Dismissals and frustrations

Years ago, I was arguing with one of my research students, who was pushing for the use of a theoretical framework that didn’t seem to fit her research. In frustration, she showed me the journal article on which she had based her claims. It was research that was so new I hadn’t read it yet, and it completely upended my conceptions of the theory.

In short: She was right. I was wrong.

The incident brought me back to my third-grade English classroom, where my teacher would always play a game. She would give the class a long word, and we would have to list as many smaller words as we could from it.

After 15 minutes, she would call our names in alphabetical order. Every time someone said a word that everyone else had, we’d have to scratch it off our lists.

One day, she put up: TELECOMMUNICATION.

When my turn came, I had quite a number of unique words left, including LUTE.

She shook her head, “That’s not a word.”

I had read it in my dictionary the night before, seen photos of it in a storybook in the library. I protested, “It’s a string instrument played like a guitar.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” she silenced the mumbling in class, “It’s not a word. Take it out.”

I was hurt, yet I could do nothing. To speak further would have meant a lower grade, and to oppose her would have turned me into an outcast who dared speak against a revered teacher.

Later, I rechecked my dictionary, storybooks, even children’s bible. The word was there. LUTE. LUTE. LUTE.

A medieval musical instrument. A pear-shaped guitar you could recognize from different paintings. “I will play for Him on my harp, with my lute and 10-stringed lyre,” the church song goes.

Looking back, I realize that I wasn’t hurt because I was dismissed. I was hurt because it was an opportunity for the teacher to admit that just because she didn’t know a word, it didn’t mean that the word didn’t exist. It would have been an opportunity for her to open the class to new learning, so that we could all discover something together.

I see that same thing happening now, of people irritated when they are clearly wrong, of older relatives berating younger ones who dare to correct them on the basis of actually having sources to back up their claims.

I even heard it once on the radio, when a famous anchor told his guest, “I don’t know that word. Are you sure that’s a word? Don’t use it for your products.”

The word? Pooch. Slang for dog. He didn’t even look it up, or even admit that he had found out about the term only then. He simply dismissed it and assumed that all other listeners didn’t know the word and would therefore ignore his guest.

What is it about us humans that makes us want to dismiss people instead of admitting that we’re wrong and are in a position to learn something new? And what is it about us humans that makes us want to cling to our so-called fonts of knowledge even when they’re running dry, even when we’re offered water to refill them?

I was a 9-year-old so flustered by the idea that my teacher had dismissed me as a liar or an inventor.

Decades later, I am a writer frustrated with a so-called teacher for refusing to show the continuity of the learning process even in her middle age.

To add: I am disappointed that if teachers like this still exist, then we will have yet another generation of students that cast aside new knowledge only because it contradicts what an authority says is correct—or worse, dismissing someone only because they dare to speak up. No wonder we rank so low in creative thinking if we teach our children to be so afraid of uncovering things that we refuse to admit we don’t know!

We already have enough of it in our family reunions, where elder relatives demand a version of respect that means authoritarian rule, silence even when lies are spread, fake smiles even when family members are being hurt.

We already have enough of it online, where so-called concerned citizens insist that our country has no violent history, who claim that there are no injustices being perpetrated both here and abroad, who want to stick to false narratives for the sake of personal comfort.

We shouldn’t have to propagate it in our classrooms, where our students need to love lifelong learning.

Back at the meeting with my research student, I was disappointed in myself. But I remembered my third-grade classroom, and how it made me bristle for years against stubborn teachers.

I could only tell my student that I was sorry, and that I was proud of her for standing up to me with scholarly materials on hand. I could see tears in her eyes. I could feel her relief as she embraced me, and as she ran off, ready to complete her class requirements.

My student later worked on research that would be nominated for best thesis.

It’s actually liberating to learn new things at the risk of being corrected. It’s even more liberating to see your correctors prosper because they were given a chance to be heard. And it’s most liberating not to repeat the errors of those who thought that they were teaching you well.

iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu