Salty Passions

Peter Kline in The Everyday Genius makes a useful observation about how theory cleaves to practice. Theory often meditates between two practices or two aspects of a multi-player activity. Kline is concerned with the connection between thinking about learning and reflecting upon teaching:

Take a notion about learning, turn it over, and what you will see on the other side is a notion about teaching. That's because any attempt to understand learning usually derives from someone's effort to teach something. And in practice, any theory about learning worth its salt will be based on the desire to teach and the practical experiences of teaching.

The mention of salt and the divergent vision of salaries (salt payments) troubles the easy insistence on passion (sans recompense) and is worth taking with a pinch of salt. Look at how the "what" - the something that was the object of a someone's effort to teach - disappears into desire and practical experiences. Odd formulation given how very much of Kline's book leads one to observe carefully the dynamics of a situation and invites a full bodied interaction with the learning environment. What — there's the rub.

And so for day 916
16.06.2009