I was thinking about the two movies, Huckabee's and Bleep, and what it is that makes people react so differently to them. Perhaps, its in the way they "structure" the message? Because I did read essentially the same message in both but they are packaged quite differently.
Huckabee's presents a mainly connected knowing view of the world, and Bleep is almost totally separate knowing.
Now, Balibar has gone and said it beautifully:
ìI think that lessons are always taught reciprocally or, better said, are drawn from the confrontation and subsequent relativization of oneís experience with the diversity of the worldî (2004: xi).
We had a great class today. I was thinking about my friend Matt's puzzlement at how I "teach" - what is it that I'm "doing" when you are working on a project in class that doesn't require me to be in the room with you? What I think I'm doing is creating space for student learning. :-) Am I delusional?
I'm writing this with an intended audience in my mind: "my" (!) students (they're becoming co-researchers, so the possessive sounds more awkward even than usual).
This project with the 6th graders at Hannah's school is winding down. Today we viewed a scene from The Iron Giant when the Giant figures out how to actually stop his own automatic defensive reactions and make an active choice to de-escalate a conflict by caring enough about the other person, in this case the boy, Hogarth, who has befriended him and taught him "how to be kind" (as one of the students said today).
So, I've been thinking about this more since Gabi asked if it was a "feedback wrapping" (per the interpersonal communication curriculum utilizing Seashore, et al). I don't think it was just my wrapping. I think folks might have recognized their own reactions, at least some of them. Today, while I was sharing some of this "story" with Uncle Sam, I again characterized it as "funny", and we did laugh together. David shared that he'd had a similar, somewhat taken-aback (?) reaction upon meeting me for the first time. It is funny, on one level, that we (people? in a universal sense?) are so sensitive to first impressions and... maybe the laughter is a self-laughter that also protects us from recognizing how strongly these first impressions (especially of difference) may affect our willingness to learn about/try to understand someone else? I dunno. I'm reaching....trying to understand....I don't think the laughter is a "bad" thing. It definitely protects me from some pain, but it also...opens communication? Maybe if we share the laughter together, we somehow "own" or acknowledge a connection, a similarity?
