Formative child, finished adult?

Stories like Narnia deserve to be taken very seriously because what we read as children is perhaps the most important literature we ever encounter. We're then at a formative stage of life. "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world" goes the saying. And if that's true, what about the hand that holds the bedtime fairy-tale? For that matter, what about the hand that writes the bedtime fairy-tale?

Michael Ward, The Narnia Code

Introduction to "Children's literature: new approaches"

Lesnik-Oberstein, K. n. (2004). Children's literature : new approaches / edited by Karín Lesnik-Oberstein, Palgrave Macmillan.

Normally I try to wait to read an entire book before I start a summary, but I find I cannot do that on this occasion. I have so far read only the introduction, but feel compelled to weigh in with my own personal memories before they overwhelm me.

Karín Lesnik-Oberstein has one of the most phenomenal minds I have ever encountered. She has laser focus and is able to discern and analyse complex arguments seemingly at a glance. And, wonderfully, she has the rare ability to share her understanding. She is an energetic and passionate teacher with patience to help students as they slowly evolve in their thinking. I have seen her walk past a classroom in which we, as a class, sat, waiting for a teacher who had not arrived. Quickly sizing up the situation, she came in, sat down, and picked up a copy of the week’s text, which she had never before encountered. She asked us to start a discussion, and then promptly weighed in with some of the most insightfully relevant comments and queries I have encountered. Throughout my whole whirlwind encounter with the University of Reading, I felt that I was in the presence of a force of nature; this, to me, was the true essence of academic learning.

I had the rare privilege of having her as my MA dissertation supervisor, and then, briefly, as my PhD supervisor. I feel that any academic muscle I might once have built (since lost through lack of use), I gained from her and her colleagues. And then I quit. I knew at the time that I was mad to do so; I know it now. In quitting my PhD, I gave up a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn to the limits of my capability and beyond. And yet, there was no other decision I could have made.

Karín opened up for me the exciting possibilities of reading across disciplines, across boundaries. She revealed limitless vistas and rejected stolid, easy answers. And so, why did I feel so limited, so hamstrung? The more study I did, the more I knew that I could not continue, nor usefully contribute to knowledge, without first answering this question for myself. It is still the question I set for myself, and I begin to think that it is the question of my life, the answer to which I will forever seek, and to which I may never quite glimpse the answer. Doubtless, it is really the question I am seeking in my current “research”, as I revisit my old PhD ideas. I am reminded of I robot, in which the protagonist seeks help from the necessarily cryptic memory fragments of his murdered friend. The friend, prior to his death, was able to record clues, but, for fear of discovery, not to answer questions directly. Instead, as the protagonist flounders in frustration, the computer program interjects at key points with “And that is the right question.” Now as I in turn blindly seek, I feel the memory-ghost of Karín gently nudging me towards more rigorous self scrutiny. What is the question I am seeking to answer and why? What choices and assumptions do I therefore make and how might this affect the way I view information, and indeed what I view as information?

And so to the introduction of Children’s literature: new approaches, a copy of which I was privileged to receive from Karín herself when I was still at Reading. I opened the book asking myself “new”? What does she mean by that? And of course, the first chapter is devoted entirely to that question. She argues that many authors have addressed the issue of how theory might work for or apply to children’s literature, an apparently simple and transparent field. Is there a meaningful and useful separation between professional enquiry (e.g. librarianship, teaching) and academic criticism? Many have claimed to offer a new approach, and yet all have held ultimately the same goal: how to find the right book for the right reader at the right time and for the right reasons. One issue that emerges for Karín (I know I should respectfully write “Lesnik-Oberstein” rather than “Karín”, but it just feels too unnatural at this stage) is the question of whether it is in fact possible to have a new approach when the goal remains fundamentally unchanged. Karín argues that ultimately, it is not. Another issue, of course, is the possibility of there being any sensible way of defining “the” reader or “the” book in any generalised sense. In the introduction, she concentrates on two authors as examples: Roderick McGillis and David Rudd.

Echoing my own earlier observations, Karín notes that both McGillis and Peter Hunt believe that “there are processes in reading which are somehow unavailable to the reader, but something of which the reader can be made aware, and that this is what theory does.” (p. 6). In fact, “McGillis discerns two types of readers: ‘innocent readers’ who are ‘imposed upon by what we read,… powerless to escape the enforced quiescence reading can put upon us’, and readers who have been taught theory as a way to ‘end their innocence’” (p. 6). I find the power attributions here quite astonishing: the average reader is seen as a stunningly helpless creature, even a perpetual victim, with text as a powerful tool or weapon. At the same time, there is the further power imbalance created, not by the text, but by the “expert” who can lead the reader out of “innocence” and into understanding. How does the expert become the expert, able to authoritatively lead the average reader along the path of knowledge? And if the reader is generally so naïve and helpless, who is to say that the expert does in fact have the “true” understanding?

Rudd appears also to hold similar views on the power of language, as he asserts that "certain ways of talking about a subject… actually form that subject… certain ways of speaking become naturalized and literally 'in-form' our thoughts, our way of addressing issues" (p. 14). Language and discourse thus become the essential moulders of our lives and world view. Rudd seeks to resolve the problem of the “constructed” child by addressing “real” children, and seeking their views on the books they read. As Karín asks, if the adult is generally acknowledged by Rudd to “construct” the child, how, by surveying children, does he believe to have escaped from the construction in order to access the “real” child in a way that most adult critics can’t? As Karín points out:

What kind of account could any child - any reader at all - possibly provide that would, first of all, account for the taste, emotional response and memory of any other reader according to any given similarity attributed to them (gender, age, ethnic group, etc.)? And secondly, how could any such account, even given that it existed, be seen in exactly the same way by that reader (is there only one, consistent, eternal account of a reader and a reading?), every critic and every other reader? (p. 19)

Finally, at the end of the chapter, Karín returns to the subject of the book, the reason why she, in turn, claims that the book authors’ approach is “new”. McGillis, Rudd and many others, seek finally to solve “the mystery of children’s literature” - answer the puzzle, once and for all. Children’s literature: new approaches seeks fundamentally to shift this focus, in fact precisely “not to stabilize, to end, meaning” (p. 20). She provides an example from psychotherapeutic therapy, inadvertently simultaneously addressing my own question about my lack of ability to feel satisfied by the rigorous academic training I once had the privilege to absorb:

'not knowing' is seen as an essential element of a making sense which therapy is, a toleration which is essential to a recognition that meaning - both of the patient and the therapist - is not stable, consistent and there-to-be-found, but that it is continually being created. (p. 20)

Certainly, in my own counselling, I am constantly both astonished and delighted by the continually evolving and flowing meanings that emerge and shift as I place memories, thoughts and beliefs into new contexts, in relation to new people and situations, and to accommodate new information or understanding. Why, then, can I not fully embrace the possibility of a similar approach to my study? I think of Paley and The girl with the brown crayon. Part of what delighted me in this book was the fact that Paley approached her teaching with the knowledge that she could not predict the meanings that her children would create from their interactions or readings. Each story had to be addressed as a question, with the children as active agents in defining the meaning of the story for themselves as individuals, and for the class as a social body. Would those meanings remain stable or alter over time? Paley did not know, and did not try to set the agenda. Nor did she have a preconceived notion of what the children would make of the concept of an author study, or how they would deal with the idea of author-behind-the-text. Would the different stories become one, larger story, or not? Paley set out on a voyage of discovery, and allowed herself her own meanings, complementary to or in opposition to those of the rest of her class. And she knew that these would change over time, and that the next year’s students would choose different stories, based on their own particular needs, interests and group dynamic, and have different dominant themes and motifs.

That is how I want to see the world Karín offers. And yet I don’t. In the introduction to this book, she outlines some of the difficulties inherent in seeking to stabilise meaning, or to attempt to generalise about reading or childhood. But, having highlighted such a crucial point, where to? What I found in my study at Reading was that, in the same way that other critics might endlessly seek to answer the same question of how to find the right book for the right child, the new reading I was doing seemed endlessly to re-problematise the same issues. I use the word “problematise” deliberately; for me it was about finding the problems in thinking, not only in the work of others, but in one’s own work. But, crucially important as this is, on an ongoing basis, naïvely I ask, is this all that there is? Having highlighted the difficulties with our thinking, are we condemned ever to repeat the same re-problematising loops of thought? Or is there another way in which we can hold onto the fluidity and instability of created meaning? In my own reading of Paley, I see her, not as analysing difficulties, but as embracing and celebrating the joyous, unstable and transient knowledge of the moment. What is the new approach to children’s literature criticism?

"Forbidden fruit"

McNicol, S. (2008). Forbidden fruit : the censorship of literature and information for young people : conference proceedings / Sarah McNicol (editor), BrownWalker Press.

[reproduced from lybrary.com]

The 2008 conference on the censorship of children’s literature (which I would have loved to have attended but couldn’t), brought together a multidisciplinary and multinational group of professionals approaching censorship from perspectives as diverse as public librarianship to linguistics. Each presenter therefore focused on different aspects of text and readership, from the obvious forms of book banning, to the more subtle issues of self-selection and translation of cultural references. What perhaps did not receive much direct attention, is what the relationship might be between text and reader, or between intended audience and actual reading.

Lucy Pearson uses two texts, Young mother (1965) and Forever (1975) as an indicator of the change in social attitudes across a decade, but perhaps what strikes most resonatingly for me is not the difference depicted between the 60s and the 70s, but the contrasting sense of “then and now” that highlights the constructedness of our ideals of morality. For example, in the apparently progressive Forever, all responsibility to avoid pregnancy appears to lie with the female protagonist, Katherine. More disturbingly, in Young mother, the protagonist, Pat, is held accountable for the poor moral choices that led to her pregnancy; “moral choices” that would now more likely be described as rape. The assumptions behind these responsibilities are not explored, reminding Pearson, and me, of how rarely we recognise the assumptions underlying our own values, and of the fact that our sense of reality is largely possible through contrast and contradiction. Pearson’s essay is, for me, a cautionary tale in relation to my own explorations of a theme, and I recognise myself as a link in a chain that will one day doubtless be seen as woefully biased and limited in the light of hindsight. And what do I mean by that? Am I suggesting a progressive linearity of continuing evolution for the better? I suspect there are some interesting assumptions in there that could stand dissection!

In two separate papers, Chapman & Wright (UK) and Harter (US) tackle the provision of LGBT materials for young people in libraries. What immediately strikes me from Chapman and Wright’s paper is the emphasis on the educational, bibliotherapeutic and demographically reflective value of texts. Within the context of provision of materials, the texts appear to be viewed, not as art or thought or new idea, but as a vehicle for reflecting, explaining and assisting people to accept and adjust to reality. The value of text therefore becomes both didactic and representational; it should encourage the values of inclusivity and self-acceptance:

Data on the current situation in schools suggest that there is a need to tackle homophobia and to provide positive information for young people who are LGBT or questioning their sexuality. (p. 21)

The role of literature therefore becomes to help people to feel good about themselves. Much as I personally applaud the values of inclusivity and tolerance implied by the essay, and would want to support the aims of reducing the incidence of negative mental health outcomes related to poor self-image as a result of homophobia etc, I can’t help but wonder at the level of censorship or “positive selection” involved in thus deciding the role of the library and of literature in the lives of assumed readers. Why, specifically, should literature have to “be” anything or fulfil a particular role or purpose?

Harter follows a very similar theme from a US perspective, citing Devon Thomas:

If we read to discover new worlds, we also read to find ourselves. (p. 42)

For me, this feels very personally true, as I define myself by both similarity and contrast, by my own evolving process of selection, both of texts themselves, and by what I choose to draw from each text I read. But is it the responsibility of the writer to help me achieve that? What is the relationship between writer and reader? Is there one, or are the processes somewhat exclusive?

Harter appears to put his own views fairly firmly on the table with his use of language, when, for example, he contrasts the “widely held view” (usually biblically connected) that homosexuality is a choice, with:

the most reputable U.S. social and scientific organizations that have weighed in on this debate present the view that homosexuality is not a personal choice, but an innate trait (p. 43) (emphasis mine)

The Bible and popular belief do not stand up well against the depiction of “reputable” organisations. However, having come up with an argument against the “it’s a choice” campaign, it is interesting that he then feels the need to use this as his justification for the inclusion of LGBT materials on library bookshelves. On pages 45-46, he goes on to discuss the importance of serving the “needs of a select group of children…” LGBT themes are thus seen to relate to a particular minority of readers, rather than to any general readership. The unspoken sentiment appears to be that, if non-conformist sexualities (and presumably also transgender identifications) were not an innate, unchangeable trait, then the book banners might have a better argument. In other words, an LGBT lifestyle is deemed to be okay because it’s something that can’t be helped, perhaps like a disability. What, then, are acceptable choices, and does literature have a responsibility to choose and promote these? And is it assumed that we will only wish to read reflections of ourselves for our own bibliotherapeutic benefit?

Ioanna Kaliakatsou examines attempts in Greece to control rather than ban the discourse in relation to themes such as sexuality. She quotes Foucault:

Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but it [is] possible to thwart it. (p. 87)

Interestingly, she also points to evidence that text can influence social attitudes and behaviours:

When Goethe's Werther was published, there was an accompanying wave of suicides, while a series of women readers turned to daydreaming in imitation of Flaubert's romantic heroine, Madame Bovary. The cultural suspicion that the fiction has the power to threat social institutions clearly revealed by Lawrence Stone who states that 'The romantic novel of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries has much to answer for in the way of disastrous love affairs and of imprudent and unhappy marriages'. (p. 77)

By contrast with Chapman & Wright and Harter, Kaliakatsou paints a picture, not of literature reflecting and validating reality, but of literature connecting to or creating desires, that readers then attempt to turn into reality (with apparently varied outcomes). If this is true, it is perhaps then not surprising that the Greek government and other authority institutions might wish to control the expression of desire through careful portrayal of acceptable outlets for that desire. I am reminded of Rose’s exposure of UK education attempts to shape a nation according to its economic and social requirements.

This point is reinforced by Evangelia Moula, who states that “Every act of reading is basically political.” (p. 92). What I find interesting about this statement is that it is not the texts themselves that are political, but the act of reading. This is an interesting contrast with other papers which talk about the importance of supplying materials for a specific target audience. Moula’s statement appears to divorce the text from the actual process and outcomes of reading. It suggests personal agency, with power to the reader to create and shape meaning, and to situate that meaning within a societal context with implications for social norms. This, however, contrasts with official retellings of Greek classics in an attempt to control what messages children will read. In this, Moula reinforces Kaliakatsou on the felt need to control the discourse. And yet:

A text is considered to be classic when each generation discovers in it something new. In other words it is the text which supports different points of view and different kinds of perceptiveness in various times… canonical works are supposed to remain always new, inexhaustibly open to fresh interpretations. (p. 91)

There is an obvious irony between the depiction of “the canon”, chosen by academics and “experts” to represent the inexhaustibly fresh, and the definition of what constitutes a classic or canonical text. The relationship between attempted imposition of message and the ability of the individual to freely and innovatively interpret material appears to be uneasy and unresolved.

Power of attraction

Things that are banned instantly become more interesting than they ever were before.

Damian Harvey

What is safe?

By pure chance I happened to catch the end of a news item on TV tonight. Parents were expressing concern over the content of stories being read to their preschool children, such as A tale of two daddies. One mother stated that she does not send her child to preschool to learn about homosexuality or sexuality. I must admit, I never have been able to understand this perspective. For that matter, I don’t even understand what it has to do with sex. What’s the difference between referring to “Daddy and Daddy” and referring to “Daddy and Mummy”? And how is the one somehow about sex while the other, presumably, is not? I don’t remember ever hearing of a book being challenged on the grounds that it mentions a child’s mother and father, thereby implying a sexual relationship. Why are two fathers lucky enough to be about sex while a mother and a father are labelled only as parents?

I seriously, seriously, just don’t get it. I never have, since I was a child, and my father first tried to explain the concept of homosexuality to me (it was a storyline in Cop Shop) and why it might be considered a problem (I wonder what he’d say to me now?!). I mean, who cares who the parents are? Whether they be mothers, fathers, gender-queer parents or whatever label; whether they be one, two, three or more? Personally I’d rather know that the child feels loved, safe, curious about life and able to learn, explore and develop with a sense that it is safe to be itself.

In order to understand why people feel so strongly about censorship, I am therefore trying to challenge myself by use of an extreme example: child pornography. I’ll admit that it has never occurred to me to feel indignant at the censorship of child pornography. Why? Because I accept the extraordinarily high likelihood of harm to children from engagement in adult-level sexual activity. I must therefore admit to an instinct to ban self expression if it is likely to result in / promote activities that are harmful to someone. The sobering extrapolation is, of course, that many people genuinely believe that certain ideas, and certain people, are harmful by their very nature. And that makes me feel very uncomfortable. Not to mention immensely sad. How shall we decide what is or is not okay? Is it even possible? And who will suffer the consequences of our choices?

Ways of knowing: Crago and Devereaux

Crago, H. (2012). "A tale of two hemispheres: Psychotherapy, psychology and the divided brain." Psychotherapy in Australia 18(4): pp. 58-65.

Devereaux, L. (2008). Between you and me: Reaching for understanding in anthropology and analysis. The uses of subjective experience: A weekend of conversations between ANZSJA analysts and academics who work with Jung's ideas. Melbourne, Australia, Australian & New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts: pp. 45-73.

When my counsellor gave me an article to read, I did not realise (and, presumably, neither did she), that she was handing me at last the answer to the powerful question of why I failed to complete my PhD. The article, by Hugh Crago, uses as its inspiration Ian McGilchrist’s The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world. It argues for the importance of the left and right hemispheres of the brain working in conjunction with each other, and describes the dangers of one hemisphere dominating over the other. Crago’s subject is psychotherapy, but his depiction of the current dominance of left-brain thinking in our culture, and of the marginalisation of right-brain thinkers, speaks to a wider context.

With amused and guilty delight I read the following:

Because words are separate from, and only 'represent' the real-world things to which they refer, the left hemisphere can spin off easily into a self-referential universe, and delude itself that this 'world', created by itself, is the only 'reality'. p. 61

I started to read on, then stopped. Surely what I was reading was a perfect description of post modernism? I had been here. I had lived it for four years, through a Masters degree and the beginnings of a PhD. I recognised this beast! Sure enough, on the very next page:

[McGilchrist] points out repeatedly that, on its own, the left hemisphere veers off in a deeply worrying direction, building systems of thought (and practice) that claim universal validity, but are increasingly out of touch with the reality of human beings and the world in which they live. For McGilchrist, both Modernism and Postmodernism (with obvious exceptions, such as Picasso), are examples. p. 62

After my training in critical thinking, such a statement sounds blissfully like blasphemy. I was thrown back into a world I struggled to comprehend; a world full of wonder, insight and possibility, and yet strangely unsatisfying. It was like an abstract concept, lacking form and substance. It needed context. The more I studied, the more fascinated and yet empty I managed to feel, and the more frustrated. I began to read from other critical perspectives, looking for a more complete picture, and failing to find it. I would find it in individuals, such as David Rudd, but not in any particular discipline or school of thought. And I could not work out what made the difference, for me, between a David Rudd, and a brilliant post modern thinker.

Now I suspect I have my answer. What I could intuit, but not describe, was that the wonderful work I was reading was, for me, lacking context - lacking body. And ironically, I discover, my former analyst, Leslie Devereaux, has also written on the same topic, but only now do I make the connection:

what a relief it was to find a philosophical attitude to knowing that grounded itself in experience, and investigated its conditions! - that took advantage of Kant's realisation that however wondrous human conscious is, and it is, it is nonetheless housed in bodies and sense organs and an embodied mind that gives it access to the world. No body: no mind. No embodied mind: no knowing. How humiliating is that to the project of limitless rationality hoping to become God?. p. 46

She writes of the strange disconnect between the lived experience and the ways in which we try to apprehend that experience:

Anthropology, as well as analysis, knows that people do not actually live in the conceptual, but in the daily, the totally contingent. But we think, we assess and we evaluate ourselves against the conceptual. p. 47

and

Literacy is a process whereby the thinker becomes aware of his own thoughts as an entity, as an abstraction. Writing fixes the idea, transforming the evanescent world of sound to the quiescent, semi-permanent world of space. It allows analysis to free itself from context and to develop generalising and universalising tendencies. And print, far more than mere writing, completes the separation of the knower from the known. Printed text creates finality and closure, and presents thought as a commodity in the manufacture and discursive shaping of the text, and in conventions of form. Thus the lifeworld has lost its place in the academy to analytical abstraction.  p. 57

Here at last I have my answer. Post modern thinking gave me tools with which to open and explore the universe. It then left me there, with no instruction, indeed no permission, to do anything with what I found. What I instinctively felt the need of, was to complete the circle, as described by Crago:

Key to McGilchrist's concept is that while the right hemisphere can take in new information direct from the surrounding world, and then pass it on to the left hemisphere, the left can only process what it already knows. p. 62

"The case of Peter Pan"

Rose, J. (1984). The case of Peter Pan, or, The impossibility of children's ficton / Jacqueline Rose, Macmillan.

I was introduced to Jacqueline Rose during the theory unit of my Masters degree. I quickly discovered that she is the person to quote for anything to do with children’s literature and her work is the aspirational standard. At least, apparently. In actual fact, I notice that while everybody references her, I have yet to see any in-depth analysis or comment on her work (though that may be because I haven’t read much). For my own part, I wouldn’t dare analyse her work - I am too far from understanding it. I have now read the book twice, and was pleasantly surprised on the second reading to discover that a few more grains of wisdom passed through to me. If I read the book about ten more times over the next twenty years, I might passably be able to claim that I have a nodding acquaintance with her ideas (at least enough of an understanding that only the elite might call me out).

The interesting thing about reading Rose is that, because she is the person to quote, there is a distinct sense of pressure to do so. Academia provides its own standards and norms for acceptability, subject to the theoretical perspectives espoused. And then, within children’s literature, you stand or fall by your ability to come to grips with Rose. I wonder how it feels to be in a position like that of Rose? Since I am not attempting in any way, shape or form to compete on academic terms, I have a temptation to rebel against received wisdom. The trouble is, Rose makes sense. I don’t understand her work, but I find it both compelling and exciting. My imagination fails as I try to ponder what it would be like to have a mind as capable of complex thinking as hers. And so, of course, I have to include her.

Unsurprisingly, Rose explores the use of children’s literature as an attempt to shape child development. She provides examples from the English Board of Education, demonstrating the change in stance towards children’s education across the twentieth century. She documents the ways in which the board explicitly set out to dictate the type of language that would be taught to children, with education style divided according to class lines. In the early part of the century, the privately taught, middle class child was encouraged to learn the abstract language of literature, while this form of thinking, speaking and writing was actively discouraged for the working class. The children of this (less / more fortunate ?) class were to be taught to think and describe concrete objects and ideas only, with written language being subordinate to the spoken. Amusingly, this strategy ultimately proved to be maladaptive as the century progressed, as a requirement emerged for a workforce with more complex language skills. But Rose makes clear the deliberate use of language by the government to differentiate and shape its people according to its perceived needs. Books were also carefully chosen and used as prizes, “with the book as a reward for a correctness which it is intended to encourage” (p. 105).

However, Rose does not stop at the level of describing the educational and economic manipulations of language and literature. She points to the desire of the adult for the child in some complex fashion (although, while the concept of “the child” is extensively analysed, I did not see much to define what “the adult” might be):

It will not be an issue here of what the child wants, but of what the adult desires - desires in the very act of construing the child as the object of its speech (p. 2)

For Rose, the adult has an investment in what the child represents; the child is seen as a gateway, making the child disturbingly valuable, not for and of itself, but for what it can offer to the adult. She describes a mythic concept of “the child” and its connection to “nature”, as described by Rousseau and others:

Children’s fiction has never completely severed its links with a philosophy which sets up the child as a pure point of origin in relation to language, sexuality and the state (p. 8)

Despite Freud’s work on the problematic and inherently deceptive nature of language, emphasis is, according to Rose, placed on the innocence and primitive nature of the child, setting it up as the gateway back to an apparently pure point of origin, not only moral, but linguistic. Rose suggests a desire for a perfect and unproblematic mode of communication and of being, in which words can have simple, absolute and non-deceptive meanings, with the child (conveniently universalised across all classes) being used as the representational aspiration to:

a primitive or lost state to which the child has special access. The child is, if you like, something of a pioneer who restores these worlds to us, and gives them back to us with a facility or directness which ensures that our own relationship to them is, finally, safe (p. 9)

Dawkins and Jensen both discuss the ways in which society may attempt to shape its future generations. Rose goes further, by attempting to examine why this might be so. More than merely a desire for the material success of a society, Rose suggests that her undefined “adult” needs the concept of “the child” as a bridge to something which it believes it has lost, but which, in fact, never existed in the first place.

"Lesbian epiphanies"

Jensen, K. L. (1999). Lesbian epiphanies : women coming out in later life / Karol L. Jensen, Harrington Park Press.

As with Dawkins, I did not pick up Jensen with any thought of incorporating her into my research question. But this is one book I am glad I picked up. In the back of my mind, vaguely, I could see the importance of considering child development theory in my work. It is a research area so far largely unexplored by me. Now, having read about the power of societal values and attitudes to profoundly impact upon basic self knowledge and identity, I realise that the question of the power of words is encompassed within a much broader and more complex picture than I had envisaged, one in which I cannot ignore the contributions of areas such as sociology and cultural studies.

Lesbian epiphanies of course relates to the development of sexual identity, and there is an interesting correlation with Dawkins. Dawkins describes the power of adults to shape the belief system of future generations, including for example, the doctrinal belief that women are the property of their husbands. Jensen’s work would suggest that such a belief is not as old fashioned as it may sound. She describes a complex paradox in which sexuality is perceived to be central to relationships, whilst at the same time taboo. The woman is “admonished to dress and paint for him, but is accused of inviting his attention when it comes” (p. 206). According to Jensen, the woman is encouraged to believe that sexuality relates specifically to the male, and her role is to fulfil him, rather than to seek fulfilment of her own, wherever that may lie.

I struggle sometimes to see exactly how she supports her critical analysis, but the picture presented is an alarming one, seeking to account for the fact that a surprising number of women do not even discover their sexual identity until after marriage. She uses the word “script” to describe the overall experience of cultural values which may influence the ability to develop self knowledge, creating an image of values as language: “The power of the social force to marry creates a script for women’s lives that is so powerful that their own internal messages can be, and sometimes, are, overwhelmed” (p. 206).

This quote represents a potential departure from Dawkins in that it explicitly sets up a tension between that which is innate to an individual, and that which forms part of the external “script” that the individual reads in an attempt to negotiate life and social interaction. More than merely imprinting the unfinished child, for Jenkins, social values can have the effect of actually overwriting innate traits or potentialities. This, presumably, is in fact the hope of many morally didactic lessons. And yet, without a great deal changing in the external world, events, relationships and ideas, both large and small, accumulate until for some at least, the “authentic” individual finally emerges from the social construct.

In my reading from years ago, one of my confusions related to the surprising amount of power apparently accorded to subversive literature: a complete religious upbringing and regular exposure to the Bible, could, according to many texts I read, be overturned in an instant by the mere act of reading Harry Potter or His dark materials. Jensen’s work would appear to suggest a solution to this puzzle. If the child’s innate nature is not simply created through moral and social education but overwritten, there is the possibility that the overwrite may not be complete. Fear of words then becomes fear of the fire that is damped but never fully quenched. The text of identity may appear to be successfully overwritten, but life is a hacker, and the never-fully-erased original text is forever in danger of being exposed, to the discomfiture of those who would wish it otherwise.

"The God delusion"

Dawkins, R. (2007). The God delusion / Richard Dawkins, Transworld publishers.

One of the surprising things about this study so far has been the number of times that I am given pause to reflect by works that I never thought of as being in any way related to my research questions. I start to feel a little like Francis Spufford as I discover that so much of my reading appears to connect to what is apparently a central question for me. And everything so far, including the original research ideas with which I naively set out on this journey, has so far not been the central question. I am nibbling at its outer edges and drawing myself, book by book, experience by experience, towards an unknown centre. Do we ever really choose a research question with objectivity? Or do we selfishly ask questions of ourselves and embark on a surprising and unexpected journey?

Dawkins, unsurprisingly, believes that the most important thing is to teach children how, not what to think. He states that “Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.” It therefore appears that for Dawkins, the child is not only an unfinished creature, but one that can be imprinted. Learning and identity do not necessarily continue to evolve, unfettered by the ideas encountered along the way, with each new thought assimilated and new directions and shapes emerging. Instead, the child is “vulnerable” to that with which adults choose to imprint it. Thus:

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.' The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.

Power, then, belongs to that which is most reinforced, or that which converts word into belief. And that is the interesting question: how does this process occur? What combination of factors must be in play for the word to become the [perceived] reality? Saxby discusses stages of reader development, suggesting that guidance is required to bring the reader to a mature level of detachment and critical appraisal. Perhaps for Dawkins, who is a firm advocate for the preservation of the Bible as literature, the power lies, not so much in the words themselves, but in the development, or lack thereof, of critical thinking skills. The difficulty, of course, for both authors, is the implication that the “adult” is highly influential in the extent to which these skills can and are developed. And is it ever entirely possible to separate the “how” from the “what” of thinking?

Faith as danger

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.

Richard Dawkins

Thought made visible

I wanted to write on myself so that I couldn't hide from how I feel about myself. I wanted to show I am not always strong, but strong enough to beat the darker thoughts in my head.

Michael Williams (re. self portrait)

Culpable language

What Barrie’s Peter and Wendy demonstrates too clearly for comfort is that language is not innocence (word and thing), but rather a taking of sides (one word against the other).

Jacqueline Rose

The language of creation

language does not simply reflect the world but is active in its constitution of the world.

Jacqueline Rose

Learning

Let there be no other book but the world... The boy that reads does not think, nor gain instruction, he only learns a parcel of words.

Jean Jacques Rousseau


Then why does it require a book to teach people how to teach?

The danger of thought

"Ideas are far more dangerous than any bomb"

Ripper Street

"Books in the life of a child"

Saxby, H. M. H. M. (1997). Books in the life of a child : bridges to literature and learning / Maurice Saxby, Macmillan Education Australia.

[Reproduced from Amazon.com]

Saxby’s work is filled with a wonderful complexity of seeming contradiction. The text weaves descriptions of the shifting and varied constructions of childhood and reader response together with personal conviction about what is right or true. The power of the “child reader” in the practice of reading also appears to shift. Perhaps Saxby himself provides the best account of his approach to dealing with the conflict:

Eventually, we are forced to take up a philosophical position, governed largely from our own experience as readers, the theories of others, the observation of vast numbers of students at all ages and levels of reading maturity, and the results of classroom practice.” p. 67

Multiple competing viewpoints on the nature of both childhood and reading are presented. The very wealth of ideas presented “about” children place the concept into an interesting power relationship with the theorists. Children in all cases are presented as objects of study rather than as active agents; they are done “to” or “for” and their nature is defined by the theorist. The child may be inherently sinful (Puritans), a blank canvass (John Locke) or good (Rousseau). Theories about text vary from the socio-historical, psychological or sociological to the intertextual, postmodern or deconstructionist. Any idea of absolute truth is thus placed into question, with everything seen within a frame of reference or set of premises. And yet Saxby returns to the conviction that a worthwhile book is one that has something universally true to say “to” children:

There should be an underlying statement, albeit implicit rather than explicit, about some fundamental question of human behaviour, belief or emotion. The experience explored needs to be potentially universal. p. 41

This sentiment appears to imply that what is fundamentally true is both knowable and universal. Additionally, the power balance is reinforced, in that the text speaks to the child; the child does not significantly participate in creating the message of the text.

Ideas of learning are similarly complex:

I am convinced that children learn to read by reading, that texts themselves teach the structures of language and the grammar of narrative, and that not only do we humans live by our own stories but that the stories we hear and read, especially in childhood, help shape our lives and outlook. They provide us with much of our culture. p. vii

In this statement, the power relationship is split between the text itself, and the child’s own practice of reading. And yet:

Readers, especially children, need to be helped to sift opinion and propaganda from what is observably 'true' about human nature and society and what is merely a stereotype. p. viii

and

It is a question of knowing the reader and finding the book that suits the present needs, interests and abilities of that child. p. 37

Saxby appears not to subscribe to reader response theory, in which the child actively selects and sifts material according to his or her own current level of intellectual and emotional development, interest and need. In fact, the approach seems most reminiscent of Rousseau, in whose Emile, the child is the active creator of his / her own education, but within carefully defined and selected boundaries, pre-determined by the older and wiser. The child may learn to read from the act of reading, but requires guidance to understand and interpret the text appropriately.

Interestingly, the power imbalance appears not only to apply to children. The quote above from p. viii applies to all readers, with special reference to children. All readers apparently require guidance, which begs the question of who is qualified to act as guide, and on what basis. Several theories regarding “stages” of reading sophistication are outlined, including the six stages proposed by Jack Thomson. In relation to Thomson’s stages, Saxby opines:

The furore that breaks out in the media from time to time about a writer or a literary work would seem to indicate that not a great many reading adults are able to stand back and dispassionately view a work of fiction as a construct which may even be subversive of widely held values. Few can reject the values, but still appreciate the construct. p. 66

I particularly enjoy this statement, because it not only provides a value statement about the reading / intellectual level of the majority of adult readers (placing Saxby and other critics into a privileged higher observer position), but it also creates an interesting theory about the motivation for censorship and the belief in the power of text to influence children (and others!). Following this statement, the ability to separate values from construct belongs only to the intellectually discerning. Readers thus require expert guidance to reach this elevated level; I am delighted by the question this raises about how and why the privileged few have reached the giddy heights from which they view and guide the rest of the world. Especially given the multiplicity of viewpoints espoused by these privileged few, the problem of the power of text is not solved by this statement; it is merely redirected into a new channel.

Saxby covers a wide variety of topics, from theories about childhood to theories about text. He provides a fascinating guide to the shifting (and yet apparently universal) nature of truth. But there is one quote from Michael Benton that I particularly like, which, for me, highlights the challenges so wonderfully explored throughout:

The subject of 'the reader's response' is the Loch Ness Monster of literary studies. When we set out to capture it, we cannot even be sure that it is there at all, and if we assume that it is, we must admit that the most sensitive probing with the most sophisticated instruments has so far succeeded only in producing pictures of dubious authenticity. p. 67

Creating the reader

The subject of 'the reader's response' is the Loch Ness Monster of literary studies. When we set out to capture it, we cannot even be sure that it is there at all, and if we assume that it is, we must admit that the most sensitive probing with the most sophisticated instruments has so far succeeded only in producing pictures of dubious authenticity.

Michael Benton

Choosing realities

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The reader became the book; and the summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.

Wallace Stevens.

Defining the text

Zipes calls into question the validity of the concept of children's literature, questioning the actual level of consumption and participation in a given text by the target audience. He also opens up the boundaries of text to include other media including film, music, games and the web. As he points out, many young people (and for that matter people of any age) may read images other than traditional narrative.

That would appear to be self evident, especially as not everyone invests their time in books. Engagement in the world of meaning may occur through just about any medium, from computers to sport. The definition of "text" thus becomes so broad as to be all-encompassing. Everything from the clothes we choose to wear to the way we present our cities, gardens and workspaces, becomes a text to be interpreted. At one level this broad definition is helpful, as it gives an impression of the size of the challenge faced when attempting to determine the extent to which text impacts upon reading habits, taste, and moral and intellectual development.

I am reminded of Rousseau's carefully contrived version of educational development, in which the child is ideally allowed to develop and discover without direct intervention, but in a fashion so carefully guided and contrived as to shield the child from contamination by any undesirable stimuli. But, leaving aside entirely the question of what constitute desirable vs undesirable stimuli, what is truly the possibility of controlling the environment with which the child engages? If, as Paley suggests, children use narrative to test, affirm and expand their world view, actively bringing complex thinking skills to the task, to what extent is it possible to direct and control the stimuli with which children choose to engage, and how they will interpret those stimuli?

In addition to educational theory, the question seems to relate less to literary criticism than to psychology. The study of deprivation, cults and psychological warfare (for example) seems most likely to shed light on the potential impact of a controlled environment. I am reminded of Orwell's 1984, in which history is constantly reconstructed and every facet of life, including the dictionary, carefully controlled. But the process, while heavily defeating of the individual, seems less akin to successive approximation towards a desired goal and more akin to frantically stamping out one fire after another in an attempt to construct the desired society.

For the moment I will suppose that I am going to arbitrarily limit the scope of my focus to the traditional written book, aimed at a target audience of children / young adults. As Zipes states, it is impossible to accurately gauge who will read what, and what meanings s/he will create from them. As Paley notes in her observations of her own class, the conclusions drawn by the children are often a surprise to her, and each new text adds to and possibly shifts the meaning ascribed to texts already read. Therefore, when reading any given text, is it possible for me to do anything more than selectively (either consciously or unconsciously) engage with a construction of the world as it appears in the text, and to note any tensions between what is represented as real vs what is desired?

"The girl with the brown crayon"

Paley, V. G. (1997). The girl with the brown crayon / Vivian Gussin Paley, Harvard University Press.

[image reproduced from Amazon]

I cannot be in the least objective about this delight of a book, so I won’t even try. It was Zipes who referred to Paley’s work, of which I had never previously heard, and I owe him a great debt of gratitude. Reading this book was pure joy for me from beginning to end.

I am reminded most of Winnicott’s The piggle, with its emphasis on constantly negotiated meanings and understandings. Only in this case it is not simply a matter of respectfully learning about the other; Paley admits that it is herself that she is constantly defining and refining through her interactions with and observations of the children in her class.

Throughout the book, Paley illustrates the complex level of thinking of which the children are capable, describing the ways in which they use books to test, explore and expand their own world view:

In the course of a morning, the children have taken up such matters as the artist's role in society, the conditions necessary for thinking, and the influence of music and art on the emotions. From Reeny's simple assertion 'That brown mouse seem to be just like me' has come a preview of the introspective life.

She also believes this engagement to be continually compounded by intertextuality, with each new discovery adding layers to existing ideas, while characters, both fictional and literal, flow seamlessly in and between books:

We've done - what, five of Leo Lionni's books already? With each new one, plus all the activities that go with it, there is an unfolding of layers of meaning that extends to all the previous characters.

And, in the end, I am reminded of Francis Spufford. The sub-title proclaims:

How children use stories to shape their lives

But, by the end of the book, Paley queries the relationship between child and book. To what extent does the book shape the child’s thinking, and to what extent does the child approach the book complete with his or her own agenda?

I can't help wondering if Reeny's ability to use the easy tree as metaphor is due in part to the practice we've had in analyzing Leo Lionni. Yet isn't it more likely the other way around? That is, the Leo Lionni stories and the easy-tree stories work so well because the children come to school knowing how to think about such matters.

For Paley, it appears that children shape and create their own world, using the world to continually test or reinforce their understanding.