Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 5; September 2000

"Awareness and Attention"

Simon Marshall, UK

Simon Marshall wrote the letter below shortly after he had briefly worked with a teaching-training group at Pilgrims in summer 2000.

Dear Everybody,

Mario is quite right when he says I don't "live very much in the Multiple Intelligences frame". I have read Gardner with great interest and think his work is liberating and sincere.

I am more interested, in an everyday sense, in the roles of awareness and attention. I try to be practical in these areas when I am not swept away by my typical daydreaming and self-forgetting. I feel that attention and awareness, when I can muster them, help me live more intelligently. What I mean by this may be made clear by an example. As I write this letter I realise that my neck is twisted, my legs crossed at an angle and the grip on my pen far too tight. The energy wasted is enormous, the physical contortions lead to a tension which prevents me from using valuable energy in a freer, more directed fashion. Yet so often I don't notice, I don't see myself at all. I wish to use my "intelligences" to find out the most complex problems, yet very often I can't sit, stand or even carry a briefcase with any common sense at all. My aims are too often above what is immediately necessary - the freeing of physical energy.

It seems that a great deal of discussion concerning intelligence revolves around how visual stimulus, movement, music, etc. can be employed to learn something else. To acquire knowledge sometimes at the expense of understanding. Yet those simple things remain so elusive. Who can pick up the telephone when it rings without at least ten unnecessary movements? How many "intelligent" asthmatics are there who smoke? How many "tired" people steadfastly insist on going to bed late despite their "intelligences". None of this is admonition or recrimination - they are just questions. A mobilised alertness, starting with body awareness, noticing "how I am now" seems to me a fundatmental issue. Setting myself tasks to help me heighten and recall awarenss can be very simple. If you like, try at coffee break to remember to bring your cup towards your mouth rather than moving your head towards your cup. Next time you listen to a colleague in the group, rather than pay your normal amount of attention try to PAY attention by really valuing their words - especially if you disagree with them and observe where your resistance really lies. This may open avenues into a different type of intelligence - a wisdom that offers you the opportunity to see yourself as you are - without self-condemnation - at any given moment.