While reading Oliver Sacks’s THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT (I’ve been reading a section or two each day this week) this morning, I came to “On the Level.” In this chapter, a Mr. McGregor comes to the doctor with a concern. His friends all tell him that he is walking with a lean. That he has become like “The Leaning Tower of Pisa.” His friends exclaim, “One more tilt, and you’ll topple right over.” Mr. McGregor does not see this tilting and he comes to the doctor to seek out a professional opinion.
And it is immediately apparent to Dr. Sacks that the tilt IS there. But instead of marveling at the tilt, the reader sees the doctor celebrating the positive aspects of Mr. McGregor’s age, agility, and affect. This reads like a “holistic approach” coupled with “unconditional positive regard” and I am hooked by the story within two or three paragraphs.
And I like Sacks’s approach as he invites Mr. McGregor to video tape his walking to the other side of the room. Dr. Sacks says, “I want to see for myself, and I want you to see it too.” Doesn’t this sound like formative assessment with feedback? Both the practitioner and the patient are investigating together and will confer regarding the results to see what both see after the “test.”
Finished with the performance portion of the test, it is time to “go to the balcony” to assess the performance. Mr. McGregor, who we will later find has Parkinson’s Disease says, “See, no problems. I walked as straight as a die.” How many times have we handed back a test or an assessment piece that had a mark upon it that was not expected by the student based upon his or her own assessment of how they had performed. This could be called “perception,” couldn’t it?
Watching the video tape together, we see Mr. McGregor coming to terms with what he sees now outside of himself. He does not challenge what he “sees” on the screen. It is him. He is tilting. And he recognizes that what he senses and what he sees is the heart of the problem (Mr. McGregor’s actual words from the account). This is called “agency,” isn’t it? A sense of ownership now of the problem that has not be judged but presented for the purpose of correcting the posture or the position. There is no data wall upon which Mr. McGregor’s name is listed with the word “Tilted” in the next column.
Oliver Sacks introduces a term within this account. “Proprioception” comes from the Latin, proprious, meaning “one’s own”, “individual” and perception, is the sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. With my G2, I am furiously underscoring the word and what it means. I’m dog-earring the page for later reference. We have known–as a medical community–the sense of proprioception only since the 1890’s. According to the early research I have done in regard to this term, we still have much to learn about how this sense keeps us upright and moving forward with purpose.
I’m all in because I think this term speaks to something we are trying to do in Room 407. I think this proprioception will figure in–somehow–into the idea of These 4 Corners. There is something about the inner sense of the reader that would be that comes of an appreciation of how the elements of proprioception come together. Questions I am asking this afternoon include: Could our corners be tilted in the manner in which we see them? Or how we construct them? Further, is there something to the three elements of proprioception that become as important as the beams we use to construct these corners?
But these are questions for another afternoon.
Early research into the terms in regard to literacy turn up a number of references to what we might expect to find–explorations of how purposeful physical action lends to the literacy experience. And herein, we could talk about movement and the need for movement in the classroom, but I want to stay with the internal here because I am fascinated by it today.
But it is Mr. McGregor’s ability to call back his own sense of “level.” When he recounts how he worked as a carpenter and that he used “spirit levels” to assess whether a surface was level or not.
“Spirit level?”
I know that my friends who work with wood and/or carpentry are probably laughing at me (again). I had to do a Google search of “spirit levels.”
Aside: If you were counting the words here, “spirit levels” came in right at 666. Something for another afternoon, but I thought to share it with you.
There, in the Google Image Search were a number of pictures of. . .levels. Levels. “Spirit levels” are simply the levels that we see at Home Depot or Lowes or Menard’s.
And Mr. McGregor wants to know is there is a “spirit level” in the brain to which Dr. Sacks responds, “Yes.” Together, they talk about how Parkinson’s Disease can “knock out” that “spirit level.”
And here is where I am hooked.
Dr. Sacks goes on to explain that there are three secret senses that guide our sense of “level.” These include, the labyrinthine, the proprioceptive, and the visual. If you are following me to this point, you have just sensed a light bulb turning on. Right here. Right now.
The labyrinthine. . .the path
The proprioception. . .the pupil. . .the person.
The visual. . .the perception.
All three of these work together to bring into the room the “leveled” reader. What is the path this reader has been on prior to coming into the room? Has it been smooth sailing or has it been a sea of sirens that have kept this particular reader either dashed upon the rocks or avoiding stepping into the boat altogether?
And wouldn’t this say something to the inside of the reader who has just come into our classroom? How do we apply a “spirit level” to the surface of the student who has just wandered into our reading and writing workshop?
Because this is where perception will come into play. Many of those who have come into contact will have probably told this particular student that they are not a “good reader.” That one more “failure” would mean not graduating.” They have probably read all of this on a data wall in the past couple of years depending upon what time in the formative learning experience you have met them.
A pebble-pocked path can trip up the reader, especially one who has not begun to leave breadcrumbs behind. And when the walking becomes wearisome. . .the pupil will park.
When it feels like you are the only reader in the room who doesn’t “get it”. . .you will park. . .in the desk. For another year.
And the perception of “park” means that you have at least found a place.
And that place is “park.”
No movement.
And as this blog post is going long, we will continue with this idea tomorrow as we share what Dr. Sacks says about patients like Mr. McGregor and how they DO move. With strategies that include the psychological, the physical, and the perceptional.
I cannot wait to share this with you.