#(i think it's incidental that this is the case. you can still strive for authenticity in a first person close POV historical novel

[fideidefenswhore]

Catherine [of Aragon], [Princess] Mary, and Anne Boleyn are enemies of Cromwell and do not fare well at her hands. In fact, [Mantel's] focus on Cromwell seriously undermines the claim her account is more authentic than Michael Hirst['s].

Writing Mary I: History, Historiography, and Fiction

[wisdomrays]

Transforming Knowledge into Practice

QUESTION: When we study the life of the Companions, we see that as soon as a Qur’anic verse was revealed, they would immediately begin to act upon the Divine command. We are, however, unable to put forth the same attitude. What would be the reasons for our inefficiency at putting our knowledge into practice, and how can this ideal be realized?

ANSWER: In order to implement what we know in practical life, first of all, knowledge must be saved from being rough and simple information; it needs to be transformed into “ilm,” in the sense of knowing a matter with its true nature and grasping that matter through consciousness and systematic thinking. Otherwise, if what we know does not amount to anything beyond superficial information, it will not yield any practical behavior, for it does not make an impression on the heart. In this respect, the first thing to do to turn knowledge into practical behavior is to try to reach true knowledge and, from there, to certainty in faith, with an insatiable and fervent desire to learn. In the Qur’an (Ta-Ha 20:114), God Almighty gives the command to His Noble Messenger (which can be interpreted as follows): “…say, ‘My Lord, increase me in knowledge.’” Each and every one of us as the follower of the Prophet is then supposed be a fervent seeker of knowledge always trying to grow deeper in knowledge. For example, it is a religious obligation to recite the Qur’an. However, even if we commit the entire Qur'an into memory, if we do not make efforts to understand and delve deeper into it, we will fail to benefit from the treasures of the Qur’an, the eternal source of light. There are such meanings and inspirations to be derived through full concentration and sincere efforts that they cannot be attained in any other way.

Offering gratitude for knowledge

After the first phase of transforming information into true knowledge (ilm), there are other points to be taken into consideration. You may attain a magnificent profundity in theoretical knowledge and gain the certainty of knowledge (ilm al-yaqin), even to the degree of the certainty of vision (ayn al-yaqin). However, if you fail to implement such theoretical knowledge in practical life, then you will fail to recognize the truth of Divinity with the Divine Names, Attributes, and Qualities, and fail to be a loyal servant at God’s door. In addition, there is a glad tiding about the issue by the beloved Prophet, “Whoever acts upon what he knows, God lets him acquire what he does not know.” Accordingly, having a share from true knowledge requires acting upon what one knows. If God Almighty grants you a certain level of knowledge, you should strive to give gratitude for this blessing, without taking any personal pride in it. For example, if others perform forty units of Prayer a day, together with the Sunnah Prayers, you should think, “Having been honored with abundant Divine blessings, I should do as much as eighty units a day,” and thus ascend to the immensities of subjective responsibility.

Incidentally, I would like to relate a memory that is especially significant for me. In one of my visits to my late mother, she told me, “I read the Jawshan al-Kabir every day from beginning to end. Is there anything additional you would recommend for me to read?” This is a reflection of the spirit of someone asking for evermore and thus making continuous progress. A person honored with Divine blessings must turn to Him in due gratitude. The Prophet would pray until his blessed feet were swollen as narrated by his wife Aisha. Imam al-Busiri expressed this in a poem, “I failed to follow the Practice of the Prophet who kept vigil until his feet were swollen at the Prayer.” On witnessing that, Aisha asked the Prophet, “O Messenger of God, although God has forgiven your (possible) past and future sins, why are you praying to the degree of tormenting yourself?” The Pride of Humanity gave the following answer to her, “Should I not be a thankful servant (in the face of such blessings of my Lord)?” There is a very important message here in terms of consciousness of being a servant: every servant of God is obliged to offer thanksgivings to Him and praise the Almighty to the degree of the Divine blessings and favors bestowed upon him, and thus put his knowledge into practice in proportion to the profundity of his knowledge.

Practical reason

At this point, it is possible to mention a consideration in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Kant states that God cannot be known through theoretical reason and that knowledge of God can only be attained through practical deeds. If this can be realized, in other words, if theoretical knowledge is efficiently put into practice, believers can feel a profound knowledge of God inside of them and consequently feel a deep love for Him—to such a degree that they will be saved from the gloom of this world and be seized by an intense yearning for reunion with God, craving, “Reunion with You O God, reunion!” Knowledge of God comes after this faith in God, then comes love of God, and then spiritual pleasure, which is granted as an extra Divine favor. When such a spiritual pleasure is experienced, we will naturally feel an irresistible flood of eagerness to see the true source of beauties, given that all beauties are merely faint shadows of the Divine Essence. If we do not feel such eagerness in our inner worlds, then we have not passed through this process and are still wandering outside. I do not mean to push anyone to hopelessness; however, we need to know that this is the result of the course we have taken. In this respect, let me reiterate that no matter how much you delve in theory, you are doomed to not make any progress but stay where you are as long as you fail to further rise to the level of practice. If you start practicing, but this time fail to deepen in the meaning of that practice and to acquire knowledge of God, you will not make further progress, unable to go beyond mechanical forms—to such a degree that you will view worship as if it were a daily chore; you do the relevant acts but fail to attain knowledge of God, and unable to feel love for Him, and savor spiritual pleasure. Those who do not implement their theoretical knowledge in practical life are likened to “a donkey carrying a load of books” in the Qur’an (al-Jumua 62:5). One needs to avoid from falling into such a situation, so that knowledge does not become a burden on the back. Otherwise, his or her knowledge will be useless. At this point, we can benefit from the power of prayer at putting knowledge into practice, as the beloved Prophet did by saying, “O God, I seek refuge in You from the knowledge that is not beneficial…”

Broader horizons through reading circles

Although it is commendable for individual believers to carry out reading, thinking, research, to scrutinize things and phenomena, to reflect upon the relationship between human, universe, and God, it will be a means for much different blessings to attend a gathering of faithful ones who cherish considerations and thoughts in this direction and benefit from that blessed atmosphere. Somebody who steps into such an atmosphere will unite with the other individuals in the group together and they will journey toward different horizons with this special connection among them, pervaded by the same spiritual hue (insibagh). As it is revealed in the Qur’anic verse, “God’s Hand is over their hands” (al-Fath 48:10). Also, the Messenger of God stated, “God’s hand (of support) is with the community,” and drew attention to importance of being included in a group. In another case, the Prophet emphasized the danger of being alone by stating that a stray sheep is to be devoured by wolves. Accordingly, one who acts against collective consciousness, who leaves the circle, and who does not fall into step with the group is doomed to be devoured by wolves. Therefore, we must try to be included in a righteous circle against all odds, support one another at that, and avoid acting individually. However, a very important point to be careful about here is to keep our gatherings or circles free from useless talk and amusements, and to benefit from them in the name of deepening in knowledge and spirituality, without even wasting a second. Unfortunately, we do not present the required sensitivity to do this. It is such a pity that even when we come together in the name of religion, faith, and serving for God, we sometimes talk about irrelevant matters that are of no benefit to our worldly or otherworldly life, or we adopt lighthearted attitudes, which lead people to heedlessness. In my opinion, a true believer must try to lead a disciplined life as was once lived truly in Sufi lodges. In an authenticated narration, it is reported that the Pride of Humanity laughed to the degree of chuckling only three times in his entire lifetime. As it is known, his blessed face was always smiling, but he never gave up being serious. That blessed person had such a manner that His consciousness of the omnipresence of God was reflected in his entire being. And one could not help but remember God Almighty upon seeing the Prophet’s state, manners, and even the depth of his looks.

In a nutshell, we must try to benefit efficiently from all the assemblies, all of our gatherings and the circles we attend in the name of reviving the horizons of our heart and spirit, in order to be well-equipped in knowledge and then implement it in our lives, thus making it very spirit and way of our lives in the true sense. If we wish to walk on the straight path, without any collisions and straying, all of our feelings, thoughts, senses, conversations, and discussions need to be straight; they need to be oriented toward becoming deeper and richer on the horizons of the heart and spirit.

[portfolio393]

Excerpts from Eisner

Over the past few days, I have had time to start thinking about the role of creativity in pedagogy, and how allowing students to showcase and utilize creativity can best prepare them for life after graduation, perhaps more-so than testing and traditional methods of showing knowledge. The following excerpts from an article by Elliot Eisner, “What Education Can Learn From the Arts” have provided me with many ideas upon which to reflect. 

“Education can learn from the arts that form and content cannot be separated. How something is said or done shapes the content of experience.”

Though Eisner is referring specifically to the form and content of students’ work here, I couldn’t help but think about this concept in terms of pedagogy. It is so common to hear that a subject was “ruined” for a student because of a bad teacher; indeed, in my own life, a negative encounter with a math teacher shaped my attitude towards that discipline up until the present day. Seeing this quote pointed me towards the “old story” of learning being unpleasant but necessary, and whether or not that is indeed proper preparation for the possible unpleasant but necessary aspects of life after graduation. I also could not help but think of Rita F. Pearson pointing out in a rousing Ted Talk that “kids don’t learn from people they don’t like”. Perhaps one of the more valuable aspects of the new story is its emphasis on inquiry, and on showing the different forms that learning can take. Rather than agreeing that work is unpleasant but must be taken up, could we instead teach - through both content and form - that work is challenging but inspirational? 

“The concept of interaction is as fundamental in education as it is in all human states of affairs. What is large and what is small depends on what one is comparing it to. What is hard and what is soft depends on the hardness of the hard and the softness of the soft. Soft can be hard in some contexts and can be soft in others. This is because interaction is a condition of experience. In teaching, whether a teacher is considered to move swiftly or to move slowly depends not only upon the teacher’s rate of speech but also on what the student brings to the occasion. For some students, swift is slow, and for others, slow is swift. It is the character of the interaction that defines our experience.” 

I was excited to come across this excerpt, as it reminds me of a point made by Roland Case and Penny Clark in their text dealing with social studies (Case, Roland. The Anthology of Social Studies. Vancouver: The Critical Thinking Consortium, 2016). Clark notes that while we strive, in the discipline of social studies, to prepare students for a democratic society, the actual pedagogy with which we engage is rarely democratic. In essence, we say one thing and truly teach another. This strikes me as an integral part of the old story, in which the classroom is teacher-centric and the educator, as the star of the show, is exempt from an authentic relationship with the students who must simply keep up. The new story, by contrast, with its insistence on relationships, can provide a modelling experience that is more akin to life after graduation than the experience offered in the old story. 

This resonates with me in my personal life. I was very obedient to authority in high school, and struggled with asserting my own autonomy in the classroom and workplace after graduation. I was much more comfortable following orders and executing the ideas of others. When I began tutoring and teaching, it was a real struggle for me to come up with my own material, as I had assumed that there were already guidelines in place for me to follow. Funnily enough, I can see this even in my initial inquiry questions for this course, in which I wrote:

“ I knew I wanted to be an English teacher ever since I was in secondary school myself, and I assumed that there was a set list of texts you had to cover in a certain grade level - “Outsiders” in Grade 8, “Romeo and Juliet” in Grade 9, “Brave New World” in Grade 10, etc. While this may have been naive, I find myself still searching for those particulars in the new curriculum, as I’m not sure how to structure a whole year of English units without accidentally repeating what the students may have learned before, or inadequately preparing them for their next year. Are there certain topics that have to be covered in a certain grade level?”’

 Had I experienced more of the “new story”, in which the relationship with my educators was more lateral, perhaps I may have felt more comfortable in a position of autonomy; my struggles to feel confident in making my own decisions may not have been so protracted after graduation. 

This helps me to understand how a good relationship with one’s students can help them realistically for life after graduation, in which they are unlikely to encounter the same sort of atmosphere that they would encounter in a traditional classroom. This relates to what Ken Robinson has to say on whether or not our “industrial” classrooms are effective in creating well rounded citizens: “We have a system of education that is modelled on the interest of industrialism and in the image of it. School are still pretty much organized on factory lines — ringing bells, separate facilities, specialized into separate subjects. We still educate children by batches.” The new story, by contrast, seems better engineered to equip students for something a little more dynamic. 

“Education can learn from the arts that open-ended tasks permit the exercise of imagination, and an exercise of the imagination is one of the most important of human aptitudes. It is imagination, not necessity, that is the mother of invention. Imagination is the source of new possibilities. In the arts, imagination is a primary virtue. So it should be in the teaching of mathematics, in all of the sciences, in history, and, indeed, in virtually all that humans create. This achievement would require for its realization a culture of schooling in which the imaginative aspects of the human condition were made possible. We ought to be helping our students discover new seas upon which to sail rather than old ports at which to dock. We need schools where tasks are sufficiently open-ended allowing students to place their thumbprint upon their work without a sense of redundancy. It’s an ambitious aim I am after, but one, I think, that is critical in the long run for the well-being of the planet.”

This excerpt truly helps to tie in a lot of my thinking over the past month. As an artist myself, I am so accustomed to the idea of art and creativity being incidental rather than integral to a “productive” life after graduation. Like many others, I have been warned that my passions are not profitable, nor practical. While those who have said this to me were well meaning, the effect is to quash the impulse to creativity and daring, not just in the arts, but in all disciplines. I love the idea of the mother of invention being imagination and not necessity - it is the strange and impossible ideas, born of creativity, that have brought about the most change in our history. 

Much of my inquiry has focused on whether or not new methods of assessment will be valuable within “traditional”, or black-and-white areas of society and the world. But as I have come to associate newer methods of assessment with the support and encouragement of creativity, I am beginning to see how even traditional work and disciplines can be enhanced by a creative practice. This stretches from the free-form exploration of topics during Genius Hours, as recommended by Susan M. Drake (Interweaving Curriculum and Classroom Assessment, Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2014) to the reinvention of everyday objects that are both practical and ecologically sustainable. 

Ultimately, this article has helped me understand the connection between the new story and the importance of creativity, which I find incredibly inspirational as I move forward into my teaching practice.