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MEANING |
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MEANING |
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FREE
NEWSLETTER GREAT
GIFT--especially for yourself!
Contents TEACHER
THINKING EDUCATION
MYTHS
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Printer-friendly version (PDF) What
Do You Mean by That?
"Oh,
what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to believe." O.K. So people have different beliefs about abstract or other complex contexts. But surely we can find some consistency in the language itself. After all, you won't find much disagreement if you say that the purpose of school is to educate children. The appearance of agreement may be comforting, but it is nebulous at best. (See The Meaning of Education). The same is true of our assumption that people hold the same meanings for words such as understand, teach, learn, and knowledge. Apart from the dictionary definitions—which are often of little value in their vagueness—the meanings people attach to words are complex beliefs based on their values and experiences. Educators, particularly those who write standards, often don’t even bother to define words such as know or understand. They merely list behaviors through which students may demonstrate knowledge or understanding. For example, here are several content standards from various state and national documents. * Students know and understand the symbols, icons, and traditions of the United States that provide continuity and a sense of community across time. * Students understand the cycling of matter and flow of energy through the living environment. * Students understand how species depend on one another and on the environment for survival. According to these documents, understanding is to be demonstrated by specific behaviors, such as "recognizes the flag of the U.S.", "describes the nitrogen cycle", or "identifies predators and prey in an ecosystem." It's not difficult to see that these behaviors involve significantly different cognitive levels. Further, they are much more specific than the standards themselves might indicate. If one defines understanding in terms of one's ability to fill in the correct bubbles on a multiple choice test, then those behaviors may seem sufficient. But would you agree that the ability to pick out the flag of the U.S. from among several examples signals an understanding of its significance to the people of the country? What this means at the level of the individual teacher's classroom is significant. Depending on your personal definition of understanding, the questions you choose to ask on tests might range from the lower levels of the taxonomy (state, express, recognize) to much higher cognitive levels (apply, synthesize, evaluate.) Keep in mind that it is the meaning that you assign to the word understand that drives these choices. It is your belief about what it means to understand. If you do not know what that belief is, then you are making your choices habitually—mindlessly. Meaning and Context It’s
confusing enough when different individuals hold conflicting beliefs and values about the same
context, but one would at least expect the same individual to have consistent beliefs. Wrong! Because values and beliefs
arise from and reside in so many different contexts within our lives, people are
often unaware that, as they shift from context to context, they contradict
themselves. The
same person who condemns abortion or murder (“Thou shalt not kill”) may
support the death penalty for capital crimes or, without much soul-searching, take
the life of someone who threatens a child. The same person who says “Absence
makes the heart grow fonder” to
one friend may say, “Out of sight, out of mind”
to another, in a different context. Truth—meaning—is a highly contextualized
experience! Just when you think you have a person “figured out,” he or she
behaves in a completely unexpected way. I
once had a professor in a graduate education class who frequently presented us
with “value-laden” problems such as the following: Imagine you have a child
who is dying from a rare disease for which no cure is readily available. A man has
developed a cure but refuses to sell it or make it available for use. When you
visit him to beg for the medication, you see a vial of the medicine on the man’s
desk. When the man again refuses to make the medication available, would you, if
you had the opportunity, take the medication to save your child? In
previous similar problems, one woman in the class had been adamant about any issue
that she could interpret using the Ten Commandments. As expected, her answer to
this problem was, “Absolutely not!” Her rationale: “Thou shalt not steal!”
Then,
the professor changed the problem slightly. This time, when you visit the man,
what you see on the desk is a paper with the formula for the medicine. The
question becomes, “Would you memorize the formula and give it to the doctors to
reproduce?” My
assumption was that, if you wouldn’t do the first, you wouldn’t do the second.
My definition—the meaning I assign
to stealing—is taking something that belongs to another person without
their permission. Much to my amazement, the Ten Commandments lady said, “Oh, of
course, I’d do that.” She explained that you couldn’t steal with your
eyes—only with your hands! For her, stealing means
taking something that belongs to another person without their permission with
your hands! This woman, who consistently defended the highest moral ground,
was completely at home with the idea of taking the formula “with her eyes.” I
later discovered there’s a common perception that when one “takes” something
without removing the physical object from a person’s possession, it’s not
stealing. Isn’t that what we do when we copy something from a book or make a
photocopy of an article from a magazine? Is that stealing, or does one have to use
the item for one’s personal gain—be it health, an increased reputation, or
monetary gain? If it’s not stealing
to photocopy a few pages for one’s own reference, is it stealing to copy the
entire book instead of buying one’s own copy? What if the book is no longer in
print or copies are no longer being sold? Truth isn’t always easy to define. Each individual determines the truth—the meaning—of a situation based on personal beliefs, values, and experiences. People assume that when they use the same words, they’ve reached agreement. Yet, judging by the previous example, even words such as steal do not hold the same meaning for everyone. Begin
by Defining Your Terms Educators constantly toss around words such as successful, effective, appropriate, respect, learn, understand, and teach. What, specifically, does each of those words mean to you? What is your measure of success? Is it the same as that of a student? The student’s parents? The experts writing educational standards? The people urging more individualized learning environments? When teachers try to motivate students to succeed, whose definition are they using? Some years ago, a workshop leader began by having everyone in the room write his or her definition of "thinking skills." Of the 112 people in the room, no two definitions were the same. And the differences were rarely cosmetic. They were fundamental differences in meaning that would significantly influence the way a person “taught” thinking skills. As educators define the problems of the institution, they often make broad statements such as "We need to have more accountability." Rarely does anyone say, "How do you define accountability?" Everyone simply nods and sets about trying to solve the problem. But each person
involved in the process may be perceiving accountability in a different way. Being
accountable may range from producing students with high test scores
to producing students who demonstrate exceptional creativity, citizenship, or
responsibility. Depending
on their meaning, the “problem” of “having more accountability”
changes drastically. Is it any wonder that people find it difficult to agree on an
“answer” when they are working on different problems without being aware of
it? Theorist Michael Reddy suggests that we spend too much time in problem solving and not enough in problem setting—defining the terms used in our statement of purpose. (1) Let's stop assuming agreement on the everyday terms used in education. Develop the habit of saying "How do you define that word?"—not in a confrontational way, but in an effort to arrive at a common starting point. Let's begin by taking a step back to the very language of education. References 1
Reddy, Michael J. (1993). The Conduit Metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.) Metaphors of
Thought, 2nd ed. (p 188). New York: Cambridge University Press
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