Heart of the Matter: On the Shoulders of Giants

Lou Spaventa, US

Nanos gigantis humeris insidentes Lou Spaventa teaches and trains in California, the USA. He is a regular contributor to HLT - The Heart of the Matter series. E-mail:spaventa@cox.net

I dedicate this article to a friend, Curtis Solberg, who taught history for 44 years. He loved teaching.

Lou

To borrow an aphorism from Bernard of Chartres and a title from Stephen Hawking, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We see farther because of those who have come before us and allowed us to see what they saw plus what we can see ourselves. Yet, one theme of the 2009 TESOL Conference in Denver, Colorado was that we are, to quote Jack Richards in his plenary address, in a period of “post-methodology.” Interpreting this in a positive way, I assume the argument goes like this:

Instructors learn these days from reflection on their own classroom practice. Therefore, methodology is being continually constructed by classroom practitioners. There is no orthodoxy of method, no need to imitate the techniques of a particular methodology formulated by another in order to show that, in the classroom, we can do it “the right way.” Methodology is contingent and therefore bound to be different from context to context. Where practice is situated dictates to a large extent how practice is done.

I would argue that much of modern ESOL theory, method, and technique comes from the work of the several giants who taught and wrote in the latter part of the 20th century, particularly those individuals who have been dismissed for their “designer methods,” as if what they produced was so idiosyncratic and so rarified as to have no application to the larger context of ESOL. Instead of writing my own story here, I have solicited the ideas of several colleagues who, along with me, have experienced directly in dialogue and language study or have indirectly experienced through reading and application, the ideas of teachers such as Caleb Gattegno, Charles Curran, Earl Stevick, Paolo Freire, and Ivan Illich. Each of these individuals has in turn taken ideas from these men, and through their own understanding and application of the ideas, has influenced generations of teachers and students. They hold positions as professors, trainers, consultants, publishers, writers, and administrators in ESL and EFL, abroad and in the United States and the United Kingdom. They each have been in the field since at least the 1970s; their experience has been varied and long. Their work has brought them to six continents and likely over one hundred countries. Here is what they have to say about the work of Gattegno, Curran, Stevick, Freire and Illich.

On Caleb Gattegno: One writes, (I learned) “the subordination of teaching to learning, the value of cognition.” Another, (I reacted to) “His Socratic manner of destroying our arguments followed by total engagement in his argument for placing the onus on learner responsibility. I have always been guided by the emphasis on (the) teacher’s orchestration of and non-engagement in learning.” A third, “Gattegno had a profound influence…force(d) me to reflect deeply on the learning process and the role of the teacher…when Silent Way works, it teaches more than language.” A fourth, “My most successful book…is one-third Silent Way inspired. Then another, (I discovered) “… the concept of Ogdens, (which relates to) the need to make most efficient use of students’ time and energy.” Echoed by another, “Gattegno’s concept of ogdens became an important part of planning every lesson. Learning how to choose power-ladened teacher inputs throughout an hour stayed with me throughout my teaching career.Gattegno also made me keenly aware that my students could learn English or Spanish with much less input from me than I ever would have thought possible.” And finally, “ I have one more comment to make about Gatteno. One of my students and I took a bus to New York City to take an intensive Silent Way course in Japanese with Gatteno. Because of a snowstorm, we arrived two hours late for the class, and the student, who had studied some Japanese before, was able to catch up with the class. I sat there for two hours in total frustration, and then, to my complete embarassment, burst into tears. Gattegno gave the class a break, then said to me, “You’ll never learn until you learn to take a risk.” So I went back to the class and, as so often happens with the Silent Way, suddenly began to understand everything - all at once. It reinforced my belief that the human brain can do much more than we suspect, but, more importantly, it taught me to take risks, which I have done ever since.”

On Charles Curran: One writes, “I never met Father Curran, but I did work with one of his main colleagues in Japan, Father Paul LaForge. Curran’s concept that all learning also has a psychological dimension and that the roles of teacher and student are similar in many ways to counselor and client. One particularly important principle for me was the importance of allowing students time to reflect on their learning.” A second writes, “Curran influenced a lot of us at Pilgrims and is now reborn in the EFL Dogme movement.”

On Earl Stevick: A professor writes, “I met Earl Stevick…He was lecturing to some trainees…and I happened to walk through the auditorium. I stopped and thought, “This guy knows what he’s talking about!” and sat down and listened to the rest of the lecture.
He is a prince of a guy and still influences my teaching. I have won a number of teaching awards, and I am pretty sure that the reason I still love teaching is because of ideas I picked up from Earl. One idea is that it is counterproductive to praise students when they do well because this sets up a “parent-child” relationship because it puts the teacher in the position of judge. Instead, I give counseling responses that indicate I have heard and understood the student. Another thing I picked up from him is information on memory…It not only helps in teaching, but has some implications for phonological theory.” A second person writes, “He is Socratic in the best sense. He open-heartedly shares with his students his wonder and fascination in learning how we remember, how we understand, how we think, how we learn. He questions, and through his quiet questioning teaches us how to question thoughtfully.” A third writes, “…the realization that the teacher student relationship matters more than technique, method, approach. Yesterday in my EAL class, I demonstrated a “spiel,” a simple technique that I saw Stevick do.” And from one more person, “Stevick influenced me directly through his marvelously written books and then in his person at the first SEAL Conference in UK.”

On Paolo Freire: One writes, (I value) “Freire’s insight into the fact that all learning takes place in a socio-cultural context for both student and teacher…showing the importance of understanding and working with students’ individual worlds and motivations. A second, “Freire I was influenced by earlier, in the seventies, via my own university students who were doing Freire-style literacy work in the country side. I had students in Chile 1972-3 who ran Freire inspired literacy programs in the complejo maderero near Valdivia.They told me how men cried with joy when they found themselves READING their own name for the first time. For me this was a brilliant example a deep reconciliation with what up till then had for them, been a deeply alienating system, the sytem of magically turning graphemes into sounds and thence meanings, a system normally only used by those who oppressed them.”

Here I will step in and write about my debt to Ivan Illich, whom I never succeeded in meeting, but for whom I have a lasting sense of gratitude. “I’ve been teaching for three decades and training teachers for nearly as long, yet I still don’t trust schools and the people who run them. What’s wrong with me? In 1972, I read Deschooling Society. That started me on a path that continues today. Although I work in a college, I am in many ways a teacher without a school because the school at which I wish to teach does not exist, indeed cannot exist. I opened Illich’s book to read about people getting together to teach and learn, using a phone book and a public place to make a connection and begin a teaching-learning relationship. How different that simple idea is from the institutions of which I have been part! How often I feel the weight of lumbering bureaucracy dictating the terms of my pedagogy! Bureaucracy and pedagogy do not co-exist very well for me.”
I wrote this seven years ago as an appreciation of Illich who had just died. From Illich, I learned the importance of alternative conceptions of fundamental institutions and assumptions: What is a school? What is a democratic polity? How much is enough? Why always bigger, faster, more? Illich led me to Schumacher who led me to re-examine values as underlying assumptions about education, national development, and the nature of a healthy society.

Long ago professions were learned through the apprenticeship system and for many skilled professions they really still are. A good jazz musician pays his dues under the tutelage of a great musician and leader. A charismatic history teacher puts his stamp on a whole department and through his excellence shows the younger faculty how the discipline can come alive for students. We stand on the shoulders of giants and we are the better for it.

Gattegno, Curran, Stevick, Freire, and Illich dominated the latter part of the 20th century for me and for many others in this profession. Their influence lives on through me and my contemporaries. When I teach economy of thinking in forming grammar lessons, I teach Gattegno. When I teach a counseling approach to student errors, I teach Curran. When I work to create a classroom community, I teach Stevick. When I understand the “limit situation” of my teaching context, I am with Freire. When I dream of alternate ways of engaging students without the paraphernalia of bureaucracy, I reflect Illich.

There may have been other teachers along the way whose influence was great and whose influence spread through their disciples. Colleagues have mentioned Silvia Ashton Warner, John Rassias, Alex Lipson, and Georgi Lozanov, To those whom I have not recognized, I salute you and thank you. Without the inspiration of great teachers, we lose the possibility of embodiment for the values we believe we profess. Great teachers are ciceronian; they guide us forward to what light we can find for ourselves. They are ideal types against whom we measure ourselves. They provide us with the human connection that is so vital to education, and they remove us from the solipsism of self-contentment and the idleness of navel-gazing. We are not as interesting as we think. Great teachers provide us with the pin to burst the bubble of self-involvement. They are, at times, our better selves.

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