4.1 Questioning Naturalized Views: An Introduction

“ ‘There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says,“ ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ ”

–David Foster Wallace, This is Water

This parable from Wallace’s commencement address at Kenyon College reminds us that sometimes, “the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about”. Because fish are always surrounded by water, it becomes an accepted, unnoticed aspect of their everyday life. Just like the fish in Wallace’s story, we too are surrounded by our own realities, many of which have become so naturalized that we don’t even see them, much less question them. But sometimes, the realities that we don’t notice are the ones in most need of questioning. (Complete “Questioning Naturalized Views” activity).

Exercise

Now that you’ve completed the activity and considered aspects of your own life that have become “naturalized”, note a few of the most surprising observations below.

As you reflect on this activity, you might be asking yourself, “Why does this matter? Why do we need to be aware of these aspects of our lives?” While there are many reasons to gain awareness, the most fundamental is this: when something seems “natural”, it is at risk of going unnoticed. By extension, the aspects of our lives that go unnoticed can easily become accepted as “just the way things are” (Hinchey, 1998, p. 30). This belief can leave us feeling helpless and disempowered. For example, many school districts require high school students to attend classes at an earlier time than middle and elementary school students. This practice occurs even though most high school students naturally stay up later at night, resulting in less sleep and making it more difficult for them to wake up early in the morning; consequently, students’ sleep loss can have detrimental effects on their health and their academics. Since insufficient sleep has been associated with difficulty focusing, this can detract from students’ ability to pay attention during morning classes, thereby interfering with their ability to learn (Ming et al., 2011). Despite the research that indicates that early classes do not effectively address high school students’ needs (CDC, 2020), this schedule has been an accepted practice for many years. However, more recently, early high school schedules have become the focus of attention and some districts are even changing this practice, particularly by reversing the start times of high school and elementary school students (Dunster et al., 2018). Through this brief example, we can already see how the act of noticing naturalized practices can be the catalyst for imagining other alternatives or possibilities.

When we begin noticing the naturalized aspects of our lives that we have, perhaps, taken for granted, we not only become more aware, but we can begin to raise new questions. In fact, noticing is a precursor to questioning, and questioning is a “profoundly democratic” process (Freire & Faundex, 1989, p. 227). Both of these practices–noticing and questioning–can be utilized together to remind ourselves and others that there is always more than one way to do things, thereby opening us up to new possibilities that better serve ourselves and others.

To see how this process might work in our own lives, let’s return to the examples provided in the “Questioning Naturalized Views” activity above. One of the naturalized aspects of our educational system might be the use of a grading system to evaluate student ability and performance. When you entered your college classes, did you assume you would earn a grade for your work? Were you surprised to discover that you would be awarded grades in your courses and on your transcript? If you didn’t find yourself completely surprised by this practice or if you assumed that your work would be evaluated, then the traditional grading system might have become a naturalized aspect of your educational experience. Furthermore, it’s possible that you accepted that grading is “just the way education works”--a disempowering idea, especially if we feel that the traditional system of grading isn’t serving all students effectively.

However, now that we’ve begun to notice this system of grading, we can start to question it: Where did this grading scale originate? Who designed it and what was their goal/rationale? Why did it become widely adopted? What do letter grades really represent? How well do letter grades reflect actual learning? Who is empowered by a letter grade scale and who is disempowered? Who is systematically disadvantaged by this grading system? Who benefits the most from it? How have some schools explored alternatives and why? How might these alternatives impact student learning, motivation, and attitude?

As you can see, all of these questions were enabled by our observation of the grading scale. The very act of raising questions is a democratic practice because, just as we all share responsibility and authority for shaping legislation and electing government officials, we also share responsibility for our educational system. By raising these questions, we start to participate in shaping that system. Furthermore, the questions that we raised above might generate curiosity and push us to seek answers and imagine new possibilities–all this contributes to knowledge building.

To facilitate your process of noticing and questioning, the rest of this section will include a variety of texts that demonstrate writers’ attempts to bring into view that which wasn’t visible to us before. In some of these texts, particularly David Foster Wallace’s graduation speech, he encourages us to notice and question the nature and focus of our own thoughts. In other texts, such as Bridget Magee’s poem, she describes the way her curiosity functions and what it can do to her thinking. Upon analyzing a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, Pádraig Ó Tuama reflects upon how Komunyakaa’s poem pushed him to question the standard metaphors for light and darkness. He questions the possibility that darkness can encompass more than evil or unknowing and whether good things come from darkness. Not only do we need to question our experiences and thinking, but we also need to examine and question our language and all of the many ways that we convey our thoughts, ideas, and experiences. (See “Different Mediums of Expression” Activity). Fundamentally, our language is not neutral; rather, it conveys values, ideologies, and intentions. Through these values and ideologies, some people are advantaged and others are disadvantaged. Therefore, it is important to be aware of how language positions ourselves and others, especially so that we can work towards greater equity. Just as we observe language on a broad or macro level, we also need to investigate more specific, micro elements of the written language. Through these elements, meaning is conveyed. We will begin to engage in this type of analysis through the passages of “What is Etymology?,” “An Etymological Dictionary of Classical Mythology,” and “Noticing and Questioning the Language: A Deeper Dive into Etymology.”

Although the selection of texts in this section might seem disparate, we hope it illustrates the range of possibilities for how this critical literacy practice of noticing and questioning might look. As you read and engage these texts, we’ve integrated opportunities for you to make your own observations and raise questions, both in response to relevant social issues and in response to the English language itself. In this early section of our book, we hope you generate ideas that can become the foundation for further investigation.