Keeping the eye on the prize

Photo by BrianAJackson/iStock / Getty Images

There is a niggling concern that I always have when I become too preoccupied with "the basics" of literacy, including components like phonemic awareness and phonics. Sure, these skills are essential, and it’s relatively simple to measure progress in such areas, but I can't help but think, "this isn't the hardest part about literacy, though. We still need to integrate this knowledge into more complex and more ambiguous acts of communication."

I have witnessed many learners who develop such basics, but who still go on to struggle with reading and writing. At the risk of sounding unfair, they often struggle with the patience, stamina, concentration, guidance or even time to become a strong(er) reader/writer - all of which comes through opportunities to manipulate the script.

It reminds me of this little picture that Wittgenstein once painted of someone who had learned to deliberate over a task, “every now and then there is the problem 'Should I use this bit?' — The bit is rejected, another is tried. Bits are tentatively put together, then dismantled; he looks for one that fits etc.. So I sometimes make him say 'No, that bit is too long, perhaps another one fits better.' — Or 'What am I to do now?' — 'Got it!' — Or 'That’s not bad”' etc. ..." In particular, the act of writing resembles this inner dialogue. It's not a straightforward linear task.

At the culmination of this passage, Wittgenstein rightly states, "thinking gives [the learner] the possibility of perfecting his methods." Learning to read and write effectively is a bit like this inner dialogue. Actual reading and writing involves quite intricate acts of problem solving. The learner needs plenty of practice chewing over texts and creating them, particularly after they have gained momentum with the basics.

Wittgenstein presents us with an similar image of teaching that seems to suggest how one initiates another into ways of working, “if a person has not yet got the concepts, I shall teach him … by means of examples and by practice. -- And when I do this I do not communicate less to him than I know myself. In the course of this teaching I shall show him … get him to continue an ornamental pattern uniformly when told to do so. -- And also to continue progressions. And so, for example: I do it, he does it after me; and I influence him by expressions of agreement, rejection, expectation, encouragement. I let him go his way, or hold him back; and so on. Imagine witnessing such teaching. None of the words would be explained by means of themselves; [they makes sense in the context of the practice ... of apprenticeship].” (Philosophical Investigations, #280)

Consequently, this places experience at the forefront of learning. In other words, the learner requires the practical experience to integrate component skills into meaningful, literate act(ivitie)s. In doing so, the learner becomes adept at manipulating the script, and the mentor teacher provides the learner with opportunities to exert this knowledge in engaging ways. Therefore, “the teacher’s role is to help the child by arranging tasks and activities in such a way that [advanced tasks] are more easily accessible.” (Verhoeven and Snow, 2001, pg 4-5)

This gradual initiation relates to something I mention in the recent grammar/sentence presentation. That is, the rules of grammar do not tell me why one sentence should precede or follow another, nor do they tell me anything about what should be the content of my ideas. They may help me formulate and re-formulate a sentence with greater ease - and this is of value - but this in itself does not dictate the logic or content of my communication. Often the sequence of my sentences is guided by convention, and convention is shaped by the expectations of my audience. And I must have had enough experience with this audience to have a sensible understanding of my idea and how to express this idea.

As Ray Monk (1999) would say, “the reason computers have no understanding of the sentences they process is not that they lack sufficient neuronal complexity, but that they are not, and cannot be, participants in the culture to which the sentences belong. A sentence does not acquire meaning through the correlation, one to one, of its words with objects in the world; it acquires meaning through the use that is made of it in the communal life of human beings."

A similar sentiment led Newton Garver (1996) to express the following comment.

“If Wittgenstein and Saussure agree in using ‘grammar’ descriptively, they disagree about ... other matters. One is that Wittgenstein’s grammar has to do with uses of language (discourse conditions and discourse continuation) rather than forms and their combinations (morphology and syntax) ...

"Considering uses rather than forms is a deep rather than a superficial departure from classical linguistic methodology ... Studying uses of language makes context prominent, whereas the study of forms lends itself naturally to analysis.” (Garver, 1996, pg 151)

Maybe I am stating the obvious. Perhaps, I am not making a strong point here. But I write this against the backdrop of the proposal to introduce the Year 1 Phonics Check here in Australia. Whilst I have no objection of teachers getting good data on what their students can and cannot decode, we should always keep our eyes on the prize, which involves the integration of this knowledge into meaningful acts of reading and writing. I often ask, “how can I create opportunities for learners to integrate their skills into meaning making? How do I support and motivate them to take risks and challenge themselves?” We should always offer students opportunities to “use their expanding knowledge of language and their growing powers of influence to figure out [how to read and write] texts.” (Wolf, pp 131)

There you go. I’ve had my say. It’s not a critique of anything. Just an observation.

References

Garver, N. (1996). Philosophy as grammar. In H. Sluga & D. Stern (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Wittgenstein (pp. 139–170). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Monk, R. (1999, July 29). Wittgenstein’s Forgotten Lesson. Propsect Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/ray-monk-wittgenstein/#.Uo_n_pHqvGY

Verhoeven, L. and Snow, C. (2001). Literacy and motivation: bridging cognitive and sociocultural viewpoints. In Verhoeven, L. and Snow, C. (Eds.), Literacy and motivation: reading engagement in individuals and groups (pp. 1- 22). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers

Wittgenstein, L. (2001). Philosophical Investigations (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Wolf, M. (2008). Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain. Cambridge: Icon Books.

Recommended: Unbalanced Comments on Balanced Literacy

The following link to a blog entry from Shanahan on Literacy is a welcome addition to the discussion/debate on balanced literacy instruction:

• Unbalanced Comments on Balanced Literacy: http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2014/10/unbalanced-comments-on-balanced-literacy.html

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Balancing Instruction

The balanced teaching section provides practical guidance to help you foster the range of skills and experiences necessary for robust language, literacy and learning development.

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Podcast #3: Commanding a Clear View

Welcome to the third episode of the Wittgenstein On Learning Podcast. In this episode, I discuss Wittgenstein's concept of commanding a clear view. Given the amount of time spent recently on literacy pedagogy in the blog (wittgenstein-on-learning.com/journal), some may be surprised at the choice of topic. However, the topic makes perfect sense. Over the past few weeks, I have been committed to gaining a clear view of the topics of language and literacy development. I have taken a reflective stance of seeking an overarching description of my topic. With such a viewpoint, it is easier to "find my way about". In this podcast, I speak about commanding a clear view in a more general way, and I speak about the significant yet difficult task of developing a synoptic view over our knowledge. That said, any such achievement must be balanced with real practice. In other words, a thinker must spend time ommanding a clear view whilst also getting to the rough ground  to test and refine one's ideas. Or as Wittgenstein puts it, "thinking too has a time for ploughing and a time for gathering the harvest." (Culture & Value).

Podcast #3: Commanding a Clear View

Wittgenstein On Learning

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iTunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/journal-wittgensteinian-view/id879917574

A Letter from An Anxious Teacher

17 November 2013

To whom it may concern,

I am a teacher. I stand in front of awaiting eyes, ears, mouths and minds. I don't always stand in front. Sometimes I sit side by side or sit gathered in circles. I have plans for my students. I have expectations. I would like to consolidate skills through practice. And I want to consolidate these practices by providing opportunities for my students to learn and to practice and to grow. I have a picture of what a successful learner looks like. I think I have this vision. I think it is a fair vision. I feel that every child can achieve. I am deeply curious about my students. Most importantly, I see education as transformative. I need to remind myself of this. I shouldn't need to, but I do.

I can point to those in the classroom who share my expectations. They know what success looks like and they have the means to work toward the goal. They are more or less motivated. I don't want to let them down. I want to support and challenge them.

I am still nervous, though. I have set up the environment. I have laid out my expectations. I have planned out my lessons, and I have planned regular opportunities to scaffold the learning for the apprentices that are before me. I feel that my teaching will be engaging. Not just fun ... The learning will be engaging and the discussions will be engaging. I tell myself this, but there is no guarantee. I need to be honest in my reflections and determined in the way I navigate this ship.

Despite being nervous, I am enthusiastic. I am passionate about what I teach, and I know the students can share this passion and find pathways to apply this learning. I care and believe that I can inspire (or, at least persuade) my students of the importance of what they are about to learn. 

I am still nervous, though. Some will need more support than others. Some may even get lost at times. I think I can tap into their knowledge and interests. I think we will both be learning together.  I will make myself available. And I am dedicated to monitoring their learning, reflecting on their growth and intervening when extra support is required. That’s my professional duty. And I really believe that through practice and opportunities, the students take this learning on.

I know there will be those who it will be difficult to reach. There will be some students who are not at school everyday. There will be others who face considerable learning challenging. And there will be others who may need some time to trust or to engage. I do not accept that I will not reach these students. I do accept that I will need to reach beyond the school walls to build partnerships and seek advice.

I will teach with kindness and urgency. I will demonstrate expertise and empathy. I will do my utmost to be of service to the students and the community.

Yours sincerely,

Anxious Teacher

Excellence is achieved by mastery of the fundamentals

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Practices Make Sense

I must start with an image that floats in my imagination as I write today's title.

I imagine a parent sitting down regularly to read a book with a child. Actually, I am imagining a parent reading regularly in the morning at the child's preschool. In fact, what I am really imagining is an Aboriginal parent reading a picture book to a group of children at the local preschool in a remote community in Australia.

The routine of reading together introduces the practice of reading that - over time - becomes more nuanced. It becomes a space in which the participant can become more familiar with the features of reading and of meaning. The practice is a pivotal routine, and access to knowledge and resources to engage in that practice are often taken for granted.

I'll leave it that for the present moment.

Could things be other than we see them to be?

From "Google Glass: Artificial Unconscious?" by Neuroskeptic in Discovery Magazine ​(25 May 2013)

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60 years ago, Ludwig Wittgenstein famously wrote:

Where does this idea come from? It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off.

The “idea” in this case was a particular philosophical theory about language. Wittgenstein saying that other philosophers were making use of this idea without realizing it, unconsciously – so he chose the metaphor of glasses, which are always right before us, filtering what we see, even though we’re rarely aware of them.

​Read more at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/05/25/google-glass-artificial-unconscious/#.UaH1HJWCg-Z

Language Games in Seinfield

From "How Seinfeld Made Something Out of Nothing" by Colin Dray in What Culture! (6 May 2013).

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Wittgenstein, a philosopher concerned throughout his life with the way in which language functioned, came to see human communication as an endlessly expanding, continuously fluctuating organism governed by use – by grammar. In his second major work, Philosophical Investigations, he described language like a city, constantly expanding, being built upon, renovated and remade:

‘Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.’**

Whenever new terminologies are introduced (scientific and medical terms, new forms of technology, slang and definitions) our language – like a city – grows and adapts to make room for these words, and their new applications. But we have to know these terms and their meaning; see them applied, to learnthe grammar of their usage.

Otherwise, as Wittgenstein notes, we are so alienated from this grammar that we will fail to understand what is being said. As he observes later in the book in one of his most famous statements:

‘If I lion could talk, we could not understand him.’***

What Wittgenstein is essentially saying here – using the example of a beast given the power of speech – is that language requires more than just knowing the definitions of a list of words. It’s about being attuned to their context, to the subtleties of their use. In the case of the lion – magically granted the power of human speech or not – his grammar, his frames of reference (or in Wittgenstein’s terms, his ‘forms of life’), would nonetheless remain so alien, so divorced from our own experience, that we would still be unable to comprehend one another anyway.

It would, on a much smaller scale, be like getting dropped into the middle of a Seinfeld episode, suddenly witness, with no establishing perspective, to a bunch of people jabbering about ‘Mimbos’, ‘shrinkage’ and being ‘anti-dentite.’ Without the necessary back story, we would, like the lion, suddenly have no idea what these words meant – recognising their sounds, but oblivious to their unnatural applications, seemingly locked behind an abstracted code.

Wittgenstein therefore came to argue that the only means to explore the way in which language makes meaning was to examine its grammar – to look at how language is being applied at the very moment of its use, in localised examinations of speech that he called ‘language-games’. One such example of these games was an examination of various uses of the word ‘blue’. After all, the word ‘blue’ could be an adjective, a noun; it could be one of (or all of) a series of colours; even a state of mind:

‘Is this blue the same as the blue over there?  Do you see any difference?’–

You are mixing paint and you say ‘It’s hard to get the blue out of this sky.’

‘It’s turning fine, you can already see blue sky again.’

‘Look at what different effects these two blues have.’

‘Do you see the blue book over there? Bring it here.’

‘This blue signal-light means . . . .’

‘What’s this blue called? – Is it “indigo”?’****

‘Blue’, Wittgenstein reveals, is not simply a label applied to a physical or conceptual object. It can have a myriad of meanings in a multitude of circumstances, all defined by its grammar and discerned by language-users familiar with these uses effortlessly in the moment of its utterance.

And it is precisely these kinds of explorations of language that are undertaken in every episode of Seinfeld, as each week we watch these characters explore – through the myriad potential for meaning that they can engender in their discussions – their own linguistic suburb in the city of language.

Indeed, it helps explain why the show has created such a wide and ubiquitous lexicon. From ‘Yadda-yadda-yadda’, to putting something ‘in the vault’, to ‘re-gifting’, to ‘close-talkers’, ‘high-talkers’, and ‘low-talkers’, Seinfeld has arguably contributed more definitions and turns of phrase to the English language than anyone since Shakespeare.

And the reason that these definitions catch on – when other programs that try to mimic this style fail – is because Seinfeld scripts do not simply label some social phenomenon and expect the viewer to look on with a distanced, wry smile – they play it out, exhibit how applicable it is for its given circumstance. The show’s stories build their momentum by rolling around a premise and allowing its validity or otherwise be tested through application. The characters tease out its possibilities, with the viewer themself drawn into this conceptual exploration, invited to participate in the interrogation of social norms and pondering the foibles of human behaviour.

Read more at http://whatculture.com/tv/how-seinfeld-made-something-out-of-nothing.php#ItDygGFQow4Zeuub.99

Wittgenstein's Two Views of Language

From "The Wittgenstein Controversy" by Evelyn Toynton in The Atlantic Monthly (June 1997).

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Whilst not the article's focus, Toynton's article does presents the common division between Wittgenstein's early and late perspectives on language.  The young Wittgenstein was deeply influenced by the study of logic. Consequently, he sought to illustrate how our descriptive sentences convey pictures of the world, which could articulate empirical truths under examination. However, he admits that a vast range of propositions do not fall into this category, including religious, ethical and aesthetic statements. These statement cannot be understood by merely understanding the elements of the sentence. One needs to understand the context in which these propositions are uttered and applied to fully grasp their significance. This leads to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. In the latter years, he was preoccupied with the ways we use language in context and in culture and in our form of life. Instead of seeking the absolute structure of language, he sought to investigate the vast range of human practices in which language plays a role in shaping experience and in executing activity. 

Tractarian View of Language

"This was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), which altered the practice of philosophy, perhaps forever, by calling into question the ability of language to talk about ethical and metaphysical questions in any meaningful way. Wittgenstein maintained that language could only show; it could not say anything that went beyond description: "Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. . . . Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." To establish the limits of what could be spoken of, he stripped language down to its logical structure, which he saw as mirroring that of reality."

View of the Philosophical Investigations

"Wittgenstein abandoned his earlier quest for a logically perfect language to consider how language acquires meaning through use, the multiple ways it functions "in the stream of life."

Love Is in the Air, and in the Art

From "Love is in the Air, and in the Art" by Ken Johnson in the New York Times (7 February 2013).

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"Philosophers have traditionally distinguished three forms of love: eros, or passionate, sensual attraction to another person; philia, or affection for family, friends, clubs, teams, nations and humanity in general; and agape, which is love for God or the functional equivalent.

"Wittgenstein thought that if you wanted to know what a word meant, you should forget the dictionary and examine how it is used by people in the real world, including, I would add, how it appears in art." 

Wittgenstein on God and Belief

From "Wittgenstein on God and Belief" from The Bully Pulpit.

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“A proof of God’s existence ought really to be something by means of which one could convince oneself that God exists. But I think that what believers who have furnished such proofs have wanted to do is give their ‘belief’ an intellectual analysis and foundation, although they themselves would never have come to believe as a result of such proofs. Perhaps one could ‘convince someone that God exists’ by means of a certain kind of upbringing, by shaping his life in such a way. Life can educate one to a belief in God."

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Wittgenstein held that religion was a practice that would be justified through the form of life of which it was part. This resonates with the central premise of Alain de Botton's recent popular exploration in Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion. In short, it is unfair to judge religion based on the factual basis of its beliefs. Instead, one should curiously explore how a certain belief structure gives rise to a form of life. It is - then - that one can - perhaps - be permitted to judge.

“The way you use the word “God” does not show whom you mean — but, rather, what you mean.”

— Culture & Value