TEACHING TALK: the use of 'Belief & Doubt' (Peter Elbow spur)...

By belief you gain insight:

When you walk into a world (another person's culture; a working environment, a life)

with the thought, “There is something here

that is reasonable, is valuable, and is important,”

then that is what you will find.

Because every world sustains itself on something

touching true, that is valued, and that is useful.

Believing that

is the only way to open your heart, mind, and senses to

(A) perceive those distant objects and

(B) understand them in a way you can relate to your own objects.

So begin by believing.

Have you encountered a situation that made you pull back, where you thought,

“This is completely unreasonable, crazy, incoherent,”

“This is just wrong, stupid, pointless,”

or “This is so useless, boring, a waste of time and effort”?

We all have – because it takes so much energy and will to understand.

And the more new, or different, or subtle this object,

the more we have to give of ourselves in order to understand:

to let go, for a moment, from our own reasons and theories,

values and institutions,

polished methods and coping habits.

To let go and feel some other world,

to see a view out of someone else's eyes,

to explore another way toward getting something done.

{Examples:}

Perhaps it's strange to imagine the rationality

of witch-doctors and fortune-tellers and late-night infomercials,

but then you think about the placebo-effect in healing

or the therapeutic relief of a little reassuring hope

or the monetary savings if you did dry your own meat and vegetables.

Maybe it's hard to see the moral purpose

in bloody cage fights or polyamorous relationships,

but then you explore the history of pugilism and martial arts

as outlets for youthful aggression, arenas for turning that energy into self-control;

or you think about your own struggle to find one wholly fulfilling partner,

how maybe if you found the right combination of people...

Perhaps it's unintuitive for you to comprehend the use of

meditation or crossword puzzles or comic books,

until you see how swimming gives you a similar feeling

of mental clarity and calm,

or how arguing playfully with your friends

is its own kind of memory-sharpening puzzle,

or how watching farcical movies

provides you the same escapist relief and simple life lessons

that a comic book might, if you'd ever gotten into one.

By belief you gain insight.

*

But how do you explain this to others?

Once you start understanding

some new situation,

or another person's views,

or alternate paths for achieving a goal,

you may want to share these insights with others in your group—

others who, as we all do, sometimes resist or deny

something that seems strange to our standard intuition.

So when you go back to your own perspective,

preparing to explain witch-doctors or cage fights or comic books,

remember your initial doubts

and the reasons, values, importance behind them:

{Examples:}

Sometimes a sick person needs surgery

or careful diagnosis and preventative measures,

and in that case thoughtful prayers and hope-filled potions

will be less than enough to heal;

Sometimes fighters are ungentlemanly and rude,

uncontrolled and selfish and just violent,

and when pugilism lets go of its art and philosophy thus,

it likewise undermines its potential benefits for youth and society;

Sometimes writers rely on stereotypes and spectacle

as shortcuts to social commentary and human insight,

or their fans become so deeply involved in the stories

that they pull away from developing themselves in their own lives,

attitudes and actions.

These doubts, questions and concerns,

bring out a fuller view

by brighting the shadows that believers sometimes overlook.

And by giving voice to these doubts,

you invite more distant doubters to look at those strange worlds more closely—

despite their possible feelings of resistance or discomfort—

because you have just placed into that world

something that is familiar to them:

by doubt, you gain credibility.

{A Quote, mapped in space:}

“As teachers and students

we are in a good position to learn

the ability

to see things differently

from how we usually see them,

and the willingness

to risk doing it.

If we want to learn

those skills,

it helps to notice

the inner stances—

the cognitive and psychological dispositions—

we need for doubting and believing:

• If we want to doubt or find flaws in

ideas that we are tempted to accept or believe

(perhaps they are ideas that “everyone knows are true”),

we need to work at

extricating or distancing ourselves

from those ideas.

There’s a kind of language that helps here:

clear, impersonal sentences

that lay bare the logic or lack of logic

in them.

• If, on the other hand, we want to believe

ideas that we are tempted to reject

(“Anyone can see that’s a crazy idea”)—

if we are trying to enter in or experience

or dwell in those ideas—

we benefit from the language of

imagination, narrative, and

the personal experience.

”

– Peter Elbow¹

|

|

V

Stances → … …                                               … … ← Skills

→ … …                             … … ←

→                          ←

Learning

(2 languages that support this:

reason, experience)

*

1“The believing game and how to make conflicting opinions more fruitful,” in Chris Weber's (Ed.) Nurturing the Peacemakers in Our Students: A Guide to Teaching Peace, Empathy, and Understanding (Heinemann, 2006)