On understanding and the value of not knowing
Hawkins concludes from this exchange––what we all should consider––“This confession, wrung from a potential teacher, I’ve always valued very much. It proves that we are all in it together.”
If you, like the young PhD physicist in the pre-school classroom, are seen as smart, knowledgeable, but don’t have an answer, people still may look up expecting one. And if your mindset is that you must always be the knowledgeable one, you may become stuck on a one-way street. But if you acknowledge the potential of not-knowing, you open up to your’s and others’ thinking, and join in conversation, all of you in exploration.
I think in these troubled times, to say to ourselves that we may ‘know the right words but…don’t understand it either,’ we acknowledge we are in it together, When I imagine being again in the classroom, I, too, might think I could be ‘saying the right words’ as I grasp to understand all the pressures facing classroom teachers from politicians, parents, the public, the media, students, board members, administrators, and particularly the federal government.
I write these Substacks hoping that I am saying ‘the right words’ as best as I can. My efforts allow me to feel connected to the struggle, my posts force me to seek the right words that will support teachers in their classrooms and convince others to support them as well. I hope I am helping in these troubled times.
Given that “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward” (Kierkegaard), I write this Substack to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. I welcome comments here or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.
