*Instead of writing new posts for June, July and August I will revisit past posts, share the essence of the original post, reflect on its relevance for today and offer new insights and perspectives. I’ve been writing IN:SIGHT since September of 2016, so I will have plenty of material to draw from. I invite you to scroll back through the older posts to see what captures your inner eye or energizes the heart of your teaching.
7-27-2022—In my 12-15-21 post I explored, for educators, what Akasha Hull (2001) in her articulation of the spiritual formation of black women terms “two-headed” wisdom, to “have a command of that [invisible] world as well as the everyday, external one that is considered by most people to be real”. In the post I wrote about my childhood relationship with nature, the ways those experiences formed me as a person, and the value for educators of drawing understanding and metaphors from the natural world.
Hull’s description of seeing and living in two-realities at once reminded me of the long hours I spent watching whirligig beetles who have four-eyes, two focusing up into the air and two focusing down into the water. Two-headed and four-eyed wisdom, which elevates the spirit when considering truth, runs counter to the Western, Cartesian, commitment to rationalism as the only true form of knowing. In that initial post I wrote:
My first passion is nature study. As a child I studied or better yet was organically and rhythmically present to what I was seeing and experiencing. No agenda other than to be attentive to the mystery. As I grew older and was normed into the Western rational and intellectual tradition. I learned that knowing the world and self, meant dividing wholeness into parts, and then naming each element with precise scientific language. If I could name it, I thought, I could “own” some part of what it was. Now, after years of training in rationalism it seems nearly impossible to return to my earlier state of oneness with nature.
The contemporary challenges of society and education run deep and seem to threaten the very existence of democracy and the aims of public schooling. At the same time humanizing pedagogy offers ways to connect and collaborate across intellectual and political divides when attending to the climate crisis, economic disparities, calls for racial-social justice, and violent opposition to divergent views and lifestyles. But to clearly see the opportunities and stumbling blocks of humanized classrooms will require the ability to access both the head and heart, rationalism and spirituality. As a person educated in the Western tradition, especially as a white male, relying on the head is easy. The deep work really begins when I attend to the Spirit, heart, and soul of the work.
bell hooks (2013) notes that educators committed to justice and equity must also attend to their souls, the source of their power to sustain change, “many of the individuals who worked to create communities of diversity are weary. That weariness often emerges as a spiritual crisis. It is essential that we build into our teaching vision a place where spirit matters, a place where our spirts can be renewed and our souls restored”. Now more than ever the challenges to self, others, and the greater good are immense and the forces of tradition are rallying around the flag of “returning to normal”. In these thin times of social and cultural transition, now are the days to resist the fear and uncertainty of change. When so much is in flux and the boundaries of “normal” are dissolving or waning, educators can advocate for holistic and humanizing approaches to teaching and learning. In my earlier post I suggested that educators seeking to enliven both the mind and the heart could turn to the whirligig beetle for guidance as they are experts is seeing two-ways at once.
Let me offer an example from my experience with nature study that might provide a metaphor for how the integration of the old and new might occur. I remember the first time I saw whirligig beetles moving in mass on the surface of a pond. They were always in a group and seemed to be heading everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were in constant motion, but not in the same direction for any predicable length of time. As I watched, the obviousness of this behavior was clear. Any predator would be hard pressed to aim their attack with precision. Furthermore, there is more to life then evading the prospect of being eaten. As a beetle, as with humans, you must eat too. And having four-eyes increases the chances of seeing more things to consume.
I imagine that one way to be successful as a teacher is to live like a whirligig beetle. To fully commit to the love of the craft, to gather with like-hearted/headed educators into a community where predatory forces find it difficult to pick off individuals and to cultivate the capacity of four-eyed teaching. This means two-eyes pointing toward the temporal and two eyes scanning the spaces of the eternal. Teachers are already versed in seeing many ways at once. Just ask any student if a teacher has eyes in the back of their head. Teaching, at its best, is a both/and not an either/or endeavor. It is about teaching with both the technical and the ineffable in accordance with what emphasis is most desirable in the moment.
How developed are both sets of your eyes? Is one (head or heart) more developed than the other? What would it take to have both sources of knowledge functioning together in binocular vision? Integrating the outer and inner, developing the capacity for “two-headed” teaching would truly advance the goals of, humanizing the classroom, educating and serving all learners, and fostering a more expansive sense of self as a teacher.