>Perhaps it would help to frame our questions comparatively -- to me what
>is powerful about the concept of
>zoped it that it is one of those rare concepts that captures the
>"between-ness" at the core of social
>science. (The people, Diane! without essentialism.) We can't SEE change,
>or work, or thought, and we're
>stuck with indicators (like measurement of progress, gestures, words) that
>point back to that limnal zone.
>A couple of questions: how do people visualize the zone? Are there other
>"between" concepts that we
>could compare to zoped?
I have a story. :-)
I was working with a seven-yr old boy who had been diagnosed with ADDH
(attetnion deficit disorder and hyperactivity/hypertension),
and
he was having a lot of trouble participating in his gr.1 class.
Three times a week, he and I would
spend about four hours in an empty classroom, working through some of
the basics of the gr.1 curriculum.
Very early on I realized there were several factors at play, not the last
of which is the problem with the gr.1 curriculum (can u say WORKSHEETS?)
-ah, learning. Ah, education.
anyhow, his mother was dosing out his ritalin erratically, like, if they
were taking a long car drive, she would dose the kid up for the ride...
we talked a lot about the ritalin, this boy and I, and I asked him if he
liked it, liked the medication.
He said, "You know, sometimes I can feel my eyes just jiggling in my head,
they're just jiggling in my head, and the ritalin helps stop that..."
so I said something about feeling nervous, and he nodded enthusiastically,
nervous, very nervous...
So I shucked the worksheets to the side (woo-hoo!) and taught him a few Tai Chi
exercises.
One is called
"Drawing the bow" - but of course the key is breathing, relaxation, and
slow movements,
so we practiced that, breathing deeply until your stomach is full and you can
feel your lower back fill up with air, and then letting it go, slow slow,
like a balloon with a tiny hole...etc...
and then I showed him the movements for Drawing the Bow, which are,
basically, like drawing the the arrow back on a bow and aiming it into the
air, slowly,
well.
He copied my movements and we stood in front of each other, and I realized
he wasn't looking at my body, he was looking into my eyes. I looked into his
eyes, and I could SEE something shift, or change, but what? I could never say.
But he stood there, ADDH and all, jiggly eyes and nervousness, and he
slowly slowly drew the arrow back in his bow, leaning on his stance, slowly
tilting and holding the pose,
and he looked at me again, as he stood there in the pose, stillness - I
remember the
stillness and the poise, and then, as though he"knew" what he had just
done, he grinned and his eyes opened wide and he just beamed at me. Then he
said, "What's another one? What's another one?" and we learned a few
more...
the point of the story is that sometimes to "SEE" the change, you have to
be tuned
in to the person in a way which exceeds gesture or measurement,
but, spatially, we were there, in that zone, and it was an instant of something
quite intimate, in the eyes... and it didn't alter his condition,
or make him better at filling out worksheets,
of course, but rather gave him a tool for his own sanity.
I also taught him isometric exercises, but that's a whole other story. :-)
diane
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"
(Ani Difranco)
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of graduate studies
centre for the study of curriculum and instruction
university of british columbia,
vancouver, british columbia, canada V6T 1Z4
(604) 253-4807
dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca