Quotes are Abstractions:
Abstraction is the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics.
Thus, a quote is a stripped down version of someone’s experience and insights. With almost none of the details and facts.
Most of the times, quotes do not have the full context, or any context at all.
It’s like you only remember the “moral of the story” but you have forgotten the title, details, plot, characters, intent, twist, etc of the story.
You remember the meaning, without the details.
Let’s take an example of this quote:
“Art has a voice - let it speak.”
Rochelle Carr
As an expert artist who has been doing this for years, this statement makes total sense to Rochelle Carr. After going through the experience, the struggle, the ups/downs of motivational wave, learning the skill of art, practicing, getting feedback, getting negative criticism, and every other minute stuff, Carr is now able to say this, understand this, and mean it as well.
Quotes are in many ways a product of “curse of knowledge” or “expertise bias”.
And the above quote might also make sense to other expert artists. Might.
But, tell this quote to a beginner artist and expect him/her to really understand the essence.
Here’s a very popular quote in the education circle.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
There’s not context. There’s no details. There’s just an abstraction, a personal insight.
However, I’ve seen it several times, and you’ve definitely seen it too, educators (and motivational speakers) starting their presentations with this quote, and ending up with prescriptions for how to teach or how to be a better teacher.
Quotes are Simplifications:
Simplification is the process of making complex less complicated and therefore easier to understand.
In maths, simplification for instance means making complex fractions simpler through several steps of expanding brackets, division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction.
Quotes are like when you know the solution is “2304” but without knowing about the process or details.
Another classic example is when Buddha said, “Life is suffering,” after going through that suffering all those years and the struggles he had to endure to achieve enlightenment.
In other words, quotes are half-truths, semi-truths, mis-truths - what ever you want to call them. I sometimes call them fiction.
Here’s one more simplification.
I’ve seen/interacted with teachers who take the above John Holt quote in literal sense and take it as the truth. But it is only a simplification of all the complex processes of how teaching happens and how learning happens. Teachers, please continue to teach.
Quotes are NOT Prescriptions
Teaching is a challenging job. It is quite understandable that teachers would be looking right and left for tips, tricks, and suggestions on how they can improve their teaching, on how they can take less challenging route and fulfill their tasks.
We all look for “how to…” here and there.
However, analyze any educational quotes. You will find most of them too abstract, too vague, and too general.
Let’s take another example:
“शिक्षा पद्धति बारे ठूला कुरा पढ्दै र प्रयोग गर्दै लागि परेको २० वर्ष पछि आज यस्तो लाग्दैछ विद्ध्यार्थीहरूमा सजगता भर्न सकेको दिन कुनै पनि पद्धतिको पछि लाग्नु पर्दैन।
जीवनलाई नियम वा सिद्धान्तले हैन, सचेत मनका अनुभव र असल आचरणको अभ्यासले सिँगार्न सजिलो हुन्छ।”
A rough translation from Nepali to English:
”After 20 years of learning big stuffs on education methodologies and experimenting with them, this is what I think today: that the day you can instill awareness in the students, you don’t have to follow any methodology.
Life is easy to be adorned, not by rules or philosophies, but by inner experience and by practicing good behavior.”
Pretty interesting reflection. But it’s a simplification. It is abstract and vague for the readers. Makes 100% sense to the one who shared it but not to the others.
However, most people will read this, not as a personal insight of a teacher/educator, but as a “how to”. They will even draw meanings out of it, something like this:
“Do not follow any methodology but try to instill awareness in the students.”
And they will unconsciously overlook the “20 years of journey of doing, learning, experimenting, reflecting” part.
A Quote is an Invitation for Exploration
Next time when you see a wonderful quote, understand that they are someone’s personal insight and pause before you take them as a prescription.
When quotes are shared as general truisms, they can look inspiring. They can trigger thoughts and questions in your mind. They can also make you change your perspective.
Therefore, before you take them as a “cheat code” or “how to”, take a pause for a while.
Remember, a quote like a book title or a one sentence summary of an entire book. If you just stop there, and don’t read the book, you will be only have superficial understanding or even misunderstanding of the book.
Finally, here’s my prescription for you. Please use this as an opener or a closer of your next presentation :)
Do not take any quotes that seriously.
- Umes Shrestha
p.s.
Sharing with you three quotes that helped me change my perspective.
On reading:
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
- Francis Bacon
On education:
What works in education? It's not the right question. Because in education, everything works somewhere and nothing works everywhere.The interesting question is: Under what conditions does this work?
- Dylan Wiliam
On critical thinking:
Thinking well requires knowing facts, a lot of facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most - critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving - are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).
- Daniel Willingham