The blind men and the elephant

by Jim Buxton
There were 3 men in Hindustan who had never seen an elephant.  To be true, they had never seen anything, because all of them were blind.  The three men set out on foot to find an elephant, because once and for all they wanted to know what that creature looked like.  They did indeed find an elephant.

And the first of the three blind men walked up to the elephant and felt its tusk.  Pleased, he exclaimed: “Well, what have we here?  Something round and smooth and sharp.  There can be no doubt.  An elephant is like a spear.”  The second man approached the animal and got a hold of its trunk.  It twisted and twined the way trunks usually do.  “It is quite simple”, said the man, “the elephant is like a snake.”  Eagerly, the third man stretched out his hand and touched the elephant’s knee.  Then he laughed.  “It is easy to determine what an elephant most resembles,”  he said, “a tree!”  And then the three blind men began arguing what the elephant looked like. “A spear!” “A snake!” “A tree!”  And, in a way, or course, they were all right!

In analyzing education, our perceptions are limited by what part of schooling we have experience with.  Our fragmentary knowledge of education influences our policy suggestions.   I must acknowledge that I taught in a very successful suburban school for my 32 years of high school teaching.  I taught a lot of Honors classes in those days, and that certainly colors my view.   I have, however, for the past 5 years, taught students in the URI Talent Development  program, which is a program for incoming students coming from lower socioeconomic strata in RI.  Additionally, before I started teaching at SKHS, I did teach in a special needs school for severely emotionally disturbed teenagers.  To give you an idea of the school, the second school year I was there we started in September with 25 students, 8 teachers and a Principal.  By years end, I was the only one who had not quit.  When I wasn't working, and I would be on a super market line with teens behind me, I'd unconsciously turn toward the teens so as to be able to protect myself.  In those days, the elephant was dangerous,  unpredictable and psychologically damaged, and I felt that education should focus on skills and self-esteem, and that content coverage was irrelevant. 

Nonetheless, my major teaching experience was my 3 decades at South Kingstown High School, where I witnessed amazing academic success.  My initial experiences at SKHS rapidly changed my perceptions of students vis- a- vis my experience at the Special Needs school.  Currently, when I write about education in this Blog, I must admit I see most clearly only  part of the elephant, and much of what I might say may more aptly apply to a suburban school like SKHS, and not so much to inner city schools.

In the same way, I wonder how much Deborah Gist is influenced by her experience as a primary school teacher, and question whether her policy suggestions don't address the whole elephant, but rather are more appropriate to primary school children.

In the same way, if an administrator's educational experience is mostly with special education students, then this part of the elephant may be influencing the policies that the administrator is proposing for the entire student body.

Hence, bottom line, I wonder what percent of superintendents, principals and people at the RI Department of Education have significant high school Social Studies experience.  My guess is that there are not many, which explains why the interests of Social Studies teachers are not even close to the front burner.

Here is another version of the elephant story: "The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887).

And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

The poem begins:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind^[13]

They conclude that the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan or rope, depending upon where they touch. They have a heated debate that does not come to physical violence. But in Saxe's version, the conflict is never resolved.
Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen