Joy says: It seems like the more I think about this, the more questions I have!
To me, you've just captured the essence of the first shared reading section of
"To Understand." Intense curiosity is what causes us to wonder, then to think
and explore and utilize and do all those things in the process of coming To
Understand. But, as Harste and company would say, it ends up as an inquiry
cycle where the more you know, the more you want to know....Well, you know the
rest.
As you all have been writing about your intellectual histories, it has struck
me again and again that your "breakthrough moments" are the times when you
became intensely curious about something, so much so that you couldn't stop
thinking about it, writing about it, learning about it, talking about it,
feeling it -- and you were "driven" in the very best sense of the word to go in
deeper and deeper in your basic, maybe primal, need to know--need TO UNDERSTAND.
The other universal I've seen in your intellectual histories is that your
search for understanding is rarely, if ever, done solo. Partly, it was the
recognition of your talents/intelligence by a respected other that mattered,
yes, but even more it was the role that encouragement and scaffolding played in
your continued quest. Now, for some, the struggle to understand APPEARS to be
alone because the other isn't immediately present. For instance, I consider
Lucy Calkins as one of my very best friends, and I'm sure we'll never meet.
She has talked to me and "listened to me" for many years as I've read her
books. Now, not every author makes it as easy as Lucy does to become a partner
in a conversation, but when it comes to the "subject" we're curious about,
we'll take some pretty dry writing and some less-than-accessible text if we
really want to know.
So, when I say that you, Joy, captured what I've been thinking as I've read
your intellectual histories here, what I MEAN is that we will move heaven and
earth to understand as adults, and given something in which children can become
intensely curious, they will too. We are learners--and what could be more
exciting than that??? Count me in!!
Bev
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