Gallagher raises a key question for teaching literature. I believe that the answer in most classrooms will be "no". Despite the persistent claims of some that times have changed, our world is as much as ever the product of a scientific enlightenment. The need for scientific fact undergirds our acceptance of anything as truth. This problem is compounded by the incessant stream of information that young people are required to sort through every day. From necessity, "fact" is reduced to whatever can answer this simple question in the affirmative: "does it make sense to me now?"
In response to this question it is all too easy for a teacher to attempt to remove confusion altogether. Is this not the nature of academic writing? I know that I myself am guilty of stretching patchwork theories over a much more difficult reality. Well-structured theories may present our subject matter to students in a more accessible, sensible way, but does it do justice to the truth we wish to portray?
The introduction of confusion into the classroom goes against the grain of the way we understand our world. Complex texts ask the reader to confront the world as it is, without dismissing it or even simplifying it. Often this confusion is not resolved; instead it is compounded by the further discovery of confusion in what once appeared clear. However, the reward for embracing confusion is great. When we are taught to embrace confusion (an embrace that includes both acceptance and struggle), we are brought into greater communion with the truth. Instead of reducing what is seen so that it fits within the constraints of ideology, or worse, dismissing it altogether because it is hard, good readers will embrace confusion for what it is on its own terms.
Of necessity, as Gallagher points out, is that we embrace confusion along with our students. More is at stake than helping our students get through a hard book. To embrace confusion is to reject the notion that a teacher has sole access to the truth and instead to model a posture of humility and wonder that puts us in right relationship with a world that is not so easy to explain. Confusion allows us to find beauty in the things that once appeared both dry and simple, to feel worlds away in a world that is truly our own and to discover why we were attached to this place to begin with.
Otherwise, we might as well read chemistry textbooks.
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| Van Gogh - Field of Spring Wheat at Sunrise |
"Truths of all others the most awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all life and efficiency of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors."
- S. T. Coleridge
"The world shall perish not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder."
- G. K. Chesterton
Gallagher does indeed make a great argument about how teachers need to help break down the attitude of students that think that when a work is to confusing it is not worth discovering. We instead need to be able to teach students to embrace confusion because, “Learning begins when we encounter confusion” (p.63). For me, your blog showed me that if we do not make an effort to break down this limiting attitude we are at risk of losing valuable learning experiences. I particularly enjoyed the last quote, it reminds me that we need to value wonder and curiosity, and we must challenge confusion to do this.
ReplyDeleteGallagher talks about how teachers can use exercises to help students embrace confusion in English classes. He explains how lessons such as, asking twenty questions, color coding, and trouble slips help students embrace confusion. The art work you have posted has guided me to my own ideas about a potential lesson about embracing confusion might look like. In my experience reflecting on art work often can create confusion. You may ask yourself what makes this piece a work of art, what is it portraying, why is this particular piece known as a famous work? I think it would be fun and interesting to incorporate reflection on art work, or visual aids, as a lesson on embracing confusion. Perhaps one day I will be able to reflect on this idea further and facilitate a lesson using text and art. Thanks for the idea.