Towards Twelve Times Faster Teaching
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Every Baha'i has to believe that education can be much more efficient than it is. Consider what Abdu'l-Baha said we should aim for:
"It is incumbent upon Baha'i children to surpass other children in the acquisition of sciences and arts, for they have been cradled in the grace of God. Whatever other children learn in a year, let Baha'i children learn in a month. The heart of 'Abdu'l-Baha longeth, in its love, to find that Baha'i young people, each and all, are known throughout the world for their intellectual attainments. There is no question but that they will exert all their efforts, their energies, their sense of pride, to acquire the sciences and arts." (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, 141)
That would mean that our potential speed as teachers and learners could be -- let me calculate this -- twelve times greater than the world at large. Is that a fair expectation? Was the Master indulging in Oriental hyperbole?
I have to admit, I have had my doubts in the past, but now that I have encountered John Mighton I am starting to believe that the Master's goal may indeed be practicable. Mighton's central idea is that we have misjudged human potential. Science's advancing understanding of the brain is starting to show that we advance in an essentially non-linear way. That is, we gather data, we stumble, we practice, we fail to get it, then suddenly a synergy takes place, an emergent understanding bursts upon us and eureka!, we understand. Unfortunately most of the time long before this can happen an incompetent educational system riddled by "philosophical and institutional barriers to innovation" has labeled as much as half of the class "slow learners." These so-called slow learners are then labeled by a prejudice and take into themselves a deep sense of inferiority. This vicious combination holds them back for the rest of their lives.
When I finished Mighton's latest bestseller, "The End of Ignorance," I immediately ordered some of his other books. One was a play, "Half Life." It has been a while since I read a play. It was quite good, a love story that takes place in the one location you would never see
The other book by Mighton is his first book about mathematics education, The Myth of Ability. I have not finished it yet, but as I read I am constantly reminded of Baha'u'llah's advice to those who would obey His greatest teaching, His meta-teaching that we should teach His Cause. He says,
"The whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood of grace which God poureth forth for him. Let none, therefore, consider the largeness or smallness of the receptacle. The portion of some might lie in the palm of a man's hand, the portion of others might fill a cup, and of others even a gallon-measure." (Gleanings, 8)
Like others who have undergone Ruhi courses, I have gone over this quote with a fine toothed comb, but until I read The Myth of Ability I did not fully grasp what it implies. The point, it now seems to me, is not that some people have bigger or smaller receptacles, the point is that the same liquid is going into all of them, the same "flood of grace," like "the gentle rain from heaven that falls upon the place beneath" is filling our receptacle. This quote is closely related to what Jesus said about washing the inside of the container. The point is that we get pure, clean liquid, not what the receptacle looks like from the outside.
We all have ability, we all have been given enough to serve our needs. Let us say I have a smaller cup than you. I still need to keep my body hydrated, so I may have to fill my cup up more often than you, but the point is that my body has enough fluids to function. Since it is always raining bountiful floods of divine grace it hardly matters how big one person's cup is compared with another's. Here is how Mighton makes this point in End of Ignorance.
"People fundamentally misunderstand what distinguishes people who do work at the highest level in the arts and sciences from those who are merely competent. It is not a special intellectual gift; at the highest levels of achievement, intelligence is almost secondary. Factors such as passion, confidence, creativity, diligence, luck and artistic flair (even in the sciences) are as important as the speed and sharpness of one's mind. Einstein was not technically a great mathematician, but he had a deep sense of beauty and a willingness to question conventional wisdom. A person's willingness to train relentlessly and to learn in the most efficient manner -- by studying and synthesizing the work of other experts -- is also a factor in success. The least acknowledged factor in success is undoubtedly luck: many breakthroughs in the arts and sciences occurred because the right combination of ideas happened to fall into the right person's lap. For every breakthrough, often a great many people might have made the advance but were unlucky enough to get beaten to the punch, or were held back by a missing piece of information, faulty data or an invalid presupposition.
"Through proper instruction, I believe we could raise the level of virtually all students to the point where they could do well in every subject at school. Of course, whether students would go on to do exceptional work in a particular field would depend on factors beyond the school's control -- their level of passion and diligence, their willingness to train efficiently in the subject, even their luck. But schools could control at least one thing: they could educate and inspire students to the point where the majority could choose to follow their passion in virtually any artistic or scientific endeavour." (pp. 188-189)
This is the nub of it all: virtually all students can succeed. That is central to Baha'i teaching as well. If the world rejects the Baha'i message, whose fault is it? Both the Bab and Baha'u'llah are very clear about this: it is not their fault, is is the fault of the Baha'is, or Babis, as the case may be. We are not learning the Message right, not putting it into practice, and not teaching it properly. Both the Twin M's stated that if we were united and taught the Faith as we should, the whole wide world would believe within the space of two years. If we fail to teach, we are to blame, and nobody else.
It is, or should be, the same thing with educators. As it is, a professor who "weeds out" three quarters of his freshman class in the first month of classes congratulates himself on his severity, the exclusivity of his knowledge and the precious ability that put him where he is. Nobody thinks to call him an incompetent teacher or unfair marker. But that is what he is. That is what teaching tends to be from kindergarten to graduate school. Here is how Mighton opens Myth of Ability,
"Imagine a school where the following ritual is observed. At the end of the year, after several days of coaching and preparation, the children are led to a cafeteria where tables have been set with plates of food, one for each child. A government official has inspected the plates; for a given grade each plate holds exactly the same foods, in the same proportions, at the same temperatures. To encourage a feeling of fair play and sportsmanship, the children have been instructed not to touch their knives or forks until everyone is comfortably seated. At a signal from a teacher, the children begin eating, madly trying to stuff as much food into their mouths as they can before a buzzer signals that the meal is over. Afterwards, the children are given a battery of tests to determine how well they are digesting their food."
"Now imagine that only those children judged to be superior eaters are allowed to eat a full and balanced diet at school the following year. The teachers at the school, though well-meaning, believe only a few children are born with the capacity to digest food properly; the rest, depending on what kind of stomach they've inherited, can eat only one or two kinds of food, and even then only in small quantities. When challenged to defend this belief, the teachers point to the vast number of weak and unhealthy students at the school: even those singled out for special attention continue to complain of stomach disorders when placed on restricted diets." (pp. 1-2)
He goes on to say that "one day people will look back on our present system of education as only slightly more rational or humane than this." Research has shown that children are born capable of learning anything, he says, so why do we brand some as having "ability" and others as permanently deprived of capability? For one thing, it saves a lot of emotional energy to give up, to turn away, to neglect the universal mandate to teach. But this, far more than hitting or swearing, is an act of hate. Remember what the Master said in the quote at the beginning of this essay: "The heart of Abdu'l-Baha longeth in its love..." Teaching is loving patience, it is concern that others come to understand what we were all created to understand. There is nothing special about it. Baha'u'llah said it all:
"Show forbearance and benevolence and love to one another. Should any one among you be incapable of grasping a certain truth, or be striving to comprehend it, show forth, when conversing with him, a spirit of extreme kindliness and good-will. Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments." (Gleanings, p. 8)
Superior means endowed with greater ability. The myth of ability, just what Mighton is fighting against. It all boils down to a form of bigotry, of us and them, holier than thou. For Mighton the whole debate about IQ misses the fundamental point: we are all endowed with enough ability. The problem is in the teaching. Mathematics, his realm of expertise, just happens to show up this educational failure better than other disciplines.
"If a music teacher were to say, `Gifted children will simply pick up an instrument and play well; the rest will only become mediocre musicians,' we would take it as a sign of incompetence. Why, then, do we tolerate this view among teachers of mathematics? Why are our schools satisfied if only one-fifth of their students demonstrate a mastery of the curriculum? And why are most mathematics classes so large that only a few students could ever hope to ask a question and have it answered?"
"A simple analogy shows the extent to which people still believe that only a few children are born with intellectual ability. If children in any part of
"Positive social change only occurs when enough people recognize something as unfair. Apathy alone does not stop people from acting: we tolerate suffering or injustice because we have failed to see something that seems obvious once it is understood (witness the treatment of people of colour in
Let me pick up on this mention of racism. People of color around the world are burdened by the same sense of inferiority that keeps most of a class from achieving their potential, the belief that they do not have the ability. Racism is insidious because it is so easily internalized. Ideas are viruses, they wiggle in, and then you are done, sick unto death. "I must be inferior because I have X or Y attribute." Same thing with sexism. It does not matter if you are man or woman, the idea that women do not have the ability creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. But to be against one form of prejudice does not protect you against the other viral myths of ability.
I will never forget one incident I witnessed where a committed feminist, a fervent anti-racist grandmother was entertaining her grandson. She had heard he was getting "A"s in school and regarded him as of a different species for that reason. By every word and gesture she made when he was around she demonstrated how intimidated by this six-year-old she was. She seemed afraid he might do something weird, like hack into her telephone to disable her television so that it would only show
The only thing that can overcome such viral myths and fear is love, love in action. Baha'u'llah put it perfectly:
"It behoveth the people of God to be forbearing. They should impart the Word of God according to the hearer's particular measure of understanding and capacity, that perchance the children of men may be roused from heedlessness and set their faces towards this Horizon which is immeasurably exalted above every horizon." (Tablets, 237)
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