Does it sound strange?
Let me explain.
Parker Palmer is a person who has greatly influenced my own thinking about teaching, as readers of some recent diaries, Lessons from a Master Educator and More thoughts on teachers, teaching and students know.
Parker and I share some common interests. Both of us have extensively read the writing of Thomas Merton. One of that monk's works was a translation of poem by the Taoist poet Chuang Tzu. I encountered one of those poem while reading another of Parker's books, The Promise of Paradox: a Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life, to which I was drawn because - like Parker - I at least intuit that sometimes we cannot simply describe things, we can only fully understand them by holding both horns of a paradox simultaneously.
The Poem is called "The Woodcarver" and I will offer it immediately below the fold, and then explain why.
Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lai said to the master carver
"What is your secret?"
Khing replied, "I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
on trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.
"By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell-stand.
"Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
And begin.
"If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.
"What happened?
My own collected thoughts
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood:
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits."
To see the trees in their own natural state - the carver, by fasting and preparing, does not impose his vision upon any piece of wood, but rather sees the wood as it really is. That is, he sees the fullness of its potential.
As a teacher I may not fast physically, but to serve my students I must to a large degree see them as they are. I cannot teach in a fashion oblivious to the persons before me. I must attempt to know, to understand each. If I remove my preconceptions of what they SHOULD be like, perhaps then they - like the trees in the forest to the wood carver - will let me perceive what I need to understand in order to bring alive the potential within it.
... all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away
To reach the goal of my students learning as fully as they can, I cannot come with the preconceptions of "the court" - I may have a goal for which I am responsible, in this case the content of the curriculum and the associated skills are roughly equivalent to the idea of the bell stand, but someone else's idea of how the student would demonstrate that, say by a score on a standardized test, may prevent me from finding the connection between that student and that material.
I am not equivalent to the wood carver. I know that. I do not shape the student in the way he shaped the wood. But remember, what he produced was a direct result of stripping away his preconceptions and his possible desire to please others - the ruler and the court - and to acknowledge the particular tree, which then helped him fashion the bell stand.
I do not know if the product of the experience in my classroom will be a bell stand, a bell, a sharpened stick, a pile of firewood, or something of which I cannot yet conceive. Remember, the bell stand was something so surprising to the ruler and the court that they were sure it was a product of the spirits.
What each student can accomplish can similarly be surprising. For some it may be in the content they can grasp and use. For others, it will be in the to us new way they can organize the material, make use of it. Or it may be in a fashion of which we cannot yet conceive until they show it to us.
If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.
Each student is like that "particular tree." Each is unique, and that uniqueness needs to be acknowledged, not forced into a single pattern merely because it is convenient for me or other adults or society so that we can rank and sort them and classify them according to our own preconceptions. That not only diminishes them, it cheats us of what they can be and thus contribute to all of us.
"What happened?
My own collected thoughts
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood:
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits"
My own collected thoughts - as a teacher, it is my preparation. It is thinking about different ways I can connect the material for whose instruction I am responsible with the students before me. It is also to be open to what the student tells me - by body language, tone of voice, facial expression, misstatement, enthusiasm even if seemingly misplaced.
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood - in the wood - in the unique individual student before me. I once read words of Jerome Bruner that every student is capable of some degree of mastery in every domain. Our task as teachers is to assist that student in achieving the mastery that is appropriate for her. It might not be the same as that of the student in the next seat, and it is very likely to be quite different than what we might consider mastery for ourselves. No matter. The focus ultimately should be the student for whom the domain should empower, rather than the domain dominating the student to the point where the uniqueness disappears.
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits
the key words are these: live encounter. The most meaningful teaching/learning experience is when the encounter is real, genuine, human - in short, not rote or canned. LIVE.
I first read this poem many years before I thought of becoming a teacher.
In rereading it this week I realize how applicable it is to my understanding of teaching.
Let me suggest one additional way it applies. I see myself not only as the wood carver, but also as the bell stand, at least potentially. It is also my task to strip away enough of my own preconceptions, free myself enough from what others have said is my role as a teacher so that the bell stand within, the teacher I can be, can appear before my students.
Any truly effective teacher is at least as much of a learner as s/he is of an instructor. For me, to understand the potential within each student I must be open to the potential within me to be the teacher that student needs.
A dead Cistercian monk years ago offered a translation of a Taoist poet dead for several millenia. A man several years older than me included it in a book several decades ago, recently released, which I obtained because I was encountering him, one of my own most important teachers, for the first time face to face. I re-encountered that poem. It spoke to me about teaching.
My words here are an attempt to explain what this poem spoke to me. How it saw within me the potential for the bell stand. How it helps me understand the potential in the living wood that is my students.
Peace.