Why I Hope My Students (and I) Don't Get It

I don't get it.

It's certainly not shocking to anyone that those are words I hear early and often as a teacher. Students are quick to say it - some after much work, some after little at all - and teachers are quick to respond to it. We jump to attempt to "fix" the situation in one way or another, drawing from our bag of tricks in an effort to make sure each and every one of our little darlings "gets it."

As a literature teacher, I hear "I don't get it," probably more often than anybody, except perhaps math teachers in their insistence to make letters actually mean numbers that actually represent abstract spots on a plane or a graph or a circle or trapezoid that gets spit out by one of those impossibly too large to use calculators. You see, in my classroom I introduce students to the great "I don't get it" multiplier: poetry. Its first cousin "symbolism" makes frequent appearances as well, and their neighborhood friend "irony" also demands student attention. Whether it be these entities or others (the language of the Dark Romantics, religious allusions, Transcendental philosophy, 19th Century British romantic rituals), frequent complaints of being lost in the dark while handing the subject material clang in cacophony from frustrated students.

Adults are not immune, of course. We complain about what we "don't get" all the time as well. The American political quagmire, macroeconomic theories, and the popularity of Justin Bieber confounds the masses. I, for one, shout epithets of frustration trying to understand anything mechanical, most educational reform efforts, and my youngest daughter.

I'm more convinced than ever, though, that if we don't get it, we are exactly where we need to be. Mortimer Adler writes about this in his classic text, How to Read a Book. In his common sense approach to those who quit or get frustrated by the books they don't immediately grasp, Adler offers this: "We can only learn from our betters." If a book has nothing new to offer you, it doesn't make sense to read it. Rather, we should seek texts that begin with what Adler calls an "initial inequality in understanding" and work hard to bridge that gap as much as possible. If we do in fact not "get it," by tackling it anyway we are well on our way to coming to an understanding that we never had before. And a steady diet of this leads to a life well-lived, or at the very least one well-improved.

This is true in relationships as well. How often have you wanted to shout, "I don't get why you ___________," to your spouse, your co-workers, your kids, or your friends? Rather than wallowing in the quicksand of frustration, perhaps what you don't get about them is something that deserves to be explored. Now you're learning about them. They may make no rational sense whatsoever in your mind; however, if you want to go deeper into the relationship, you've got to learn about that which you do not understand. And then you may just be forced to accept it, rather than find a way to fix it.

There are many aspects of my wife that remain a mystery to me. They are a mystery worth tireless exploration. I don't get all the symbolism in the book of Revelation, or why some of my students show little desire for success, or where my career is headed. I don't fully understand the paradox of free will and predestination or the purposes of some of Steinbeck's minor characters in his early works. Getting my iTunes account to work all the time also befuddles me and my best efforts. But I want to find out. Not getting it is exactly where I want to be.

Read a poem. Read a novel. Ask questions, especially about the people important to you. Go after that which is just out of your reach. Risk it. You may just find yourself reaching a little higher next time.