Julian Girdham’s “The Wolf You Feed: an essay on Attention” makes some points I wish I’d made in my notes about noticing. Here are two:
We have to attend before we can think.
It’s essential. You can’t think about what you don’t notice, whether not noticing is a simple failure or an act of willful ignorance.
It is increasingly clear to me that in education the question of attention is also an ethical issue.
As Girdham puts it, the most disturbing problems we humans face are failures to pay attention.
There are some lines in the essay I’d love to argue about. I’m not sure what memory is — but I wouldn’t describe it as the residue of thought. (He’s quoting Daniel Willingham, a psychologist.) But I love his description of how a teacher can open a work of art — a poem, for example — to a student who is paying attention. I am interested in how someone who has learned to notice can teach another how much there is to be gained by looking carefully and thinking carefully.
• Source: Juilan Girdham’s “The Wolf You Feed: an essay on Attention” is here:
https://www.juliangirdham.com/blog/the-wolf-you-feed-an-essay-on-attention
I’ve mentioned Girdham’s newsletter The Fortnightly repeatedly in these notes.
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