I recently spent time in the company of a new arrival—a month old baby named Galen. He didn’t know the culture or the language of this place yet, but looked around often, as if a bit bemused. My desire, of course, was to make eye contact, perhaps see a fleeting smile of recognition, but that didn’t happen. It couldn’t really, because he had not yet developed that skill.
Because of those days of face-to-face contact, I began to wonder what Galen was actually taking in as we spent time together. He had no words for anything, not even in his mind. I knew that. Then I began to wonder what I would notice if I had no names for anything and no experience with the items in my environment.
The longer I thought, the more it seemed that he doesn’t even know yet that there are items in his environment. I’m sure it’s a kaleidoscope of colors before his eyes, or maybe just shades of gray, but how could he know that the foreground is separate from the background or that some parts of what he sees are distinct from other parts? He couldn’t—he has not yet touched or tasted various parts of the scene before him, nor has he moved between the parts or manipulated them. He needs to investigate and experiment before he can draw conclusions like that.
Trying to put myself his situation, I attempted to find analogies for what he is probably experiencing. I remembered going to the movies and arriving before the previews. On the screen was a swirl of color blobs, merging and separating in random ways that meant nothing to me but were hypnotic enough to keep me staring. Perhaps Galen sees things that way—movement without meaning.
Until he names things—a process of separating the whole into parts and using random, yet agreed-upon sounds to stand for each slice of reality, he won’t be able to converse about his world with others. And as soon as he does that, he won’t see things as a total experience any more. He is more likely to pay greater attention to named things and pass over the unnamed sections of his world. Now that I think about it, maybe I do the same.
All that time spent watching Galen led me to consider how much adults have in common with a baby learning about his environment. I taught for a dozen years before an Effective Instruction class gave me words for great numbers of teaching techniques—some of which I had accidentally used, but not replicated in other classes, because I didn’t even know they were each a separate part of my teaching environment. After I named them, I could apply them at will, in any appropriate setting.
And every day, I keep wondering what are the things that I don’t see, don’t name and don’t use, things that are there, but outside my awareness. Reading history books, I shake my head at the blindness of former generations to things that seem so obvious to me. I can feel superior because I know the names of those formerly unknown facts and theories, things that are a part of my reality.
But my sense of superiority is short-lived. I look around and wonder what my blind spots are, what they keep me and my culture from seeing. In fifty years, or five hundred, what will be known that I cannot even see yet? This question keeps me searching and asking what movements, behaviors and sights around me are significant, yet unnamed, and therefore unnoticed. It makes me seek feedback, new data and theories to broaden my ability to see what is just outside my awareness.
