After my Doctorate in Psychology, I had formally trained as a public school teacher. Educational, that!
I learned then that if a student provided any answer (be it mathematical or grammatical), best practice was query, to probe, the student “How do you know that” or “How did you get the answer?” This procedure aimed to have the student reflect on their thinking, and also to craft a verbal explanation so that others could understand. Building more learning upon learning. And, a two-way street, as I would also learn.
I rigorously deployed this in Haiti. How do we know what we know? Think about it.
One day after a hike upcountry, there was the disaster of the cell phone. In my backpack, but… It was back in those days of flip phones. I had forgotten to wrap my phone carefully, double-bag it, in two plastic bags. Instead, it rested in my backpack, on my back and…and of course, the rain came down and down.
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Solar Energy and a Hot Rock:
Curing a Sick Flip Phone by Setting it
on the Only Available Surface to Dry |
When I remembered, pulled it, out the phone was dead! My Kreyol groped for words. “Li mouri, li mouri, li pati!” (It’s dead, dead and gone!)
But says Toma, in deliberate slow, Kreyol, “Pa enkyete ou Madame Randy, li pa mouri - ou pral wè.” “Don’t worry Madame Randy, it’s not dead — you’ll see.”
Then, he pinched it and in front of my shocked eyes, soon had it in two pieces! My heart was then giving way, my stomach ready to heave…Now, I felt truly doomed, marooned! My phone was taken apart and my connection to the outer world gone, gone, gone before my very eyes! But Toma quietly says, “Gade sou glas la, ti boul sa yo? Oke, tout sa nou fè se, nou pral mete telefòn nan nan solèy la sou yon wòch epi ou pral wè demen bul yo pral ale.” “See on the glass, those little bubbles? Well, all we do is, we’re going to put the phone in the sun on a rock and you’ll see tomorrow the bubbles will be gone.”
He tears apart pieces of my phone and removed a tiny sliver of metal. He shows me, “And you see this, Madame Randy? This is your SIM card!” Huh? I had no idea what he was telling me. SIM card? It got worse as he explained, “It’s all the information in your phone.” Even worse, as he tries to make me understand, “It’s the memory of your phone.”
Now , this was getting really scary! All I could think was, I had lost connection with the outside world! I’m stranded, Robinson Crusoe in Haiti…
But no. Toma says, “Pa enkyete w, Do not worry,” replaces the SIM card back into a slot, some slot — what do I know? Closed everything up and…and? Phone was as good as new!
Ever the teacher deploying pedagogical skills, I probe, “Toma, how did you know what to do? How did you know how to solve the problem?” Tools of the science of knowledge, indeed!
“Well,” says he, “Madame Randy, You know when you buy a cell phone, it comes with a little book inside the box?”
Hmmmm.
“Oke, mwen li ti liv sa a! Well, I read that little book!”
He read the directions! I had not considered that at all.
I was busy imputing arcane know-how, innate intelligence, reflection on processes of mind-ing.…Tools of the science of knowledge indeed! Simply, it was this: 6 or so years of what passed for schooling in these rural the mountains paid off!
What else I learned: Wrap your phone in plastic bags and keep your powder dry!
So, yes, from the outside looking in, we salute all innate intelligences. And how folks get by. And keep on keeping on.
Mariejo shells beans, ruins manicure, listens to neighbor, Magali.
Mariejo shells beans, ruins manicure, listens to neighbor, Magali.
