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Like/dislike

10/26/2016

The senses have been conditioned by attraction to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant. Do not be ruled by them; they are obstacles in your path.

Bhagavad Gita, 3.34 (trans. Eknath Easwaran)

Some questions recur in my thinking and practice:

- From whence do I think and act?

- Which of my actions are based on like, ease or habit? These actions may be useful, even necessary, at times - but when might it be more useful to act differently?

- Do I avoid that which I dislike, or which is more difficult? Could I, and those around me, benefit from my allowing more inconvenience into my life?

As a teacher, how can I avoid (in the words of Mary Boole) 'doing more of what I do too much of already'?

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Like and dislike are central to these questions. JG Bennett suggests this polarity is a fundamental feature of our existence:

We, like everything else that exists, are subject to this action of polar forces. We have in us a certain mechanism that is, by its nature, polar... This mechanism is really provided for the purpose of generating force.

The freedom from like and dislike, what Bennett calls the 'first liberation', is 'not the abolition of desires, but the presence in oneself of something which can choose'. This is the aim of John Mason's Discipline of Noticing.

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In Philosophical Essays, Hans Jonas talks of 'the polarity of being and not-being, of self and world, of freedom and necessity'. He continues to say that the individuality of an organism is 'the acting out of the very tension of the polarities that constitute its being'.

Jonas suggests that 'the accentuation of [these] tensions [are] nothing but the accentuation of life itself'. Polarity and tension are what give form. This brings to mind Heathcote's 'productive tension', and cognitive dissonance.

However, resonance is also a powerful means for generating energy and action. it is useful to embrace both resonance and dissonance, as noted by Heraclitus (Fragment 46 in this translation):

From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony.

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In Let Go!, Hubert Benoit talks of 'will to experience'. Experience here means judgement, the will to make judgements about the world around us.

According to Benoit, the will to experience gives direction to our conscious attention. Our need to judge results in the singularity of attention, conferring an entity upon the multiplicity, about which we then make 'partial interpretations'.

Our conscious awareness is driven by (and drives) our approval or disapproval; we mainly seek that which provides affirmation, that which resonates. This results in convergence, the formation of habits, the inability to notice the full depth of reality.

We might balance the will to experience through conciliation of dualities, through a complementary 'non-will to experience' (similar to Heidegger's Gelassenheit). In order to achieve this, Benoit suggests we must 'let go again and again', in order to reveal the 'progressive calm of non-attachment'.

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What lies in the space between poles is described beautifully by Jonas in the following passage from Philosophical Essays:

The spatial gap between subject and object, which is provisionally spanned by perception, is at the same time the temporary gap between need and satisfaction that is provisionally spanned by emotion (desire) and practically overcome by motion.

The brings to mind Magda Arnold's definition of emotion as 'felt tendency towards anything appraised as good or beneficial or away from anything appraised as bad or harmful'.

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Awareness of like and dislike has been crucial in my attempts at not skimming over students this year, in regulating emotional responses to events, as well as giving me a clearer outlook on professional and personal dilemmas.

Often by conciliating dualisms, problems I was trying to resolve have disappeared; there is no longer any solution because there is no longer any problem. At other times, I have found it useful to hold opposites, to adopt a stance of both/and.

Living through non-attachment does not mean we cease to care, or act, but rather we may be more likely to act with balance, with more awareness of our and others' emotions.

Through the 'progressive calm of non-attachment' we may gain wisdom, grace, lightness, gentleness, patience - essential traits for a teacher.

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Lightness

10/24/2016

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Skylark on moor
Sweet song
of non-attachment

Basho [On Love and Barley #83, tr. Lucien Stryk]

Basho cultivated a sense of lightness, freedom and naturalness in his poetry that he called 'Karumi', reminiscent of 'that which does not stagnate, but constantly flows, like a mountain stream, fresh. clear and light' (see this article).

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I recently went to a conference where the presenter strutted up and down, in front of and through the participants, calling forth responses, gesturing confidently, showing us how knowledgeable he was.

I went to a different conference where the 'presenter' appeared regularly at our sides and asked us questions related to something she had invited us to work on. I felt attended-to.

These two events had a profound effect on my teaching; I vowed never to strut around the classroom again.

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One day, I decided to have a 'day of slowness'. I noticed that I was breathing more deeply, more calmly. I held things more gently and remembered to tread lightly on the earth (in the words of Jane Bennett). I did not need to speak as loudly as usual, as I was prepared to wait until I was near people before speaking.

Reflecting now, I remember that day more clearly than most, although this might be due to the fact it was a beautiful Autumn day in Kew Gardens.

I do not always remember to tread lightly. In a recent lesson, I sensed a taken-aback-ness in my students, and realised my tone had become patronising, perhaps mildly aggressive, as they were finding it difficult to understand something I thought they might understand more easily.

Teacher lusts abound: I must recognise them and follow Amy Liptrot's advice to, 'Let the cravings pass lightly'.

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'Slowing down into experience', and 'stopping to consider' are key themes in Dorothy Heathcote's work. By going slowly, we can reflect while doing. As Heathcote states:

Without the power of reflection, what have we?

With slowing down comes awareness, as well as lightness, softness, stillness, quietness.

I recently sat with a student who wanted to go through some difficult problems. He was finding it difficult to concentrate. I read him chapter 16 from the Tao Te Ching and asked him which line stood out for him. He chose this one:

Returning to the source is serenity.

I asked him if this helped. He said yes, and it seemed to; we continued with the work afresh.

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With serenity comes sensitivity: to our breathing, to our surroundings, to our own consciousness, perhaps intertwining with others. This feels connected to just listening. When slow and quiet, we become more attentive, more receptive to that which is there to be noticed.

When we go quickly, we take less care, are less able to dwell, we notice less. Our actions will create noise, and possibly damage, violence.

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With lightness comes freedom, freshness, non-attachment. At a recent Science of Education working group meeting we talked about the importance of letting go when trying to solve problems, but the ability to let go may be more useful than (just) for doing maths.

In his later life, a central theme in Heidegger's philosophy was the term Gelassenheit, which can be translated as a letting go, but also letting be, freedom, non-willing, releasement, waiting.

Letting things be is not a matter of leaving them alone. In Pathmarks he states:

Ordinarily we speak of letting be ... in the negative sense of leaving something alone, of renouncing it, of indifference and even neglect. ... However, the phrase required now - to let beings be does not refer to neglect and indifference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself with beings.

Letting be requires openness to people and to the world around us. But with this comes risk, vulnerability:

By loosening the boundaries [between emotion, cognition, subject matter, professional and private lives], perhaps even cutting them, we become open to enriching learning about ourselves and others.

This is the cost of removing our 'ego' from teaching - an essential part of becoming a good teacher.

To me this echoes the Zen teaching of not two, of Zen-master Hui-Neng's suggestion that one should not look at, but as, the object - in this case, the child.

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Letting be might also be termed a 'slowness of judgement', as in Montaigne's, 'Je soutiens,' or the skeptics 'Epoché'.

This is a critical element in good teaching, as described by Dorothy Heathcote in this article:

Being slow to make judgements allows me constantly to renew my view of each pupil and update it. I think this is one of the hardest things we must train ourselves to do if we aspire to excellence in teaching... One of the most rejuvenating things is to give everyone a fresh start each morning. The ability to do this is part of the condition of innocence. I think innocence has a chance of bringing with it enormous gaiety and trust, so that you walk into the classroom clean every morning, however mucky you are at the end of the day.

On innocence, Henry Thoreau adds:

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbours… A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning.

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With openness, trust, renewal comes a greater possibility of receiving. This is from Gifts from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

With patience and faith, we are back to taking the wanting out of the waiting.

The same themes recur again and again.

This is Chapter 43 of the Tao Te Ching.

The gentlest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest thing in the world.
That which has no substance
enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.

Teaching without words,
performing without actions:
that is the Master's way

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Resistance

10/21/2016

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A class on the defensive, which has developed resistant techniques to classroom practice, are particularly good at reading signs for their own ends.

Dorothy Heathcote, Sign (and portents?)

As someone in a teaching position, what might we do when faced with resistance?

Teachers often want to change behaviour in their students, to 'get them' to adopt certain practices . I have found it useful to believe I cannot change others. John Mason suggests:

It is always possible to resist. The adopting of cultural practices... is not actually action on the individual, but rather the acquiescence of the individual...

The choice to resist, or not to resist, comes from within. We cannot change our students, but we can try to educate a better quality of response, and explain why a better quality of response may be required.

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Recurring themes in Heathcote's writing are the 'social health of the class' and 'commitment to work'. In the paper Drama as Education, she suggests various strategies, including:

I work slowly in the beginning. I do not move forward until the class is committed to the work... This is very difficult with a class of poor social health because they do not want to go slowly.

Improving the social health of a class, and thus reducing resistance, requires time, patience, skill, delicacy, honesty. It requires the formation of caring relations between teacher and students.

Watch this film of Dorothy Heathcote working with a class, especially from around 02:00 to 05:00 (and, in particular, the image below):

What strikes you about the way she interacts with the class? How might her approach break down resistance?

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Whilst the teacher must care for her students, she must also have a strength, a resistance of her own - the ability to withstand - as Heathcote describes:

As a teacher, I must also have the ability not to be lessened by my students, to withstand them... One of the ways of avoiding being lessened is to refuse to give back what the pupils give you, especially if they are uncooperative. So often, it is easier to play tit- for-tat, and be lessened.

I must have the ability to withstand certain pressures. I must be able to say, 'I respect how it looks from your point of view but I'm not giving in, because I can explain why I want it my way.' It's often easier to let the children get away with it, because it's too tiring to keep battling on. But the real battle is for a higher quality of response.

This does not mean that teachers should be inflexible, or coercive, but there may be, 'A struggle for quality... to demand what children have not yet the courage or organisation to ask on their own' (John Fines, talking about Dorothy Heathcote).

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Resistance may come from many places, to many sources of authority, and be of various kinds. We do not know from where and to what students may be resisting, unless we talk to them.

I recently asked some students why they resisted giving explanations and checking answers. Many students replied that just found it difficult to put things into words, or didn't know how to check. Others felt they 'knew their answer was correct as they had followed the process'.

Not necessarily resistance then, just the appearance of resistance. Without talking to these students I might have decided they were just being 'lazy'. Better instead to talk to students, to adopt a stance of confirmation; there may be simple reasons for students' apparent resistance.

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When faced with resistance to a demand, we as teachers should be able to explain why such demands are being made. Giving explanations creates a narrative that helps understanding and memory. Checking answers brings our inner monitor into existence.

The source of the demand is often not the teacher themselves, although they may be the person who voices the demand. It may then be useful as a teacher to discuss with students who or what is making this demand for this level of quality.

If resistance is preventing us from moving forwards, we may need to try various strategies to improve the social health of the class. We may have to turn to others for help. I have been working with a colleague who is facing a class on the defensive, and although I do not have the 'solution' to her problems, I hope that our conversations have been helpful.

If resistance is ongoing, we may need to invoke the various authorities that are making demands of the students we teach, although ultimately I feel that we can only invite others to commit to work, we can only put things in place to help students become able to meet the demands being made of them. It is always possible to resist.

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Desire for change

10/12/2016

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Learning can be defined as transformation, and so teaching may be defined as effecting change in those we teach. However, desiring change in others may be problematic. I follow this mantra, from John Mason:

I cannot change others, I can only work at changing myself.

Mary Boole famously talked of 'teacher lusts', referring to the teacher's desire to 'make those under him [sic] conform themselves to his [sic] ideals.'

David Pimm describes how the word change causes him 'much concern', and talks of teacher-educator lusts:

I think we should examine equally critically our need (lust?) for the teachers we work with to change... It is a continuation of the dangerous idiocy of assessing teachers (under the name of "accountability") through their students' results. If I as a teacher educator can only feel successful if the teachers I work with change (and in ways I want them to), I am setting up both myself and the teachers I am working with quite dramatically. I believe it is dangerous to lose sight of how difficult personal change can be - and we should not talk lightly or glibly about it, let alone expect or demand it.

We, as teachers, are desirous of change: in students, in others that we work with, in ourselves, but I share David Pimm's concern. Under which authority can I demand that others change? And how do I know this change is for the better?

Perhaps we can only offer an invitation to consider a course of action, to educate awareness of possible choices and implications of such choices.

If another does not meet the demands that we consider necessary, how might we react? There may be disappointment or concern, with which may come the temptation to resort to a more lustful approach. But this might not be effective in the long term as it may close off opportunities for developing relationships and responsibilities.

Dorothy Heathcote suggests we may draw upon authority that is not our authority:

All my strategies enable me to create a disciplined world and to find ways of using power without its being my power. Frequently I use the power of the subject to discipline a group. I say, 'It demands this of us' - not 'I demand this of you.'

Should we in teaching positions be responsible for whether one we teach chooses to learn?

If we accept that we cannot change others, we can only be responsible for setting favourable conditions in which learning can occur. For this reason, Gert Biesta suggests separating teaching from learning:

...learning - as task and as achievement - is ‘of the learner,’ and that what teachers should try to bring about is not the learning itself, but the activity of studenting. In this set up, learning is, at most, the ‘effect’ of the activity of studenting, but not of the activity of teaching. And this is a helpful insight for indicating with more precision what teachers can be held responsible and accountable for, and what not.

Others may choose not to, or may not yet be able, to accept the invitation to learn that is offered. We can only educate others to become able to accept such invitations, to create situations in which this becomes possible.

We may have to wait with patience for those we teach to become able to respond to the demands that are being made of them. Dick Tahta uses the phrase, 'taking the wanting out of the waiting'.

Could we in teaching positions ask: might our desire for change prevent transformation?

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De-valuation

10/12/2016

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Account 1

Each week we have an optional department meeting where we discuss (only) our practice. On two of the last three weeks, senior colleagues have used these meetings to discuss administrative matters. When this happened this week, I refused to take part in the meeting and left.

Account 2

I had invited a number of students to re-draft a piece of homework that was not of the quality I had expected. Only one student arrived at the next lesson having given the re-draft the effort it demanded. I sent all of the other students out of the lesson.

Accounting-for

A strong sense of disappointment, and of not being able to continue, was present in both events. What is the source of this emotion?

In both instances, I felt as though the work we had been doing in both of these groups, and my strongly-held beliefs in ways of working, had been de-valued.

The feeling of 'not-being-able-to-continue' is a sense of deflation due to de-valuation. The de-valuation calls beliefs into question: Should we carry on with this way of working at all? Some people don't seem to value what we are doing: does anyone else value what we are doing, or is it only me? Do we need to re-assess how we work, and do I need to re-assess my beliefs?

Perhaps it might be useful to become less attached to strongly-held beliefs. Perhaps some things are worth believing in and struggling for.

What would almost certainly be useful would be a different response to such de-valuations in the future.

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Just listening

10/1/2016

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I was as sensitive as waters are
To the sky's influence in a kindred mood
Of passion; was obedient as a lute,
That waits upon the touches of the wind.

Wordsworth, The Prelude

John 1 can be translated as: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’

The Word is a translation from the Greek logos, as described by Heraclitus: ‘Listening not to me but to the logos it is wise to agree that all things are one.’

What is the sound of the logos? Perhaps it is Levinas’ ‘rumbling silence of the there is’.

How might we become more sensitive to that which might be heard?

Wordsworth’s passage evokes a receptive serenity.

In his book The Listening Self, David Levin suggests, ‘In order to listen we must cultivate a silence within ourselves’.

Such stillness is hard to find.

We might adopt what Heidegger terms gelassenheit - a letting go, or letting be (sometimes translated as 'releasement'), in order to hear what he calls the ‘unheeded resonance’.

Zen master Kyogen found enlightenment after hearing the echo in a temple of a stone on bamboo.

I am reminded of a friend’s astonishment upon hearing the resonance of her voice in a chapel.

What might we hear by just listening?

This is chapter 16 from Tao Te Ching:

Attain complete emptiness,
Hold fast to stillness

The ten thousand things stir about;
I only watch for their going back.

Things grow and grow,
But each goes back to its root.
Going back to the root is stillness
This means returning to what is.
Returning to what is
Means going back to the ordinary.

Understanding the ordinary:
Mind opens.

Mind opening leads to compassion,
Compassion to nobility,
Nobility to heavenliness,
Heavenliness to TAO.

TAO endures.
Your body dies.

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