“I meant what I said and I said what I meant" (Horton Hatches the Egg)
Our fourth grade students are in the midst of a close reading unit* with their teacher Ms M, a gifted educator who knows the right questions to ask to push a young thinker to discover depths of meaning in an apparently simple text. As a lifelong "meaningophile" (because it isn't just books), I lean in when I hear teachers becoming excited about opening thinking doors for students. Children need explicit teaching of the skills and strategies that all good readers and listeners use when examining levels of meaning in text, because discovering meaning is an essential ability - a journey we humans undertake from the moment we're born as a way to navigate our world. A student who can unpack layers of meaning is obviously a step ahead when it comes to recognizing the intention behind words, say, in a marketing pitch or a speech with a political agenda. But more than this, she is privy to a vast store of collective insights and wisdoms, and is able to touch both the darkness and light of what it means to be human. (So why does Margaret Wild title her children's book Fox, when the story is about a magpie and a dog? Why indeed.)What I've been thinking about lately is how much access to privilege lies in a person's ability to choose a particular word or phrase instead of another - and thereby control meaning-making. There's so much power in this skill: power that gives those who have this command the upper hand not only in terms of dominating conversations or persuading an audience, but also - thankfully - of building trust, solving conflicts, and crossing deep divisions of culture and values. When we have a generous supply of words from which to choose when we are in a difficult conversation, when we have had consistent exposure to reasoned, eloquent expression as readers and listeners, we have immeasurable control over this conversation's outcomes. We need to teach our young people the skills they need to attain this level of control. The world in which our children are growing into adulthood is a world that requires these skills. How many wars, whether ideological or guns-and-bloodical, have arisen from the purposeful laying down of specific fighting words, or, sadly, from the inadvertent misunderstanding of ambiguous words' purpose and intent. Imagine a world where word-mongers and word-interpreters are each skillful enough to traverse and rise above the daily pitfalls of instigation and miscommunication.
But back to everyday practicality, let me just state that I myself am still in the learning phase of conveying meaning - trying hard when I speak with parents, teachers, students, to say what I mean without guile, and to achieve a win-win outcome, while recognizing that my audience doesn't necessarily share my view of things. When a 2nd grader is in my office because of a conflict on the playground, and he vehemently opposes being assigned consequences for his decision to hit back when someone hit him first, my word-smithing skills are often strongly tested! When a valued employee misses an important deadline, I struggle to convey a consistent deep regard while bollocking him for dropping the ball. When a parent asks me to implement a new practice that I know will have negative consequences unforeseen by her that I am not at liberty to share, I sometimes leave the meeting - albeit with "my way" intact - with the relationship just a little tarnished.
And yet. And yet. As time goes on and I am exposed to seasoned veterans steering conversations to that sweet spot of acceptable and amicable compromise, I find myself more and more able to "manage meaning". Knowing that our students are on their own journeys to this place, at this school where integrity and kindness trumps competition and winning; knowing that our students are explicitly learning the subtle skills of close reading, critical thinking, and accessing multiple meanings, gives me inordinate satisfaction. We are raising citizens here. Powerful ones.
(*Check out Accessing Complex Texts by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey http://www.benchmarkeducation.com/teachers/series/act-now)
