One of my unfortunate habits is trolling around the Internet looking for writing by or about my favorite authors. Even though my list of favorites is short, I end up wasting a lot of time. Occasionally, however, I hit paydirt as I did the other day when I ran across a recent interview with Adam Phillips, a British psychoanalyst and the author of several books of essays. The topic of the interview is “Happiness;” at one point, Phillips is asked: “Is absorption so frequently pleasurable because it has to do with release from consciousness?” Phillips replies,
Yes. Or release from consciousness as self-preoccupation. I think the project is – and actually, I think the project of psychoanalysis really is – to free people not to have to bother to be interested in themselves. What people – some people, anyway – are suffering from is self-absorption, and it’s actually the most boring game in town. There’s nothing in it, actually. The only interesting things, it seems to me, are outside oneself. . . . Happiness, if it’s going to be useful, is related to the sort of free loss of interest in oneself.
Phillips goes on to suggest that one’s internal world is “endlessly repetitious and monotonous, and the external world is infinitely variable,” and, therefore, unpredictable. Phillips argues that the key thing for teachers is to educate children about “the obvious dangers of unpredictability – which are fairly obvious – but the pleasures of unpredictability, too.”
I think that Phillips is absolutely correct; at the age when adolescents are completely wrapped up in themselves, educators should be devoting a substantial portion of their curriculum to moving students to new, different places. In this regard, math and science teachers are fortunate because nearly all of their material is outside their student’s experience; the Pythagorean Theorem and Newton’s Law of Cooling are not part of their everyday life. For English teachers, there is a temptation to go for books to which their students can “relate," such as Catcher in the Rye. To be sure, students need to read books in which they see themselves, but Phillips’ advice, I think, to educators would be to search out novels and essays that open new worlds to their students.
I was fortunate to be able to do exactly that last year when I offered an independent study class called “Books in Translation.” Even though I am a math teacher, my love for literature has led me to read modernist European and South American fiction that I was able to share with four seniors. I asked the students to write a short (two- or three-page) paper after we finished reading and discussing each book. Our goal, for the papers and discussions, was for the students to “react” to the reading, to say what the text said to them, rather than try to decide what the text “means,” whatever that is! This freed up our discussions and allowed the students to speak uninhibitedly, which they did. Their enthusiasm and interest was convincing evidence that many students will respond eagerly to outstanding literature even if it is far out of their comfort zone. I also want to say that I enjoyed the class tremendously and learned a lot by seeing these books through the eyes of others.
This issue has a few surprises. Highly respected education psychologist Michael Thompson suggests that independent schools may be sharing too much with parents, contrary to the current trend. Another essay suggests that the language of mathematics may be useful in deciphering literature. Still another article offers gardening as a metaphor to understanding curriculum. All in all, a thought-provoking issue; surely something for everyone.
As always, we are eager to hear from you. Please email comments and suggestions to [email protected].
S.I.