Ignorance

I remember, a few decades ago, what a drag it was to question the latest hot educational theory: multiple intelligences. That is, the breaking down of intelligence and learning styles into categories — logico-mathematical, visual-spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, etc. — that some people excelled at and some people didn’t. As a doctoral student in education, I just couldn’t buy it. It was too neat and tidy. And limited.

But damn. It caught on like wildfire. Like every educational fad, it was going to change the world.

Weirdly, the theory of learning styles, which was based on the theory of multiple intelligences, now qualifies as a zombie learning theory. Dead, even dangerous (I guess), but still walking. This is fascinating to me and, of course, gratifying. Cuz

I was right, y’all!

But, of course, the new educational theories just keep comin’. One I read about today is the theory of ignorance. More specifically, it’s the recognition that not knowing is generative and should be taught. (The title of the article I read, from the New York Times, is “The Case for Teaching Ignorance,” and the name of the study of ignorance is “agnotology.” Just FYI.)

Here’s what worries me about this new latest-and-greatest:

• I think we should choose our words carefully. “Ignorance,” in my book, is never good. Ignorance leads to bigotry and shrunken world views. If it leads to breaking the law, it cannot be used as an excuse. It is a noun, a static state, an insult. “He’s just ignorant.” Few people would want that said about them.

• Teaching something — literally offering courses on ignorance — reifies and, I suggest, diminishes it. I’m not saying courses on ignorance are necessarily bad; I’m sure many, maybe all, are creatively and caringly presented. What I am saying is that making “ignorance” a thang, a fad, puts it in danger of being oversimplified, and therefore misunderstood, and therefore misused. And eventually turned into a zombie theory.

Ignorance, as a noun, is not what we’re after. What we’re after — and what many of us have always worked at — is a verb. That verb being not knowing.

Not knowing as a way of knowing.

When I’m sitting with a client or a student not knowing what to do or say, this is not ignorance. It is not a static state of mind that more information or better scientific studies will change.

No. Not knowing is a gift. It forces me to listen very carefully to what others are saying and to what I’m feeling. It centers me smack dab in the moment, when I have to be present and aware, taut and attuned. It equalizes everyone, because all perspectives are valuable in making sense of the unknown, the uncertain. When I’m not knowing, I never know who’s going to crack the code, when and whence inspiration will hit.

Getting to know ignorance really well doesn’t make sense to me. Getting really good at dwelling in uncertainty, at allowing not knowing to make its way towards epiphany, at doing the verb rather than examining the noun, is, I suggest, living at the cutting edge of, well, being human.

And I would say that good teachers have always honored not knowing. Good teachers routinely invite students into spaces where they not only accept but enjoy the process of discovering, of problem-solving, of using what they know to illuminate what they don’t know. Where they are not ignorant but are, in fact, engaging in process, in guessing, enjoying the uncertainty of growing and changing, embracing the acts of existing, letting their whole organisms, rather than just their brains, know in the ineffable, tacit, intangible ways bodies know.

And good teachers themselves are good at not knowing: not knowing everything about their subject matter, not knowing the answers to all their students’ questions, not knowing why Ravi is acting up right now, not knowing why Shawna has suddenly gone quiet and stopped handing in her homework. Good teachers know (or want to know) how to use their not knowing to gain the understanding they need to connect more effectively with themselves, their subject matter, their acts of teaching, and their students.

Rather than teach ignorance as a noun or an object or a topic of interest, then, I would say that we simply need to support students and teachers in dwelling in their not knowing. In their mistake-making. In the risk of trying. In the unease of uncertainty. In the power of emergence. In the normal state of learning of human organisms, which happens in bodies, not just brains, and includes frustration and impatience, curiosity and stillness, awe and joy and gratitude and amazement.