"Wisdom begins in wonder"

Taymaz Valley, "Rodin The Thinker"

"For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy." 

-Socrates, in Theaetetus, trans. Harold N. Flowler 

"Adulatory" seems hardly the word to describe Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher who systematically annihilated his students' assumptions about the world in order to enlighten them. His unusually complimentary remark to his pupil Theaetus, if uttered as Plato transcribes it, must have thrilled the student, but it also must have perplexed him. At this moment in the dialogue, Theaetus, dazzled by Socrates' most recent battery of questions, has just confessed to a profound intellectual bewilderment, a delirium of not knowing...and for this, his mentor has called him a philosopher. To Socrates, Theaetus' wonder--his admission of ignorance, his hyperawareness of the resulting anxiety and excitement that "really makes [his] head swim"--in fact ensures his wisdom: a wise and wonderful paradox.

When I first started teaching, no one would have called me a "natural," least of all me. I made just about every rookie mistake, and then I coined a few more. In the past five years, I have taken solace in the notion that knowledge--in this case my professional knowledge--is both seeded and nourished by the thrill and anxiety of not knowing. I approach my teaching with more than ample wonder, and if I have garnered less wisdom than my five years warrant, I still have evidence that bewilderment gives way to understanding. The mathematician Andrew Wiles expresses this idea well with a metaphor about the challenges of his field. He compares learning to a "journey through a dark, unexplored mansion":

You enter the first room of the mansion and it's completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it's all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were.

Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark.

 (Interview on PBS' Nova, 1997)

I hesitate to call my first year of work in a large Maryland district "teaching." However avidly I created materials for the curriculum or fervently taught the assigned texts, these hours of planning and creation inevitably disintegrated before the real demands of my students--(Really) engage us. Discipline us. Relate to us.

I learned quickly that they expected a repertoire of behaviors for which I believed I had no innate faculty, in particular conveying a persona of authority, along with some extroversion. "Ms. O'Meara, get a backbone!" one student challenged. I felt a profound gulf between my experiences as a student of literature (so fondly recalled as I pursued my education degree) and this new reality of teaching it.

I have flipped a few light switches since that first year--not least of which was discovering why I am a teacher. This knowledge had remained hidden until my third year, after I had settled into my current school in Virginia. I developed a comfortable persona and many of the anxieties of being a new teacher relaxed their grip--will this bell ringer work? Am I lecturing too much? What time is the faculty meeting? Having reclaimed that energy, I directed it toward connecting with my students, toward better understanding how they learn and what they like. What I had only abstractly understood before, I finally and affirmatively experienced: however much I enjoy reading, discussing literature, and writing, it is the people in my classroom who keep me there.

The range of my students' personalities, personal histories, and strengths takes my breath away. John (name changed) is an irrepressible 15-year-old who came to the U.S. six years ago without literacy in his native language.  He now plays soccer and guitar, reads and writes in both English and his first language, and has contributed some of the class' most interesting insights (early in our study of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, John remarked that Lennie, though physically mature, has the "heart of a child").  Hector, whose reticence masks an articulately wondering soul, is a lover of Einstein, Nikolai Tesla, and Beethoven. Though self-conscious about his English grammar, he composes fables that arrive at interesting truths: "intense emotions, like mortal fear, can utterly transform us." Mara--studious, soft-spoken, with a smile that is both warm and modest--misses her home country. She writes passionately about its attractions and its flaws, longing to return, but she also reflects on the promises of her new, adopted country.

Though I pursue teaching with more confidence and excitement every year, I sense that the rooms in this mansion are infinite. I plan to assign students their own blogs next year, in lieu of paper-and-pencil journals. One blog will use our school system's educational software, with only students' classmates and me as the audience. The other blog students may choose to share with others, on one or several topics that matter to them. It is in this spirit that I start "Wisdom and Wonder," to reflect on what matters to me: teaching, my most fulfilling vocation--whose premise is seeking wisdom with wonder.