Wiggins & McTighe write in chapter 4 that “Students must perform effectively with knowledge to convince us that they really understand” (82).  This statement reminds me of another perspective on the matter that criticizes that students often perform for their teachers, trying to give them what they think they want, rather that actively engaging with the material for the intrinsic reward of learning and knowing as a whole person.  Somewhere between this liberal holistic view and the demonstrative rhetoric of administrative assessment in school there is a middle ground to be struck.  As a Francophile, I particularly appreciated the reference to the differing verbs ‘to know’ in French as an indicator of the complexity of knowing people and things vs. ideas and concepts (how to do something) etc.  In fact, the six facets of knowing exemplify something much more than the rhetoric behind teaching for understanding.  In many ways these facets are also edicts of character value and philosophy.  They are culturally embedded and place emphasis on certain personality and habitual characteristics such as self-reflection and empathy as the basis for intelligence in its most complete conception of the terminology.

As we go down the rabbit hole of understanding we are given little glimmers along the way, glittering bits that differentiate how educators must remember not to simply display their knowledge for consumption, but create a gateway whereby students can discover it themselves.  Many of my yoga teachers over the past decade have employed that adage, “This is your journey, I’m just the tour guide,” which I think is also relevant here.  We are told that we should create activities that are inherently ambiguous to create such a learning environment.  Specifically, “Schooling cannot be the learning of what someone else says is the significance of something, except as a way to model meaning-making or as a prelude to testing the interpretation so as to better understand the possibilities” (92).  Through reflection and meta-cognition the students will then stretch their own goals they set for their learning (if given the free will to do so).  As I write this I realize how lofty, idyllic, and squishy these aims are starting to come out, but I can’t imagine that as a bad thing when we must go into the classroom with a mindset of empowerment in understanding.   A glass half full will set the tone you wish to express.

Once we as educators can distill what understanding is necessary in the course and how interpretation can begin it is then time to put a wrench in those gears and force change.  Adaptation is the name of the game.  The authors write, “We show our understanding of something by using it, adapting it, and customizing it.  When we must negotiate different constraints, social contexts, purposes, and audiences, we reveal our understanding as performance know-how, the ability to accomplish tasks successfully, with grace under pressure, and with tact” (93), hopefully similar to what I’m doing right now.  Piaget would’ve argued for radical adaptation and innovation, but I’d say it could be subtle as well.  It all depends on the frame of reference for that individual.  Since these goals are not inherent in all the students do within higher education, explicit goals will need setting, and those will need to be addressed, and re-addressed over time as learner and learning shifts like a moving target as experience and thinking accrue.  These chapters read like a mission and the declarations and imperatives contained therein are a welcome clarity amidst so many other more chaotic theories in practice.