What's the big idea?
In Sparks of Genius, Robert and Michele Root- Bernstein state that “We humans tend to overintellectualize, forgetting that our bodies ‘know’ how to do things that we understand only after we have done them (p.160)”, and this tool of using body thinking to empower understanding is defined as Body Thinking.
When I was reading the example of dancer Keller’s understanding that many of the ideas that burst upon her consciousness were not actual sensations but memories or imagined perception of body movement and feelings, I have had similar experiences. For example: my fear of heights. I am afraid of standing on anything that is higher than 5 feet. It is not hard to imagine what a horrific feeling and experience I have when I have to take a flight! I always thought that my fear of heights is because I don’t like what I see when I stand higher than 5 feet. I was not able to distinguish that my fear is not from visual sensation but from the perception of my body and feelings. When I was 3 years old, I almost fell from a two-story building. Apparently, my body has been carrying this near-death experience and feelings around since then.
As Keller explains, the wordless sensation (from the body movements and feelings) leads to a thought, which individually or together, with sensations of muscle movement, body feeling, and touch act as a powerful tool for imaginative thinking (p. 164). Thus, I am planning to implement the Body Thinking concept into effective Chinese Characters teaching. Many of my students told me that it has been quite challenging for them to read and write Chinese, because the characters are very different than phonetic written language, and the content of each seems very abstract and difficult to recognize. As Robert and Michele Root- Bernstein state that “incorporating extensions of the body is crucial for success (p.178),” I am planning to ask my students to use their body movements and feelings to help improve their learning of Chinese characters. For example, in order to help the students to recognize and then be able to write 山 (mountain), I will suggest the students to pull their arms up above their heads and make the shape of山 with their body. I could also suggest that they use their body feeling of being strong and empowered when they are making the山shape in order to help them to learn this character. In addition to applying the Body Thinking technique, I will also encourage my students to master this tool to guide them to think more creatively. For example, once I teach them how to use body movements and feelings to learn 山, they can then think what other characters can be made by body movements and how.
The next creative thinking tool is Empathizing. As Alphonse Daudet state, Empathizing means that “you must enter into the person you are describing, into his very skin, and see the world through his eyes and feel it through his senses.” Empathizing is also different from imaging or proprioceptive thinking: empathizing is learning to understand other people not only objectively from the outside but subjectively from the inside, which is the aspect of becoming others. As Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein state, “the key to empathizing is learning to perceive the world through someone else’s mind and body (p. 186).”
Last night, I received a phone call from my mother who insisted that I should go back to China and have babies instead of ‘floating around the world and not having any children’. I have been very confused and kind of depressed because I feel like my mother does not understand me and respect what I really want. While I was reading about empathizing, I tried to apply the technique to my situation with my mother. I thought about who she is, where she is from and how she became the way she is. I suddenly realized that I look at the same situation with different angle and it helps me to change the view completely—I understand her suggestions more deeply and thus am able to appreciate her deep love and respect – though I may not agree with them!
I can also apply body empathizing into effective Chinese teaching. First of all, in order to progress students’ Chinese reading comprehensive skills, I can suggest and lead my students in role-reading and re-playing. Eastern culture is very different than Western’s, and Chinese ancient culture can be especially confusing and challenging for the people who are born and grow up in the west. Thus, asking students to be an ancient Chinese historical character and try to think, act and play as that person would can be an effective way of learning the content and context from the reading. I can also implement the empathizing tool for Chinese character teaching. For example, the character 川 means big river in English. In order to help the students have a better and deeper understanding of the character, each student can be encouraged to act like a small river by using body movements. The three “small rivers” (students) can gather together and be a big river: 川. While the students are encouraged to use body movements to be a river, it certainly will help them to FEEL the flowing texture of the Chinese character as well as the emotions of being a river.
Like Morris described when he was trying to be an animal, “it was a strange little scenario. Not only was I surrounded by animals, but I changed into one myself… With each animal I studied I became that animal. I tried to think like it, to feel like it. Instead of viewing the animal from a human standpoint – and making serious anthropomorphic errors in the process – I attempted, as a research ethnologies, to put myself in the animal’s place, so that it’s problems became my problems, and I read nothing into its lifestyle that was alien to its particular species. And the dream said it all (p. 194).” My new aim is that myself AND my students can use body empathizing as a tool to be creative thinkers, which will help us all to be better learners.
Xin Wang
