This post serves as a culling of texts and videos related to the second book in the Beyond Pedagogy series, The Spell of the Sensuous.
Additionally, the conversation last night was far from conclusive and an extension on any of the thoughts or ideas related to the book can be vetted here. Feel free to question, challenge, or reframe parts of the book at any time.
Our next book will be Blank Slate. As always, anyone is welcome to participate. Details can be found here.
Related texts and videos:
New Yorker: Has an Amazonian Tribe Upended our Understanding of Language? – Previously written about here
TED Talks: My Stroke of Insight– Amazing 18 minute video
Song Learning Birds Shed Light on Our Ability to Speak
Man: A Course of Study – Anyone know where to find a copy of this curriculum?
So what were your thoughts about last night’s discussion?
although i was not at the previous discussion, i can only imagine what kind of spell our master of ceremonies had you under (hopefully he at least stimulated your appetite)… but i will that this book was “spell binding” to say the least… i always tend to fall asleep when the academics get too deep…
that being said i only made it thru half the book. yet there were some gems that stuck with me. as i read next to a babbling brook as well as in bustling international terminals, i was struck by certain passages that invoked old ideas and spawned new insights.
“if men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.”
we are educating students, people, and entire societies in this manner of forgetfulness.
“similarly today we are simply unable to discern with any clarity the manner in which our own perceptions and thoughts are being shifted by our sensory involvement with electronic technologies…”
there are moments of clarity that i have had in my life. reading this passage in the airport, marveling at how actively involved travelers have become with our gadgets, i had some clarity as to how this might be shifting our perceptions… likewise i have had extended moments of clarity in the many places that are still left to the dominion of the natural world. we are not educating students, people, nor societies about the possibilities within these places. these places do not inform our mainstream educational theories. these places are not only being lost to deforestation, but also to the erosion of our collective imagination.
if anything this book reminded me there is so much life beyond pedagogy that can help transform it… that i better live as much as possible. that will make me a better teacher.
i found this Rumi quote, think it goes along way…
“Human beings are discourse. That flowing moves through you whether you say anything or not. Everything that happens is filled with pleasure and warmth because of the delight of the discourse that’s always going on.”
Nemesis (ahem Mark ahem):
Your comments were indeed missed at the meeting. One of the things I continue to come back to was the notion that this book is trying to write about something that Abrams himself explains cannot be written about. In some sense, his is a futile (though beautifully written) attempt at saying, “Listen, you’re not going to ‘get’ it from reading this book … you’re going to have to actually go outside [don’t forget the suntan lotion] and just, you know, sense.” I think this sentiment goes back to the quote you pulled out for us.
I’m also wondering if you could pull out some more specifics to your notion that the book tells us to “live as much as possible.” What are the in-classroom effects a book like this could have?
And not that you really need them, but here are two other resources I thought were useful in relation to this text:
Maybe bees are the next to disconnect from the more-than-human world?? – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/science/25obwagg.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
Wired for Language – http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/324/2
in a semi comical yet semi serious response… when we talk about liberatory imagination… living as much as possible means, going back to the anarchy perspective, deciding for yourself what it means to live. assigning definitions to any concept with the autonomy that allows one to act of the definition assigned (not sure that makes sense but don’t stop me i am on a roll)
OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM it might look something like this environmental organization written about here:
http://grist.org/feature/2008/03/28/index.html
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM it could look like anything… especially something we have never seen. like OUTSIDE the traditional classroom (in the natural world), where more senses can be stimulated, experienced, and even more thoughts can be generated by such stimulated senses.
i believe that this short film is the purest example of what the Spell of the Sensuous is… patience is required when watching…. but more importantly a quieting of the all too typical fear of the unknown…
http://blogs.newamericamedia.org/kitchen-sink/454/in-my-language