Herbert Kohl
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Reproduced with permission of MILKWEED EDITIONS in the format Post in a course management system via Copyright Clearance Center. COPYRIGHT © 1'194 BY HERBERT KOHL "I Won't Learn From You" was previously published in somewhat di fferent form by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, in Iggl. "Uncommon Differences" appeared in somewhat different form in The Lion and the Unicorn 1992-, vol. 16, no. I, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. A section of"Creative Maladjustment and the Struggle for Public Education" appeared in somewhat different form under the title "In Defense of Public Education" in Dissent, Spring 1993. ALL RIGHTS REShRVF.U. \O PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED I N AN FORM N 1 11101 T WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBI ISHER AND At THOR PUBLISHED IN "FHE I NITED STATES BY THE NEW PRESS, NFW YORK DISTRIBI TED Bl W.W. NORTO\ & t OUPANI . I NC 5(11) F l }) H AVENL L. NF % YORK NY 1)) II) Herbert Kohl ISBN I 51 55-1 U75 X LL I t 510111 ESTABLISHED IN I 'I'll) AS A MAJOR Al LFR'^AT I', F. TO IHF IARGF, SIMMERS IAI PUBLISHING HOUSES, THE NEN PRESS 15 THE FIRST 1-Ill L-Sl'ALF NONPROFIT - AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHER (0,1 IDE OF THE I Nil ERSI11 PRESSES THE I'RFSS I) OPERATED EDITORIAL 1.5 IN T)L} PUBI 1( INTEREST. RAT HFR TH.A\ FOR P51% ATE GAIN; IT IS C:ONIIITTEU TO PL BLISHL\c I N I.NNOSAT IVL WASS WORKS OF LOLL'S- TIONAL, CI LTURAL. AND (.OS151UVI71 VAI.L E THAI, UF.SPIIE 1HFIR I NJ ELI.L('It AL. MERITS, MIGHT NOT NORNAI I ti BE "LOMSI}.R( IAI I ]— VIARI E IHF SEW PRESS'S EDITORIAL. OFFI( ES ARE LOCATED AT THE LITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK The New Press PRINTED I N THE UNITED STATES OF ASIERIC A J4 95 J t) 97 9 8 7 9 5 4 3 2 1 I Won’t Learn from You YEARS AGo, ONE of my fifth-grade students told me that his grandfather Wilfredo wouldn’t learn to speak English. He said that no matter how hard you tried to teach him, Wilfredo ignored whatever words you tried to teach and forced you to speak to him in Spanish. When I got to know his grandfather, I asked, in Spanish, whether I could teach him English, and he told me unambiguously that he did not want to learn. Fie was frightened, lie said, that his grandchildren would never learn Spanish if he gave in like the rest of the adults and spoke English with the chil- dren. Then, he said, they would not know who they were. At the end of our conversation he repeated adamantly that nothingcould make him learn to speak English, that families and cultures could not survive if the children lost their parents’ language and finally that learning what others wanted you to learn can sometimes destroy you. When I discussed Wilfredo’s reflections with several friends, they interpreted his remarks as a cover-up of either his fear of try- ing to learn English or his failure to do so. These explanations, however, show a lack of respect for WiLfredo’s ability to judge what is appropriate learning for himself and for his grandchil- “I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU dren. By attributing failure to Wilfrcdo and by refusing to lack of exposure. My father speaks both Yiddish and English and acknowledge the loss his family would experience through not never indicated that he wouldn’t teach me Yiddish. Nor did he knowing Spanish, they turned a cultural problem into a personal ever try to coerce me to learn the language, so I never had educa- psychological problem: they turned willed refusal to learn into tional traumas associated with learning Yiddish. My mother and failure to learn. her family had everything to do with it. Theydidn’t speak Yiddish I’ve thought a lot about Wilfredo’s conscious refusal to learn at all. Learning Yiddish meant being party to conversations that English and have great sympathy for lus decision. I grew up in a excluded my mother. I didn’t reject my grandparents and their partially bilingual family, in a house shared by my parents, born language. It’s just that I didn’t want to he included in conversa- in New York City, and my grandparents, born in the Yiddish- tions unless my mother was also included. In solidarity with her I speaking Polish part of the Pale of Jewish Settlement in Eastern learned how to not-learn Yiddish. Europe. I know what it is like to face the problem of not-learning There was Yiddish to he heard everywhere in my environ- arid the dissolution of culture. In addition, I have encountered ment, except at public school: on the streets, at home, iii every willed not-learning throughout my thirty years of teaching arid store. Learning to not—learn Yiddish meant that I had to forget believe that such not-learning is often arid (lisastrously mistaken Yiddish words as soon as I heard them. When words stuck in my for failure to learn or the inability to learn. head, I had to refuse to associate the soundswith any meaning. If Learning how to not-learn is an intellectual arid social chal- someone told a story in Yiddish, I had to talk to myself quietly in lenge; sometimes you have to work very hard at it. It consists of an English or hum to myselfl If a relative greeted me in Yiddish, I active, often ingenious, willful rejection of even the most compas- responded with the uncomprehending look I had rehearsed for sionate and well-designed teaching. It subverts attempts at reme- those occasions. I also remeniber learning to concentrate on the diation as much as it rejects learning in the first place. It was component sounds of words and thus shut out the speaker’s through insight into my own not-learning that I began to under- meaning or intent. In doing so I allowed myself to he satisfied stand the inner world of students who chose to not-learn what I with understanding the emo~jonalflow of a conversation without wanted twteach. Over the years I’ve come to side with them in knowing what people were saying. I was doing just the reverse of their refusal to be molded by a hostile society and have come to what beginning readers are expected to do—read words and look upon riot-learning as positive and healthy in many situations. understand meanings instead of getting stuck on particular letters Befbre looking in detail at sonic of my students’ not-learning and the sounds they make. In effect, I used phonics to obliterate and the intricate ways in which it was part of their self-respect and meaning. identity, I want to share one of my own early ventures into not- In not-learrung Yiddish, I had to ignore phrases and gestures, learning and self-definition. I cannot speak Yiddish, though I even whole conversations, as well as words. And there were many have had opportunities to learn from the time I was born. My lively, interesting conversations upstairs at my grandparents’. They father’s parents spoke Yiddish most of the time, and since my had meetings about union activities, talked about family matters family lived downstairs from them in a two-family house for fhur- and events in Europe and later in Israel. They discussed articles teen of my first seventeen years, my failure to learn wasn’t from in the Daily Forward, the Yiddish newspaper, and plays down- a 3 “i WON’T LEARN FROM YOU” I WON’T LEARN FROM YOU town in the Yiddish theater. Everyone was a poet, and everybody going to Hebrew school was not to learn Hebrew but to ensure had an opinion. I let myself read hands arid faces, and I imagined that I didn’t embarrass my parents when I had to recite part of ideas and opinions bouncing around the room. I experienced the Torah at my bar mitzvah. As I figured it, if I not-learned these conversations much in the way I learned to experience Ital- Hebrew, it would save me a lot of effort and time I could use for ian opera when I was fourteen. I had a sense of plot and character science projects and my rather tentative experinients with writing. amid could Ihllow the flow and drama of personal interaction, yet I And so for two years I applied what I had learned about not- had no idea of the specifics of what was being said. To use learning Yiddish and I not-learned Hebrew. I could read the another image: it was as ifI were at a foreign-language movie with sounds and recite my way through the Ma/tzor, the daily prayer my father, my uncles, and my grandmother providing English book, and tlie Torah. I listened to our teacher-rabbi drone on subtitles whenever I asked fir help understanding what was going about the righteousness of theJews and oi.ir special role in history; on. I allowed myself to be content with this partial knowledge, and I was silent thoughcynical. but now I mourn the loss of the language and culture of my I did, however, get in trouble lhr my arrogant not-learning. father’s family that it entailed. One day the rabbi gave us a test with questions written in Deciding to actively not—learn somethng involves closing off Hebrew.