[Xmca-l] Re: The illuminance that was Vera

[Robert Lake]

Thank-you Annalisa for this thoughtful portrait of Vera as a unique, deeply
reflective and "elegant thinker" as you so aptly
describe her.  I have a question for the listserve. How would you envision
or connect  the notion of "experienced thinkers" with perezhivanie?
Can anyone share a few thoughts in along this line?
RL

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 12:48 AM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Hello colorful fish of the XMCA pond,
>
>
> Vera's friendship was a thing nontrivial, as ontologies go.
>
>
> Her academic sensibility was excellent and demanding. At the same time,
> her pathos for the world swam deep. We know from recent experience that
> although she did not post frequently on the list, she dearly valued the
> intellectual exchange that we all enjoy here. It nourished and populated
> her mind. To the end, I believe this was the case.
>
>
> My personal sense of Vera is that few people were privy to the world she
> witnessed, through her eyes. I'm one who could not perceive this world
> directly, but I could tell that she perceived much differently than many of
> us, if only because she had witnessed a wide variety of human activity
> during her long, sometimes unyielding life. I was kind of standing on a
> hill beneath her vantage point and observing that she could see farther
> than I could, without the means to detect what she could see vividly. She
> could be silent in her thoughts and those pregnant pauses could be so
> meaningful, even powerful. Wide vistas. I mean to say that these silent
> pauses were almost words unto themselves. Can a linguist be a linguist of
> no words?
>
>
> Most people who met Vera and had the opportunity to spend a little bit of
> time with her, as a student or otherwise, came to love her. My opinion is
> if you could not love her, then you were left to admire her mind, work
> ethic, and academic accomplishments, no small crumbs; Vera was the arete
> that the Old Greeks talked about.
>
>
> I feel she made a good-faith effort to be accepting of others even if she
> disagreed with them. She was willing to seek the grey tones in a black and
> white contest. Everyone had a viewpoint and that viewpoint was for its very
> existence a valid one, because it was thought by someone, arising from a
> personal, perhaps intimate, experience – and this demands respect, but was
> not immune to being challenged, which sometimes she could do in five words
> or less.
>
>
> She did not see disagreement as an assault to her being, as some of us can
> sometimes feel in heated debate, frustrating disagreements, even chafing
> exasperation. She was patient, nuanced, poised. Such rapport during a
> debate of ideas is the academic standard for which we all must reach, given
> the world we live in today. It is imperative. I feel that way because in
> this process of reaching (to listen, to search, to learn), we each stretch
> a little: it's a good kind of yoga that makes each of us a better
> contributor to the rest, for the rest, by the rest.
>
>
> I do not believe I am wrong to say that Vera fought for a better world
> through her efforts to understand how to be a better teacher and how to
> truly serve the developing minds of children who might not have that many
> opportunities available to them. She encouraged that temperament in her
> students, and perhaps her colleagues as well. It was how to serve in order
> to achieve the best outcomes for everyone, which was a sign of her wisdom.
> It is not a struggle singular to Vera, and I believe every one of you has a
> dog in that race, to serve today's children and tomorrow's graduate
> students, and even one another.
>
>
> Vera was also a bona fide feminist. A velvet glove with a strong grip on
> the realities of gendered relationship. She was not afraid to support other
> women and celebrate their accomplishments no matter the size. She was not
> afraid to debate men, but I feel safe to say she chose her battles when it
> mattered, but she was aware we still have a long way to go, baby. She was
> aggrieved over the election and was fearful about our future. I wish we
> could have shared better news with her than hurricane Harvey, if you get my
> meaning.
>
>
> I also want to say something about Vera's strength if only because it was
> annealed through resilience. I feel she saw resilience as necessary for
> survival, and that she saw collaboration as resilience expressed between
> two or more people. I think this is why she valued collaboration; it is
> vital to know the dynamics of collaboration in order to survive all
> challenges that life eventually presents to us. "A sterling collaborator
> be," might be on her family crest.
>
>
> Additionally, Vera studied those whom we call geniuses, Vygotsky being one
> of them. She told me and a classmate once during office hours that she
> would continue to find new insights in his work after each re-reading, so
> even after her own familiarity, we all have that to look forward to in
> reading and re-reading his work. If this was the case for her, then it will
> be for us.
>
>
> It occurred to me some years ago how brilliant it is to study the
> development of genius. "Notebooks of the Mind" is one residual of such
> work. She was onto something there. She was looking at what occasions a
> person or a partnership to reach unique levels of creative accomplishment;
> not what is pathological about the mind in society, but what were its
> virtues? What is a mind that has developed to a pinnacle, significantly
> altering a paradigm of study, creative discourse, or any human endeavor?
> How does one become distinguished in creative work? What was the recipe for
> that? Can it be replicated?
>
>
> Imagine if we could all be geniuses, what would the world be like? Would
> there be enough room for so many of us?
>
>
> I think she would say, "Yes," in that delicate Hungarian accent of hers.
>
>
> I suppose any doubt she might have concerning a world populated with
> geniuses, precipitated from the problematic baggage that the word "genius"
> carries. Consider the fallacy of Rodin's thinker, his head on his fist
> where ideas spring eternal from no place in particular while enthralled in
> monastic solitude. It is not real, nor is it human. Instead, Vera preferred
> to call such folks "experienced thinkers." It is so apt a phrase, and so
> elegant. Please consider appropriating that phrase in your vocabularies, in
> memory of Vera if you want. Certainly Vera was an elegant thinker; her
> speech embodied remarkable reflections that revealed the ripples of her
> introspection.
>
>
>
>
> An image of koi comes to my mind's eye, as they swim in a clear pond
> socially, quietly, peacefully.
>
>
>
>
> Thank you for allowing me to share my heartfelt gratitude for this unique
> human being in this very long post. I want to say I will miss her, but I
> feel she is with me still.
>
> I hope you feel that way too.
>
>
>
> Kindest regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>
>


-- 
Robert Lake  Ed.D.
Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA  30460
Co-editor of *Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,* vol.39,
2017
Special issue: Maxine Greene and the Pedagogy of Social Imagination: An
Intellectual Genealogy.

 http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gred20/39/1
Webpage: https://georgiasouthern.academia.edu/RobertLake*Democracy must be
born anew in every generation, and education is its midwife.* John
Dewey-*Democracy
and Education*,1916, p. 139