Rowing with Kierkegaard, Part II…counterpoint.

  

Tuesday, 8/23/17

Kierkegaard was pretty much right in his thought of how we understand life backwards but have to live it forwards and last Sunday, as I wrote about my row, I couldn’t resist employing this low-hanging philosophical fruit as a metaphor for teaching and learning. But today, as I re-read Rowing with Kierkegaard, Part 1 while also digesting the national news and even some of my summer’s reading, I’d like to apologize for Sunday’s intellectual- and even moral- Pablum. Kierkegaard has no place in a rowboat and rationalizing his one-liner as a framework for teaching is cheesy at best and dangerous at worst.

Here’s the cheese….and a confession, of sorts.

It’s true that while I rowed, I hit things that I couldn’t see from my stern-facing vantage point, but the fact is that I hit them for one of two reasons: either I wasn’t paying attention to what I could and should have known (I carried charts that demarked buoys and hazards to navigation and depths), or I got lazy when losing situational awareness to the thought in my head, the rhythm of the strokes, the heat of the day, or the fatigue of late afternoon. Using Kierkegaard as a moral bumper for the crunch of my bow against rock or concrete does not excuse my complicity; as an episodically negligent rower, I could and should have known what was ahead had I paid more attention or if I’d taken the time and made the effort to do so. Taken literally and argued as I did in Part 1, Kierkegaard’s statement excuses me, suggesting that I could not have known what I did not know and that I could only “understand” the lesson of hitting that dock or rock by actually hitting it….and then contemplating the why. That faux moral high ground does not pass the sniff test. I should not have used K as a cover.

I hit what I hit because of my own inattention, sloth, or negligence, and here’s the confession: I fully knew (“understood”) that I wasn’t paying attention even while I wasn’t paying attention. I was willfully playing the odds, gambling that I’d miss most of the obstacles, calculating that the price of constant vigilance (the sore neck from constantly turning around, the diminished boat speed by doing so) was too high, not worth avoiding the occasional ding, scratch, or dent. 

And here’s the danger in bringing Kierkegaard into the boat as a metaphor for teaching.

As a teacher, I also have charts: charts of experience and prior learning that, as imperfect as they may be, suggest a responsibility to “understand” while simultaneously “living” life forward. While I see the logic of Kierkegaard’s “understand it backwards but live it forwards” precept, teaching calls for constant vigilance, the application of prior experience to the moment, the anticipation of the crunch or the crash as – or even before- it’s happening; I may decide the fate of my hapless Adirondack guide boat and accept the negligible consequences, but the consequences of a teacher’s inattention, lack of engagement, or of ‘letting things roll’ for his or her students are far greater, infinitely more important, and laden with consequence. In this way my students and I should not share a boat propelled by Kierkegaard’s idea of “understanding life backwards but living it forwards.” Teachers are the composites of longer and more reflected experience, and my Part 1 suggestion that I’ll voyage with my students as a fellow crewmember equal in “living it forward and understanding it backwards” is profoundly negligent. I’ll travel the year with them as a fellow learner, as an equal in honoring the importance of - and in honing the practice of - lifelong learning. And yes, I’ll share my own experiential charts with them when doing so might be helpful for context and to facilitate their own voyages. But the implied wisdom of “living…then understanding” discounts what teachers can and should add to a student’s journey. Teachers know the weight of injustice, the dangers of bullying, the price of passivity, the power of empathy, and the potential of community, among other things, because we have learned through living and reflection. We can hardly ignore our ownership of these charts, charts which carry much detail and depth not yet possessed by our students.   

Early this month I picked up a copy of It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935), “a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy…an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.” (In June I’d re-read Orwell’s 1984 and, times being what they are, I was interested in reading an earlier foray into this topic.) Lewis’s protagonist, Doremus Jessup, heroically endures the consequences of fighting the republic’s slide to fascism and concludes,

“I am convinced that everything that is worthwhile in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.” 

The cultivation of “the free, inquiring, critical spirit” evokes the generic mission statement of the educational community…..and ought to inform the responsible oarsman as well. If I‘m going to foster “the free, inquiring, critical spirit(s)” in my students, I’d better get out the metaphorical charts and remember that the “understanding” gleaned from the wakes behind us always informs our journey forward. We can understand what’s ahead, or at the very least anticipate and be better equipped to influence the future, by paying wise attention to the past in explaining and expanding what we know to be true even as we redraw our charts for the future. 

It’s what the responsible oarsman…and teacher…must do.

So…out of the boat, Kierkegaard!