On Teaching: "Noticing the Background"

A friend once encouraged me to pay more attention to the “backgrounds” of life – the parts that remain relatively constant and against which the myriad, seemingly important actions of the foreground are played out. He suggested that our awareness is like a ship’s radar: we scan the world in front of us, looking for “things” that catch our attention, while ignoring the vast background behind and between the things. Our view, in that sense, is myopic. We notice the conspicuous, vibrant objects that pass before us, while remaining oblivious to the immeasurable spaces in which these objects exist. As a teacher, it is very easy for me to fall into this trap of narrow-minded vision. I often get lost in the minutiae of my teaching work – the lesson plans, the goals and objectives, the individual kids and their particular appearances and behaviors. Thus, my life in the classroom often feels like a rather chaotic dance involving countless dancers, both human and otherwise. What I lose sight of in all this minutiae is the marvelous background against which this dance is performed. There is, first of all, the physical background of our lives – first my classroom, then our community, then our planet, then the solar system, and then the endless universe. If I could, every now and then, take an inner glance at those backgrounds during my teaching, I would probably become a far more attentive and sensitive teacher. There’s also, of course, the non-physical background – the vast emotional and mental universe my students occupy. Their corporeal existence in my classroom is infinitesimally tiny compared to the psychological cosmos in which they reside. As their bodies sit before me in class, they are each like relatively small stars in an immeasurable mental sky. What my friend would advise me to do is be more attentive to this “sky”, this infinitely interesting background against which the activities of my classes take place. It would have a calming effect, I think. By becoming more “space conscious” (as one writer puts it), I would be able to relax a little more, knowing that what we are engaged in at any moment in my classroom is no more (or less) important than what the stars are engaged in as they circle through the universe, or than what grains of salt are engaged in as they swirl in the depths of the endless ocean. Remembering the background might help me to be a little less edgy, less panicky, less pushy, less noisy. Perhaps I could be a little more silent and serene, sort of like the night sky seems when I gaze up at it.