Posts Tagged ‘E E Cummings’
If. . . we wouldn’t be we
Posted April 18, 2010
on:If
- If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
- And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
- Life would be delight,–
- But things couldn’t go right
- For in such a sad plight
- I wouldn’t be I.
- If earth was heaven and now was hence,
- And past was present, and false was true,
- There might be some sense
- But I’d be in suspense
- For on such a pretense
- You wouldn’t be you.
- If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
- And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
- Things would seem fair,–
- Yet they’d all despair,
- For if here was there
- We wouldn’t be we.
- e.e. cummings
Teaching the challenge of morality
I’ve spent a lot of my life teaching young adults. Once we have gone beyond the “declarative knowledge”, the labels for things, we move on to “procedural knowledge”, getting our hands dirty.
At school, a friend of mine didn’t like putting sulphuric acid on zinc chips She was convinced that she could hear them squeal with pain.
In social sciences, we are required to considered to fill in forms in lieu of considering ethics. We even go to great lengths to remove the effects of what we do from experiments.
Of course, all this is a nonsense. Everything we do affects people we do it with. And we are affected in turn. This is the lesson that students should learn. They need to learn to listen and to understand how other people are affected by their even seemingly innocuous actions.
And then they must decide. Are they going to act anyway, and why?
Somewhere buried in there is a hard lesson of life – that are our actions and circumstances don’t always reflect well on us ~ and that we are never comfortable with that. The day that we are uncomfortable with the uncomfortable, then we have lost it. We should feel bad about bad stuff.
But we also have to make choices despite the fact we are not going to feel good.
I like that Cummings ends with We wouldn’t be we. Because the journey that brought us together into this uncomfortable place is our shared journey. Our discomfort is a product of our shared journey. I may not like that I am in this bad place with you, but I am. That cannot be denied. And I have to act anyway. I just try to act thoughfully, knowledgeably, fairly. Often I don’t even achieve that, but I try.
And that I act does not deny that all this is bad. It’s bad. I act. That is.
And that it is bad does not change that tomorrow may not be bad. With you or without you. That is too. It just is. And to pretend that we don’t have agonizing choices to make denies that We are We. That is bad. Very bad.
To be a good manager, teacher or psychologist, I must believe in you fully
Posted November 15, 2009
on:I know that learning is social
I teach. I know that people learn dramatically more when they feel part of a common venture.
We understand a little about social learning
Social learning has barely been researched but we know a little.
- We know we can stop people learning very effectively by excluding them – even inadvertently ~by loss of eye contact and they way we tell stories.
- We know the Pymaglion effect is a powerful self-fulfilling prophecy. My students will be as good as I think they are.
But the process of learnin begins when I show deep respect for who my students are and what they bring to my life.
E E Cummings on recognition
American poet E. E. Cummings puts it well:
“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
To be an effective teacher, to be an effective manager, to be an effective psychologist ~ I must believe in you, 100%, without reservation.
Recent Comments