Magic is magical because it cannot be defined

While preparing for the Washington State Teacher Certification exams, I have often stopped and wondered how the content I am going to be tested on is going to be relevant to my deepest work as an educator. I certainly agree that teachers need to know some basic content in a variety of subject areas but that seems like a less interesting and significant area to test teachers for. I think the more significant areas that create good teachers have to do with teacher-student relationship building and how teachers care, hold space for and challenge students at just the right times. It is my belief that any human being who can do, what is often considered, “the softer” side of teaching, is capable enough and can be trusted to learn all the basic content knowledge. Alas, we cannot test for “the soft” skills and thank goodness for that.

Alongside studying for the certification exams, I have been inquiring into ways of understanding children/students more holistically. In this process, I came across Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences theory. I am thankful that Gardner broke the mold of a single view of intelligence and raised the value for less traditional forms of intelligence. That said, I am struck by how cognitively focused his definition of intelligence is. Yes, he defines interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, but still, I think its hard to breakdown magical human action, acts of genuis into clearly categorized, even overlapping intelligences. When the dancers of LXD move their bodies, what intelligences are at play? Can we even begin to define them? Should we even attempt to breakdown intelligence or the significant skills of a teacher?

All of this got me thinking about the need for measurement and quantification that is so rampant in the world of education. There is a need to attest to the quality of teachers so they are tested on subject matter that can be clearly categorized and quantified. There is a need to define the learning capabilities of students so there is a definition of intelligence. There is some attempt to account for grayness that coems from saying that intelligence at play in any given moment is a combination of multiple forms of the defined intelligences. Somehow all this breaking down, categorizing, comparmentalizing and quantification is not adding up for me.

I don’t think analytical, critically thought out, clearly defined categories, no matter how nuanced and smart can ever capture the the joy of a child who “JUST gets it” or the courage of a teacher who lets go of a lesson plan and ends up having a transformative discussion with a group of students or a child who momentarily connects two seemingly unrelated topics of study. The list goes on. Those magical moments of learning, of letting go of the fear of failure, of feeling utterly connected to a person in the same pursuit of inquiry as ones own self, of sharing a passion, of having the ultimate “Eureka” moment; those are the moments that define learning and education. Those moments surpass the highest definitions of humanistic connection and of intelligence of any form. They are pure joy, pure magic.

Education needs to be focused on creating a space in which these moments might come about, more often than not. I don’t think such moments can ever come about by analysing, compartmentalizing and quantifying the significant aspects of education. In fact, quantification and categorization might take us steps away from realizing joyful, magical moments of learning. Magic is magic because it cannot be defined. Joy is that way too.