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Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast . . .
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.
- Robert Frost, Mending Wall
The Book of Learning and Forgetting
It seems to be only in the Western, rational mind that walls are essential. We construct them in our personal, social, political, religious, and even educational habitats, at times shedding considerable blood to defend them. As Patricia Williams pointed out in her post, the price we have paid in education is the severing of crucial connections between the learning process and the mind, soul, and physical being.
In his best-selling and somewhat controversial book, The Book of Learning and Forgetting, Frank Smith, a Harvard educated professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, links this obsession to behaviorist conditioning. "The evidence for almost all of the great superstructure of behavioristic theorization has come from the study of caged animals," Smith writes, " . . . in experiential situations with activities . . .that are meaningless even for the animals. When the theory is applied to humans outside the experimental laboratory, in schools for example, it routinely fails, in which case blame is attributed, naturally to the teacher" (Smith, 1998, p. 58). In American education in general, and in secondary education in particular, learning is segmented on many levels. Concrete, brick, mortar, and steel physically divide the disciplines into separate classrooms and wings, teacher's lounge and cafeteria cliques create the "two cultures" that C.P. Snow abhorred, and, despite claims to the contrary, state curriculums discourage interplay between areas of thought through obsessive adherence to an objective model of teaching and assessment in which memorization rules. Dividing learning into leak-proof containers has become the job of the teacher, and it is as far removed from what we know of how the human mind is wired as possible. Smith says what we in the class room all know - teachers should not function "as the instructor who organizes the learning that students are supposed to do but as the guide who makes what we would like the student to learn interesting, comprehensible, and accessible" (Smith, 1998, p. 80).
Zen and the Art of Teaching and Learning
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Some schools have tried integrating the mind and spirit into learning through what some would term as radical approaches such as yoga. In San Diego a few years ago, parents filed a lawsuit against the school system for requiring 30-minute yoga classes for all students. As reported in Education Week, the parents maintained that yoga is religious in nature and runs afoul of the separation between church and state.http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2013/02/yoga_doesnt_pose_well_for_some_calif_parents.html.
Deterred by legal actions such as this other educators have substituted "meditation" and "mindfulness" for "yoga". The reaction from state and local officials, focused on the worth of any educational approach as measured by test scores, has been predictable. I cannot say that I am ready to go as far as adding yoga to the school day. The last time I wedged my chubby legs into a "lotus position" they swelled and required crowbars to be unhooked. However, both in schools and in the workplace, we are "clapping with one hand" if we do not incorporate concepts of embodied and spiritual learning. Just as the coal miners in our text were trained to sense if something was wrong, we can train our students and coworkers to think broadly and critically so that they can smell academic, political, social, and/or cultural bull excrement before stepping in it. The workplace has been quicker to see the benefits of connecting mind and body health than has their educational counterparts. Many businesses now have gyms, exercise centers, and even meditation at the disposal of employees. Leadership courses and seminars tout viewing the "worker" in less mechanistic terms and more as a complete being with needs and potential that is only fully accessible through a more enlightened approach to management.
Another Brick in the Wall
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Bleached largely by the industrialization of America and the assembly line process, the image of the Renaissance man or woman, who embraces all kinds of knowledge and their applications, has faded significantly. Some see this societal shift as being perpetuated by those in the corridors of power who benefit from people making as few connections ("connecting the dots") as possible. In education, at least, this means making students, and even ourselves as teachers, just another brick in the wall, as disturbingly illustrated by Pink Floyd.
I will leave discussions of power and politics to Michael Apple and others and return to my original starting point. Categories and partitions, whether physical or intellectual, may serve certain noble and rational purposes. However, as Frost warned, we should ask what we are walling in and what we are walling out.
And who will be imprisoned within.
References:
Frost, R. (2007). Mending wall. Retrieved from: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html.
Smith, F. (1998). The book of learning and forgetting. New York: Teacher's College Press.
The Wall (1979). Pink Floyd Another brick in the wall [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEV1ul2dxWY1sAuZNXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA3lmcC10LTU1NQRncHJpZANKaHNrdGouTlJTU0JlcDRrTkZvcUtBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwMwBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMwBHBxc3RyAwRwcXN0cmwDBHFzdHJsAzM5BHF1ZXJ5A3lvdXR1YmUgdmlkZW8gYW5vdGhlciBicmljayBpbiB0aGUgd2FsbAR0X3N0bXADMTQ1NzMxNDQ0Mw--?p=youtube+video+another+brick+in+the+wall&fr2=sb-top-search&fr=yfp-t-555&fp=1
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