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Peter Elbow, a scholar of the teaching of writing, talks often about "the doubting game" and "the believing game" in academia. He argues that, in college, we put too much emphasis on "critical thinking"--on doubting everything we read and hear.... He asks us to also consider trying to believe what it is that we read. It's kind of the "step into my shoes and take a look at my world from there" approach, in an academic setting. I love to think about trying to play "the believing game" as we read, especially for a class like this one. Here's a passage from an article by Elbow:
Critical thinking often helps us fend off any criticisms of our ideas or ways of seeing. We see this problem in much academic and intellectual interchange. When smart people are trained only in the tradition of the doubting game, they get better and better at criticizing the ideas they don't like.... They take refuge in the feeling that they would be "unintellectual" if they said to an opponent what in fact they ought to say: "Your idea sounds really wrong to me. It must be alien to how I think. Let me try to enter into it and get a better perspective on my thinking--and see if there's something important that you can see that I can't see.
--from Elbow's "The Believing Game," Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning , Winter 2008-09
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I was especially inspired by this passage and wanted to have a discussion with the class about it. I had felt as if we were too critical while reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, and I did not want to have the same experience while reading Hattie Big Sky. The idea of stepping into someone else's shoes helped to carry me through the rest of the reading for the quarter. Whether I was stepping into Peter's shoes or Rachel's shoes or Bud's shoes, I allowed my imagination to take over.
 | The Believing Game |
I really like the quote Sherri posted about the believing game. The author hit the nail on the head. So often as college students we do try put such an emphasis on doubting everything we hear that we are unable to imagine someone else's life. I also like the analogy of a certain thought being foreign to us but being willing to step into the shoes of the thinker and see things from their perspective. I think about Hattie in regards to that. The book has some elements that may seem unbelievable to us, but I think we can gain much from putting ourselves in Hattie's shoes while we read the book. Already I am finding myself getting pulled into her story and lost in the pages. I started out this quarter with critical, even doubting, thinking about every single thing I read in literature, but as we progress I am learning to use my imagination and play "the believing game." Playing the believing game seems to be more difficult than having the typical doubting mind that we are currently taught, but I am finding that for this course especially, it is greatly aiding my learning experience. |
 | Re: The Believing Game |
I wonder if you have read Pollyanna because in the book there is a "Glad game" in which Pollyanna encourage the people around her to look at life with a cup half full point of view. |
 | Re: The Believing Game |
Hattie seems easy enough to believe. Maybe it's cause I have no idea about farming so I can't really connect with her obstacles by comparitive experience (or whatever). Regardless the characters and their personal trials are the focus of the story and they all face real problems in believable ways and changing a little bit (or sometimes a lot) through the experience. |
 | Re: The Believing Game |
I think that quote is appropriate as well. It makes sense that this is a 'children's literature' class, and kids have quite an imagination and love to get caught up in the story. They haven't learned to think critically yet, especially before they turn ten and start asking about santa claus! LOL! My three year old son wanders around talking to Sue-na-nee-new, his imaginary friend (don't ask me how he came up with this name, I have no idea!). My nine year old insists his friend isn't real, and then a voracious argument ensues. This for me is an exercise in suspending disbelief, because for the three year old, his friend is real. Obviously I can't see his friend, but it doesn't make it any less real for him. And, I wouldn't take that childhood innocence away for anything in the world. |
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