Understanding

You may have noticed (or not noticed - given your life doesn't revolve around my blog posts) that I've not written for a couple of weeks. You see (hedging) - I've been waiting for a better understanding of understanding - so that I can profess to understand anything about understanding at all.

What is understanding? Here is what the Oxford dictionary online says - word-for-word:

noun

[mass noun]

• 1the ability to understand something; comprehension: foreign visitors with little understanding of English
• the power of abstract thought; intellect: a child of sufficient intelligence and understanding
• an individual’s perception or judgement of a situation: my understanding was that he would find a new supplier

• 2sympathetic awareness or tolerance: he wrote with understanding and affection of the people of Dent

• 3 [count noun] an informal or unspoken agreement or arrangement: he and I have an understanding he had only been allowed to come on the understanding that he would be on his best behaviour

adjective

• 1sympathetically aware of other people’s feelings; tolerant and forgiving: a kind and understanding man people expect their doctor to be understanding

• 2 archaic having insight or good judgement. 

Brilliant! This fits my argument perfectly. My argument, to continue from my last post, is that we cannot know anything - yet I think we can understand things. If we're dealing with people - I suggest we can't have the nouns without the adjectives. If we're to be holistic (bloody hippie) we probably need to have the power of abstract thought, insight and good judgement, sympathetic awareness and tolerance, and we need to be them.

This is my job as a teacher I think. I can't just teach people what things are. I want them to understand what things are. Or at least understand why we think things are what they are - and what everyone understands them to be - and why. This doesn't happen when people are part-time understanders. (Yes - I invented a word) I want to teach people how to be understanding. Actually, I have to change the wording around that - because I can't teach anyone how to be anything. People learn things themselves - and all we can do is plant the seeds, or show them how to plant the seeds themselves. This is what understanding is - it's personal, and it's universal - all at once.

Teaching, believe it or not, is up with the play on this philosophy now. It recognises that everything is subjective, and that our individual realities are constructed by our experiences. The key, and I'm still figuring this out, so bear with me, is to understand this in a universal context. There is a very long rabbit hole to go down with this - so watch this space!