Narrative and understanding

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

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Monte
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Post by Monte »

I'm a non-fiction writer, and have occasionally taught literature and history over the years at private high schools and colleges. As any teacher knows, one of the core skill sets we're expected to pass on is to answer "what's the 'message'?" You know: the take-away, the bottom line, the Cliff's Notes "themes" section, the penultimate paragraph of the five-part essay.

One of the most important things I learned from Campbell was that it's just as important to un-teach that: to recognize that the best things that "cannot be said" (at least as that kind of message) can nonetheless be apprehended through story, narrative, _mythos_. Later on I learned Saussure's "synchronic" and "diachronic," and re-purposed them: there are kinds of understanding that lend themselves to synchronic presentation, and those in which the narrative -- a diachronic arc -- is of the essence.

E.g., Christian theology is stark nonsense: ain't no way you can reconcile an omnniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity with actual evil. But tell it as a story -- God chose to be born, suffer, and die in time, so He "got it," and since then there's been a way out -- and you got something.

Other versions: A wise woman in my childhood, overhearing another adult berating me with "You should have known better than that," murmured, "You don't know better until you've done worse." Bless her; I can't count how many times I've reminded myself of that as a parent.

A conversation about time-travel stories, in which I came up with the Law of Recursive Incomprehension: sure, you could go back and tell your younger self what stocks to invest in -- but the most important things, the "best things," are precisely those which your younger self won't understand, because they're precisely what turned you-then into you-now.

This, I suspect, is why Campbell is among the best teachers at sending us back to the narratives, which communicate afresh what we forget when we try to cram them into "Oh yes, I know that story, and what it means is..."

Something's always lost in that translation.






Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Fascinating post, Monte. Welcome to the JCF Forums. I look forward to responses from our associates.

Cheers,
Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Bliss 5150
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Post by Bliss 5150 »

It's worse now that things are just "Googled" and never thought about.

Definition accepted as face-value.

Good thing we have so many teachers involved with JCF.

Waka
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Post by Waka »

Thanks a whole lot Monte. I am senior in high school and one thing that other students I dont see is the over all picture of a story. The story had overall motifs and themes but teachers dont ask why do you think they wrote this story. The message behind all the themes and motifs. We read a book and then write a paper on it. After that you move on and take nothing from it. We lose the meaning. You analyize the story but it is not the same as when you finish a book and say that is a good book. Something happens when you are reading the book and then when you are done you come out with something more, something you didn't in the beginning. I think that is why I love going to these forums. I always find some wisdom in the posts people write. And you are right about what Campbell does. He goes back and says look at these messages. The message is writen in the book, but it is something that can't be taught.
Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.- Buddha<br>Let yourself be free. :-)

bodhibliss
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Post by bodhibliss »

I have noticed in education a tendency today to get caught up in the particular and miss sight of the big picture. The following, from "Answering the Call," the January, 2004 Practical Campbell essay, while somewhat tangential nevertheless illustrates the point:
Five years ago the principal of a local, rural high school asked me to step in for a literature teacher who had been critically injured in an automobile accident. The English Department chair decided this would be the perfect time to introduce the entire student body to the poetry of Maya Angelou, but wanted to do so in a controlled setting, given troubling aspects of Ms. Angelou's life (raped at age eight, Madame of a brothel at nineteen -- the type of episodes guaranteed to alarm concerned parents).

That entire week, each period of the day, all literature classes in every grade assembled in the school's ancient, rickety auditorium. The first session began with the distribution of a packet of biographical material on Maya Angelou, along with a copy of her poem, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The department chair placed a copy of the poem on the overhead projector, and I settled in to my seat, keen to observe the reaction of students to this bittersweet verse.

I'm still waiting.

The department chair circled the words, "caged bird," and instructed students to do the same and then write "metaphor" in the margin -- and that's the way it went, line by line, stanza by stanza, circling words and writing definitions, followed by a discussion of the rhyme scheme -- but never once did anyone read the poem complete!

Great way to teach teenagers to hate poetry! Ironically, the English teachers loved Maya Angelou, but were so intent on teaching their charges about "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," that they failed to let the students experience the poem. No one was allowed to hear sadness and yearning in the poem's rhythm -- nor did any of these teenagers have the opportunity to relate the poignant, heartfelt emotions expressed by Ms. Angelou to their own tangled feelings. Instead, they were forced to categorize, analyze, and dissect the life right out of it.
Monte's point is well taken - myth is, after all, at its root, story.

Narrative is where it's at ...

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bodhi_Bliss on 2006-10-07 14:19 ]</font>

Monte
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Post by Monte »

On 2006-10-07 13:45, Waka wrote:
[Campbell]goes back and says look at these messages. The message is writen in the book, but it is something that can't be taught.
That's how I read his often-quoted "The best things cannot be said. The second best are misunderstood..." etc. The best things can indeed be KNOWN (through your own experience or the vicarious experience of a story) -- but they can't be abstracted into rules or principles without losing a lot of their power.

Monte
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Post by Monte »

On 2006-10-07 14:18, Bodhi_Bliss wrote:
...and that's the way it went, line by line, stanza by stanza, circling words and writing definitions, followed by a discussion of the rhyme scheme -- but never once did anyone read the poem complete!
I've done a lot of speechwriting and speech coaching for Fortune 500 executives, who often don't make time to focus on the presentation until they arrive at the meeting site -- so there's usually an hour set aside the day before for rehearsal.

Sometimes, the honcho comes in accompanied by a flotilla of staff "communications people." (Allow for some professional ego clash here -- remember, I get hired as a freelance precisely because the honcho wasn't satisfied with what the staffers were coming up with.) And instead of a real rehearsal, to develop the rhythm and flow of the speech, what ensues is a line by line "copy edit by committee" -- i.e., practice in paying attention to the telepropmpter instead of the audience, and the WORST possible preparation for a good performance the next day.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Monte on 2006-10-07 14:53 ]</font>

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