Skip to main content

Nudging the Impossible Into the Realm of Real


As I continue to reflect on a humanities conference that I just attended, I understand better why I got my two graduate degrees in education and not in English to match my BA. The problem that I have with literary scholarship is that sometimes we have to forgive the improbable, seemingly fantastical leaps in critique.

As a poet, I would always be astounded when I would do a reading and someone waits around for me to tell me that they know how this character feels because (and then they give me their interpretation). Sometimes the connection is so bizarre that I am not sure where they are getting that connection from and I find myself going through my pieces again trying to find that reading that is invisible to me. However as someone who has been made to feel stupid, literally told "that's wrong, stupid" I also need to honor Rosenblatt's argument that each reading is a transaction between the reader and the text and this interaction is unique to the reader. To me, it feels like critique on literature, then is whimsy and triangulation of whimsy. Education is practical. It is a practice. You get immediate feedback when you teach. You know when you did a good job and you know when you bombed. Immediately.

But more and more I am understanding that when I say "trust the process" to my students, I am really "nudging the impossible into the realm of real." Trust takes faith. The process, although I have seen it work multiple times and in multiple contexts seems magical because there is always a point when we are on the brink of chaos and I need to have faith that the pixie dust will allow us to fly. And it does. That is the magic of teaching. I just need to be willing to write about the magic, the spirituality, the connections that seem unconnected. I need to be ready to write about complexity and "hold eternity in the palm of my hand."

Source: Schulz, K. (2017, November 6). Fantastic beasts and how to rank them. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/is-bigfoot-likelier-than-the-loch-ness-monster

What is Sacred:
This article has nothing and everything to do with what I am talking about above. I think I may be seeing things that are not there, but I see this as a way to talk about how the moʻolelo of Hiʻiaka and Pele can actually become a realistic manual for this time now and moving forward. This article is about how there is a logic to ranking magical beasts based on their ability to suspend disbelief by connecting to scientific laws and orders. 
That world, the one we inhabit every day of our lives, is a yeti--a fantastical thing constructed out of bits and pieces of reality plus the magic wand of the mind.

Connections:
Yes, make connections.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kino (an indigenous logic model): post 1 of 4

Passion I have. What I need is to practice my elevator speeches, those short informative program synopses that can be done in the time it takes to ride the elevator.  Of course it will take me 4 posts. Post 1: The honua: building on solid ground The Alana culture-based education course is graphically depicted by the above logic model. The honua (green box), the earth, represents the mo'ok ūauhau, the geneology of this program that informs and guides the building of this course. Dr. Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni and her team lay the foundation for culture-based education (CBE) modeling and immersion within the course. Dr. Walter Kahumoku and Keiki Kawaiʻaeʻa, in consultation with Dr. Bernice McCarthy (4Mat) bring to the geneology the work of moenahā, a curriculum planning concept based on the way kupuna taught. Makawalu, literally eight eyes, is a concept practiced by Kaʻimipono Kaiwi and her teachers at Kamehameha Kapālama to encourage multiple perspectives in the standards-b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Battle of the Sexes

Ok, it's not a battle, but after being married for 20 years, I realize that there are some things that fall into the "mom's job" category, and there are some things that are strictly dad's domain. Mom's job is to find things. For 20 years I have lived in a male dominant household. The fact that the majority of the toilet seats in my house remain in the down position is a testament of the power of the one and only alpha female. However, what I can't do is teach my children (and my husband) how to do what I call "mom looking" versus "man looking." I don't need to explain this for the moms. They know exactly what I'm talking about. The guys are slower to catch on. I'll type s-l-o-w-l-y. Here's a typical "man looking" conversation: "mom! (or Cat!), where's the ______ (insert anything from socks to the car)?" "It's in the _________ (insert my instructions like refrigerator, garage, o...
3 comments
Read more

5 things that teachers do when they are in all-day workshops

1. Listen attentively for 10 minutes Presenters: welcome to your worst teaching nightmare. Teachers learn how to be antsy from their students. If you have a lot of middle school teachers, expect them to act like middle schoolers, ADHD disorders and all. You have 10 minutes to hook us and we want to get up, move and be active every half hour. 2. Talk to our neighbor while the presenter is still talking This practice is a natural way for teachers to use each other as a sounding board for the connections they are making to their own teaching (or they're just gossiping). If you can't tell the difference between productive noise and idle gossip, you need to go back to the classroom and practice. 3. Text and read posts When speakers talk about another author, or another concept, we get on our smart phones and look up the links so we can expand our knowledge immediately. (Or we're blogging or catching up on our email). Don't be offended. Only kick us out if we don't realiz...
2 comments
Read more