Clear Seeing

Chapter 4 is all about training our vision to facilitate our work (Schoeberlein p. 53).  Here's why we need training:  We see a person or event or object that looks like one we've previously had a bad experience with.  Without consciously thinking, we feel some negative emotion and quickly respond negatively.  Later we regret how we responded.  I know we've all done it, maybe more often than we'd prefer to acknowledge.

If we instead practice some clear and mindful seeing with non-emotionally loaded scenarios, people, or objects, then we're better prepared for the real thing, suggests Schoeberlein.  The author offers us teachers some guidelines for activities and games to help students and us practice this clear seeing.

I admit that something like the memory game or mindful seeing activity Schoeberlein describes seem kind of silly for high school students.  If we're bogged down with mindfulness activities, when will we learn the actual history or government content?

I also concede that blending in appropriate elements of process - how to see, think, and draw connections - is indeed relevant for the content/process blend in a social studies classroom.  And I'm also reminded that experience can be the best teacher.  So I encourage all the teachers out there - including me - to take a few chances in working in some experiential processes for our students. 

We all need practice and training in how we do things.  This is true for ourselves and our students.  In the end we're also likely to see positive results in both the process and the objective outcomes like degree of focus, memory, and grades.