The book starts out with a story about a marble statue that was being sold for around 10 million dollars. The purchaser had some concerns about the authenticity and brought in some experts to ensure the piece was authentic. Several “experts” evaluated the statue and confirmed it as authentic. However, there were a couple of individuals that had some doubts, but couldn’t quantify their reasoning; in other words, something didn’t feel right about it. Call it gut reaction or instinct. As it turns out the statue is a fake and the purchaser gets ripped off. After a significant amount of time and reflection, those who questioned the authenticity were able to quantify the reasoning behind their first judgments, however for the longest time, they could not articulate why they felt the statue to be a fake.
This notion of instinct appears to be the start of what this book is about. A notion of -it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t look right but I don’t know why, my intuition about the matter is different than what others tell me I should know or feel. As a firefighter and paramedic, I come across instances like this where my gut reaction to perform a task is different than the standard operating procedure for the event at hand. I am intrigued about the mental processes that occur in these situations and why this occurs. What happens to make it occur? Is it possible to train for these occurrences?
A wise Language Arts teacher at my school was faced with a similar situation this past school year. We only house seventh and eighth graders. The incoming seventh graders arrive with test scores to help us place them into the appropriate math and language arts classrooms. Three times a year we progress monitor our students using Acuity. (Don't get me wrong, each day is a progress monitoring day! But the formal test of Acuity is tri annual.) She had noticed a young man struggling with Reading Comprehension. This fellow was not on an individual learning plan. He had never been tested for special ed. He had not received support for language. On a hunch, she had him take the CELA test, which is the states testing version written for ESL students. Sure enough, he tested proficient. So, she was working with a dual language student who had never been classified as ESL. Without her continual monitoring and smarts about English Language Learners, this young man would have struggled through school for the rest of his life.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ashley. Interesting how you mentioned that this interjection of the teacher was based on a hunch. The book seems to be setting up more for this notion of a hunch. What causes a hunch? How much police detective work starts with a hunch? Why do we sometimes follow our hunch and other times not? This particular instance you have mentioned worked out well however it appears that the consequences of having not done something would have lead to a very poor outcome for the student. How many students fall through the proverbial cracks because teachers don’t act on hunches? I might be expressing more questions than answers here, but hopefully this book will lean towards adding insight to some of these questions.
ReplyDeleteSomething else I consider when it comes to hunches is how do I know it is valid. How do you evaluate the hunch. Overall I am an intuitive person and try to acknowledge the strong hunches. When is it appropriate to go with the hunch. I think getting to know your own thinking and emotions can help. I am looking forward to reading more Charles.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem to start with the Socractic belief of “knowing thyself”
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