Obviously observing
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007This post is what it sounds like, so I figured I’d better look up what the prefix “ob-” means:
obvious and obviate have the root via meaning “road” or “path”; something is obvious when it is right there in your path; to obviate a difficulty is to find a way across or around it;
observant has the root serve or “to keep”, “to guard”, “to watch”, and so to be observant is to “watch over”.
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This past weekend, K– pointed out that my notes on the actions of the people I was observing weren’t clear. Basically, imagine you’re in a drugstore, and a couple walks in. They shop. The man has an infant strapped to his chest. Is that relevant? They walk around the store, and the only product the man looks at is sleeping pills. Is that relevant? And some other stuff happens too. I write it down.
I wondered whether to write down that the infant was there. But then when I saw the man looking at the sleeping pills, it was easy for me to make an assumption about the story: the man can’t sleep because his infant is keeping him up at night. I didn’t write this assumption down on the notes, though, and K–’s comment got me thinking about why.
* * *
Senior year of high school, I took Mrs. Williams’ Child Development class. We had a nursery school for kids ages 3-4 next door to the classroom. Half our time was spent in class, and half in the nursery school.
As teacher’s assistants, we were instructed to play with the kids what the kids wanted to play. If they wanted to play house or blocks or draw, and they wanted us there, we would play with them. We balanced their leading the play with our leading/introducing elements of the play which would guide their growth. (At the Brooklyn Free School, I saw kids build railroad tracks in the hallway. When one kid started dropping cars off of an unfinished bridge, the facilitator suggested, “I know you can find a ramp to roll the cars from the bridge to the floor.” And the kid was inspired to find a ramp and fit it onto the bridge.) This leadership balance is the embodiment of my definition of “care” — respect for the individual each on their own terms.
In addition to learning how to care, I learned how to observe. One wall of the nursery school had a one-way mirror. The kids knew it was there, because sometimes they played in our psychology classroom (they once staged a puppet show there) and talked about seeing their nursery school room through the glass. As students, occassionally we sat in the dark behind the mirror and observed the kids and adults interacting. We also observed and were aware of what was going on when we were playing in the classroom.
At the end of the semester, we wrote reports on some of the kids. We were instructed only to write actions (what actually happened), not assumptions (why we thought it happened). And this emphasis on actions over explanations has been how, ever since (and possibly before), I’ve preferred to write.
As you can see in the post immediately preceding this one, it’s just dialogue. No interpretation. You interpret it yourself, and if you don’t get why I find it amusing, or if you don’t recreate the emotions of the speakers, then I’d rather not say.
But sometimes I need to say. And I have a habit of preferring to say it in a way that either makes it seem obvious, or where you think of it yourself in a way where you say, “Of course! — why didn’t I think of that before!” or more usually, “Of course! I knew that before but now I’m really hearing it.”
And that’s some of what I really love. I love to observe when there’s something obvious, right there in your path, and then you care for yourself by recognizing and acting on and playing with what’s obvious to you.
I’m gonna step back behind the mirror now.
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