdisciplinary frameworks for its concepts. When he isn’t engaged in academic research, he enjoys swimming and travelling. Nicole Fisher is a wholistic parent, seasoned high school teacher with over twenty years of experience, a Certified BodyTalk Practitioner, mindfulness facilitator, and a leader passionate about linking people with innovative approaches to educating for wellness. She has self-published an illustrated children's book highlighting the interconnectedness of life. Nicole has a special interest in understanding and helping highly sensitive people, and enjoys the creative arts. Dick (Richard L.) Graves is one of three founders of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning (AEPL), along with Charlie Suhor and Alice Brand. He also founded the Alabama network of National Writing Project Sites and, though now retired from Auburn University, remains active in the profession. Since retirement, Dick has published a book, ‘Writing, teaching, learning’ (Heinemann), and authored or co-authored several articles about writing and learning. He has also collaborated on writing research for the National Writing Project and co-developed a method of assessment of student writing called prominent feature analysis. Nikkia Green graduated from Long Island University Post in Brookville, NY with a BA in English and a concentration in writing. She currently works in the admissions office of Mercy College in New York and is making plans to begin graduate school. She is also a proud new mom of her son, Earl.

The Art of Noticing Deeply

231

Samantha Goss is a Ph.D. student in art and design education at Northern Illinois University. She is interested in the relationships between art and several other components of education, such as literacy, urban classrooms, care, and student cultures. She has been working with fellow doctoral students to examine and report on themes in art education research through data visualisation. Michael Hankard is an assistant professor in the Indigenous Studies program at the University of Sudbury. His teaching and research focus is in the areas of Indigenous knowledge, spirituality, and the environment. Michael is Abenaki of the Beaver Clan and is of Abenaki, Métis, and European ancestry. He has degrees from Laurentian University, Georgetown University, and Northeastern University. Maureen P. Hall is an associate professor of education at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the STEM Education and Teacher Development Department. Her most recent book is ‘Writing from the inside’, (Equinox Publishers, U.K, 2015) with co-author Olivia Archibald. Her recent research focuses on cognitive-affective learning and the integration of contemplative practices for deepening learning. She was a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar in India over 2010-2011. Aimee Myers found her calling in education after battling the stereotypes and obstacles of being an at-risk student. She worked in schools for ten years teaching students ranging from middle school age to college. Currently, Amy is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma. She is also working with a non-profit agency to assist alternative education teachers in developing authentic learning experiences for students. Aminda O'Hare is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she runs the Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology and Experimental Science Lab. She received training in mindfulness-based stress reduction at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and uses that experience to conduct mindfulness attention training in her research. Aminda received her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 2010. Wendy Ryden is an associate professor of English and coordinator of the ‘Writing Across the Curriculum Program’ at Long Island University Post in New York. She has co-authored with Ian Marshall ‘Reading, Writing, and the Rhetorics of whiteness’ (Routledge).

232

Biographies of Contributors

Susan A. Schiller is a professor of English at Central Michigan University where she also serves as Director of the M.A. in Humanities Program. As a charter member of the NCTE Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, she contributes to the field of composition studies by writing and publishing about spiritual approaches to writing. She is co-editor of The Holistic Educator, a bi-annual newsletter that addresses current interests of holistic educators. Sherry Swain was among the charter members of AEPL, serving as treasurer in the early days. A former classroom teacher, she followed her passion for teaching writing to the National Writing Project where she is now senior research associate. With Dick Graves, she has published several research studies on the teaching of writing and numerous articles that extend that research into classrooms. Daniel J. Weinstein is an assistant professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Dan's research, positioned at the intersection of educational technology and the psychology of creativity, tends to focus on how teachers may best use new technologies to help students prosper as learners and creators. A pioneer in the use of computer technology for teaching writing remotely,