Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Processes

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I have been thinking about thinking, and found this useful taxonomy by Benjamin Bloom, who in 1956 devised a taxonomy to discriminate between levels of cognitive thinking. The article notes that although the original intention of the taxonomy was to facilitate communication between educators and psychologists in the area of test construction, research and curriculum development, it has been found to be useful in distinguishing areas of study and classroom activities based on the taxonomy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy consists of six levels:

Knowledge
Recall or recognition of specific information

Comprehension
Understanding of information given

Application
Using methods, concepts, principles and theories in new situations

Analysis
Breaking information down into its constituent elements

Synthesis
Putting together constituent elements or parts to form a whole requiring original, creative thinking.

Evaluation
Judging the value of ideas, materials, and methods by developing and applying standards and criteria

There’s a path from the lower-to-higher level thinking, knowledge to evaluation which can be led by teachers through the use questioning, discussion and tasks.

The article also notes that while students need to be exposed to experiences at all levels of the Taxonomy, opportunities to work at more advanced levels are vital for gifted students. Often their advanced knowledge and comprehension skills enable them to progress more rapidly to higher levels of thinking, such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

n+1 article: Yarmouk Miniatures

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Last night I read an article, Yarmouk Miniatures, appearing in Issue 23 of n+1 magazine, which made the situation in Syria vivid for me in a way that the none of the news and articles I’ve read ever did. I visited Syria long ago, and spent a lot of time in particular in Aleppo, now all but destroyed. The people were kinder than any I had met in my travels, anywhere and it was a magical country, living under, even then, a harsh regime.

The article, written by English writer Matthew McNaught, tells the story of how he got to know many Syrians in Yarmouk when he was living there and learning Arabic. He tells of the teacher, Mazen, his parties, and the social circle surrounding him, and especially of the books Mazen had him read. One of these was Historical Miniatures by Sa’dallah Wannous, a playwright, who wrote political theatre. Mazen told McNaught that the miniatures of the title referred to detailed paintings celebrating legendary warriors and great battles and were meant to validate imperial rule and their domination of other peoples. Mazen explained:

Wannous…wanted to play with this convention. He chose a setting straight out of these victors’ narratives but passed over the buff men lopping off heads, the battles, the imperial pomp and ceremony. Instead, he portrayed the people usually left outside the frame of history. The quiet silk weaver and his wife. The refugee girl who cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy to escape exploitation. The trader finding ways to discreetly profit from war. The religious leaders, united in their pious public rhetoric, each picking out his own private compromise among convictions, self-interest, and fear.

The stories of those people that I met in the streets of Syria all those years ago are the people we care about, not the “people” who are abstracted away in the nightly news. The article was illuminating, and if you subscribe to n+1, in itself a great magazine, you can get access to all the digital versions. Here is one of the stories McNaught relates from Historical Miniatures, The Silk Weaver:

A small house within the city walls. A young couple, Marwan and Khadija, are arguing. They have heard the news of the approaching armies and are discussing the choice that lies ahead of them. Khadija wants to stay. “I’d rather be with our own people and meet our fate together than beg on some foreign street. We’ll lose everything if we go. The house, your workshop and loom.” But for Marwan, the uncertainty of flight is preferable to the certainty of violence and destruction if they stay. He has heard of the savagery in Aleppo. He is a silk weaver, not a soldier, and the prospect of taking up arms against Tamerlane’s armies seems absurd and suicidal. The argument goes back and forth until Khadija takes Marwan by the hand. ‘‘I’m tired of all this argument and hesitation,” she says. “Since dawn we’ve been torturing ourselves. If you’ve made your decision, let’s just leave. The bags are already packed. Go and pray. I’ll get dressed.”

Marwan holds on to Khadija, whispering words of adoration, pleading with her to come back to the bedroom: “Just let me taste your sweet honey before we leave.” Khadija wriggles out of his embrace: “Not now, Marwan!” She starts dragging bags to the front door. “Look, are we leaving or not?” Moments later, there is a knock at the door. It is Khadija’s brother Ahmed. He tells them that the city gates have been locked. All travel is forbidden. The palace guard has been ordered to fortify the citadel and arm all men of military age. They have missed their last chance to leave.

More reading:

Syria Speaks, an anthology of recent writing from Syria, including the work of Ali Ferzat, Samar Yazbek, Khaled Khalifa and Robin Yassin-Kassab.

Teachers dislike creative children

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Do teachers dislike creative children in spite of their assertions to the contrary? 96% of teachers say that daily classroom time should be dedicated to creative thinking. And yet they seem biased against the very children whose thinking is most creative. At school, creative children are punished rather than rewarded, and the system seems designed to extinguish creativity. In spite of all the lip service.

The characteristics that teachers value in the classroom are those associated with the lowest levels of creativity. Teachers want students to be responsible, reliable, dependable, clear-thinking, tolerant, understanding, peaceable, good-natured, moderate, steady, practical and logical. Creativity is not moderate or logical. It is associated with characteristics such as determined, independent and individualistic, people who make up the rules as she goes along, divergent rather than conformist ways of thinking. You can read some of the research in this article.

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For good reason Ken Robinson’s talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity? is the most viewed talk on the TED web site. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original,” he says, and rightness and wrongness, as anyone who has ever received a graded paper can attest, is the very backbone of education.

The gulf between rhetoric and reality isn’t really that surprising.  It’s nearly impossible for a teacher, outnumbered by his charges, to help the rebels and mavericks flourish in an environment requiring more supervision than vision. The system is set up for teachers to prefer the obedient.

 

Eileen Myles, an interview and a poem

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Eileen-Myles-WEBIt was with great satisfaction, and not without amusement that I read several recent interviews with and profiles of Eileen Myles, a poet who has always been much beloved, but who has only recently become the kind of poet profiled by the New York Times. I am always happy to see poets given big profiles in the mainstream press; right after this, I found another profile in The New Yorker. In this brief interview, from the Talk column in the Sunday Magazine, there was so much to love:

Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy. It’s like the un-Trump: The poet is the charismatic loser. You’re the fool in Shakespeare; you’re the loose cannon. As things get worse, poetry gets better, because it becomes more necessary.

Which is not unlike what Ursula LeGuin said recently in the speech she gave upon receiving an award from the National Book Awards. Myles’ hyperbole is funny:

I think it would be a great time for men, basically, to go on vacation. There isn’t enough work for everybody. Certainly in the arts, in all genres, I think that men should step away. I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years.

Myles ran for President a while back, as the first “openly female” candidate. This poem, related, is from her 1991 collection Not Me published by (semiotexte), An American Poem. It as satisfying much like her interview is satisfying: she says things that are profound, necessary, hyperbolic, and funny. Her poetry is accessible, and down to earth:

An American Poem

BY EILEEN MYLES

I was born in Boston in
1949. I never wanted
this fact to be known, in
fact I’ve spent the better
half of my adult life
trying to sweep my early
years under the carpet
and have a life that
was clearly just mine
and independent of
the historic fate of
my family. Can you
imagine what it was
like to be one of them,
to be built like them,
to talk like them
to have the benefits
of being born into such
a wealthy and powerful
American family. I went
to the best schools,
had all kinds of tutors
and trainers, traveled
widely, met the famous,
the controversial, and
the not-so-admirable
and I knew from
a very early age that
if there were ever any
possibility of escaping
the collective fate of this famous
Boston family I would
take that route and
I have. I hopped
on an Amtrak to New
York in the early
‘70s and I guess
you could say
my hidden years
began. I thought
Well I’ll be a poet.
What could be more
foolish and obscure.
I became a lesbian.
Every woman in my
family looks like
a dyke but it’s really
stepping off the flag
when you become one.
While holding this ignominious
pose I have seen and
I have learned and
I am beginning to think
there is no escaping
history. A woman I
am currently having
an affair with said
you know  you look
like a Kennedy. I felt
the blood rising in my
cheeks. People have
always laughed at
my Boston accent
confusing “large” for
“lodge,” “party”
for “potty.” But
when this unsuspecting
woman invoked for
the first time my
family name
I knew the jig
was up. Yes, I am,
I am a Kennedy.
My attempts to remain
obscure have not served
me well. Starting as
a humble poet I
quickly climbed to the
top of my profession
assuming a position of
leadership and honor.
It is right that a
woman should call
me out now. Yes,
I am a Kennedy.
And I await
your orders.
You are the New Americans.
The homeless are wandering
the streets of our nation’s
greatest city. Homeless
men with AIDS are among
them. Is that right?
That there are no homes
for the homeless, that
there is no free medical
help for these men. And women.
That they get the message
—as they are dying—
that this is not their home?
And how are your
teeth today? Can
you afford to fix them?
How high is your rent?
If art is the highest
and most honest form
of communication of
our times and the young
artist is no longer able
to move here to speak
to her time…Yes, I could,
but that was 15 years ago
and remember—as I must
I am a Kennedy.
Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys?
This nation’s greatest city
is home of the business-
man and home of the
rich artist. People with
beautiful teeth who are not
on the streets. What shall
we do about this dilemma?
Listen, I have been educated.
I have learned about Western
Civilization. Do you know
what the message of Western
Civilization is? I am alone.
Am I alone tonight?
I don’t think so. Am I
the only one with bleeding gums
tonight. Am I the only
homosexual in this room
tonight. Am I the only
one whose friends have
died, are dying now.
And my art can’t
be supported until it is
gigantic, bigger than
everyone else’s, confirming
the audience’s feeling that they are
alone. That they alone
are good, deserved
to buy the tickets
to see this Art.
Are working,
are healthy, should
survive, and are
normal. Are you
normal tonight? Everyone
here, are we all normal.
It is not normal for
me to be a Kennedy.
But I am no longer
ashamed, no longer
alone. I am not
alone tonight because
we are all Kennedys.
And I am your President.

Right? She is the partner of Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent, who said  of Myles:

I see Eileen as a wayward walking country minister posing as a dyke poet. Her mind is the most expansive mind I’ve ever had the pleasure of being in contrast to. There is no thought or impulse of mine, be it revolutionary, feminist, radical, dirty, beautiful, silly, abstract or murderous, that feels ugly. That totally frees me up to say to myself: more, more, more.

Plus that great gummy smile. Myles is the author of a novel, Chelsea Girls, recently reissued, and the collection of poetry ‘I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975 – 2014.

Doubt in Buddhism

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“Doubt is the fifth of the five hindrances to insight in meditation teaching, writes Sharon Salzburg, in a post about doubting.”  The other hindrances, grasping, aversion, sleepiness, and restlessness are easier to see than doubt, she says, as it “often disguises itself to us as something skillful, like a brilliant thought.” Brilliant thoughts are often the crafty method used to avoid difficult things such as acceptance or understanding.

Salzburg’s post provides these other thoughts: “Don’t believe anything. See for yourself what’s true,” from Buddha, which, like much great wisdom, come across as obvious, a platitude, but is not. And I was also struck by what Salzburg’s guru said in response to some students going off and trying out other gurus, “The dharma (the truth, the nature of things, the way or the path to freedom) doesn’t suffer from comparison.”

Ellen Cantor at the Wattis

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There are only a few days left to see the Ellen Cantor show at the Wattis, curated by Jamie Stevens and Fatima Hellberg.

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Jamie Stevens writes, in an introduction to the show:

A prolific artist who lived between New York and London, Cantor combined ready–made materials with diaristic notes and drawings to probe her perceptions and experiences of personal desire and institutional violence.

In her drawings, paintings, collages, and videos, Cantor lifted characters and sequences from iconic films, reorienting the ideological transmissions of the source material. Fictional figures from Disney cartoons, cult horror films, New Wave cinema, and family movies provide a visual foil to Cantor’s intimate disclosures. Magnetized by the doeful naivety of characters such as Snow White and Bambi, Cantor would, in her drawings, extend their narrative horizons to include vivid sexual encounters and crisis–ridden relationships.

For the final eight years of her life, Cantor was working on the feature–length film Pinochet Porn. Originally a suite of drawings named Circus Lives from Hell (2005), Pinochet Porn is an episodic narrative about five children growing up under the regime of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Featuring a cast of close friends and collaborators, and shot in New York and London, Pinochet Porn stages a libidinal critique of the systematic and sadistic destruction of self–expression and experience.

The Wattis is one of the best things about the San Francisco art scene–Anthony Huberman moved out here from P.S.1. in New York just over a year ago, and was joined by Jamie Stevens, formerly of the Serpentine Gallery in London, who are doing great work bringing artists to San Francisco who’ve yet to have big solo shows in the U.S. or West Coast. I am looking forward to the upcoming Wang Bing show as well.

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