Sometimes no response is just "no response". Especially if one isn't really paying attention but making believe that one is. What assumptions does a "master" make about the disciples behavior in the story below and how does anyone truly know what is in another's heart? If all we have is behavior, any assertions about internal states are mere speculation. See Skinner.
-Mike Palij New York University [email protected] ----------- Original Message ----------- On Tue, 11 Dec 2012 02:49:43 -0800, Louis E. Schmier wrote: A Zen master held up a flower for his disciples to see and asked them to say one word of relevance--just one word--about it. The disciples vied with each other to outdo each other to come up with something profound as a demonstration of their insight and the extent of his learning. They offered names, symbols, emotions, descriptions, caricatures, metaphors, images, analogies. One disciple said nothing. He just looked intensely at the flower, nodded, and smiled. And, the master nodded in return as he, too, smiled, for that disciple was the most learned of all the disciples. And, do you understand why the silent, smiling disciple was the more learned? The others were naming, typecasting, labeling, judging, choosing, selecting, limiting, grading, rating. Each word they threw into the ring carried with it a host of perceptions, presumptions, assumptions, and expectations. They were making choices between like and dislike, good and bad, ordinary and extraordinary, right and wrong, perfect and imperfect. Every word they threw out had everything to do about them. Every word they threw out had nothing to do with the flower. The silent disciple knew what the Master had held up was just "is," a living entity, and nothing else. What matters is that something is and what it is, not what it is called or what people believe about it. He was echoing Shakespeare who has Juliet saying, "Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." We look at something and say, "This is a flower;" we give it a name, "This is a rose;" we endow it with qualities, "How beautiful" or "It smells delicious." But, is it a "flower?" Is it a "rose?" Is it "beautiful" and "delicious?" And that becomes our reality. But, who says all this? And, why? Sounds like a bunch of silliness, doesn't it. Let me make a tad more complicated. Take another something that is. We call it a "dandelion" and it conjures up inferior images compared to those generated by "rose." Is it inferior to a rose? Or have we placed them into separate, separated, limiting, graded categories which we invented according to our likes and dislikes? But, what is a dandelion and what do say about it? Find it in a manicured lawn and we angrily condemned it as a pernicious weed; put it in the hands of a child and we delight in it as a plaything; and, see it in a forest clearing, we swoon over it as a pretty wild flower. It is all of these things and it is none of them. Are we, then, merely expressing our selective, judgmental tastes, or as John Locke said, impositions of the mind of man on Nature in a quest for intelligible order? In reality is what we call "flower" simply "something that is," simply intricate and complex, miraculous, without the confining, valuations, definitions, and names imposed by us? Perception doesn't change circumstances, it changes the meaning of the facts to us. Our perceptions are the result of our dominant experiences and memories, feelings and thoughts that have created our presumptions, assumptions, and expectations which, in turn, show up in our mental, emotional, and physical actions. Now, replace "flower," or better yet, "dandelion" with "student." See how "student" morphs when we say "jock," "Greek," "honors," "non-traditional," or "probation." What is our reality. What is that person's reality? Does labelling each person prevent us from having a full experience with each of them? Does it strip each of them of her or his humanity? Does it turn each of them into plastic or silk flowers? Do we know what is happening between the lines? Do we know of each person's back-beat or stage scenery? As I once asked long ago, does it put us out of touch with the myriad of human struggles around us. Do we need in the classroom a more humanizing understanding and deeper vision of those individuals in there--including ourselves? So, let me ask you the unspoken question: do you know the neighborhood you're living in? Do you understand that each of them, no more or less than us, is not emotionally sterile, that each of them is not a tranquil corpse, Do you know all that much about each of those people from labels, from appearances, from behaviors, from performance records, from assessments; from gender, sexual preference, ethnic background, skin color, religious affiliation? One set of answers is "You don't know how really diverse it is, so diverse it defies label, stereotype, and generalization." How much of it is invented? How much of it is looking with eyes, mind, and heart closed? By what criteria, then, do we answer those questions? How will we wrestle with the conundrums between dealing with the many and seeing the individual; between institutional governing and really gritty, eye-to-eye, first hand, classroom grunt teaching; with ethical ambiguities and messy compromises; with the complicated questions of economic realities and faculty self-survival and serving each student? It's important to understand the problems and challenges are as complex as individual human beings themselves because we're dealing with human beings we call students, faculty, and administrators. Nevertheless, we have to have our informed--informed--reasons for believing and acting as we do. With what knowledge of each student, as well as of the latest research on learning, do we respond? According to what purpose do we select our replying words? Be careful. Your answer, as with all but one of the master's disciples, is a window into an inborn attitude; it is a mirror of what you believe about students, what perceptions with which you come to the table, the extent of your unconditional dedication and commitment to each student. Our focus should be not just on seeing possibilities, but creating opportunity; and not just on creating opportunities, but on creating an environment that leads at least the most malleable people on our campus--the students--to seize opportunities. Our focus should be on creating an educating, humanizing, and humane institution. The complicated realities insure that there are no silver bullets, no magic wands, and that helping people to help themselves is hard. It's a sociological, psychological, philosophical, and civics lesson wrapped up in one governing and educating lesson. It's a Rorschach test with different participants seeing what they want to see. Nevertheless, we still have to be careful. Those answers determine the extent to which we look or see and hear or listen or are mindless or mindful to the truth about an individual student. So, I've got a radical idea. Let's look that reality created by labels, stereotypes, and generalizations right in the eye and deny it. Like the most learned of the disciples, let's go "label-blind" and "stereotype-deaf." Let's take and live my Teacher's Oath. Let's just care, give a damn, believe in, have faith in, be hopeful for, love, support, encourage without any qualifying ifs, ands, or buts. Let's open the flood gates and believe each person is a sacred soul and has a unique potential; that she or he is an important thread in the fabric of all that is and will be; and, that you should teach "all in" with your whole being, using every ounce of your creativity. Let's start being the person who is there unconditionally to help each person help themselves become the person each is capable of becoming. If you don't, you lose sight of the opportunities before you; you won't have the will to seize opportunities; and you won't want or be able to place yourself in the right place at the right time with the right stuff. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=22294 or send a blank email to leave-22294-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
