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| Fruits hanging from the Tree of Life |
A friend of mine, a master at plumbing, once asked my opinion about a particular issue in education. It was a complicated question, and I needed to provide some historical information, context. When I finished answering, he said something like, “Man, I wish I knew all the stuff you do.”
I responded, “I’ve been teaching for twenty years. I know education like you know construction. Hell, I wish I knew plumbing like you do,” and I wasn’t joking.
The encounter got me to thinking about education, the pursuit and dissemination of “knowledge,” the essence of a good educator. The classroom is our place of business. Teaching is a craft, plain and simple. And just like any other craft, to be masterful, we must work at it, which means hours and years of training. For teachers, it's developing reading, comprehension, writing, and analytical skills, whether we agree with the topic or not.
Whether someone operates a cash register, directs a P.R. firm, runs a business, designs buildings, or works with his or her hands, to be good, it takes practice, to be masterful it takes commitment. Of course, the idea of knowledge, as a profession, is often abstract, dealing with ideas and theories, our tools – words.
As a kid growing up Mexican in a working-class community, I had a lot of catching up to do when I decided I wanted to be teacher. I'd never been a good student, nor can I say I even enjoyed school. Attending Catholic School helped, though I didn't realize it at the time. Our teachers, nuns and brothers, dedicated their lives to teaching. They referred to their work as a vocation.” They passed the idea down to us, their students, that a profession wasn't simply a career or a job but a "vocation," as if anointed by the divine, something to be taken seriously. After all, we'd be spending a major portion of our lives in the field of labor.
Of course, one of their objectives was for us to enter the religious life, which wasn’t likely for L.A. suburban kids in the 1950s and ‘60s -- Baby-Boomers.
In parochial school, one of the first lessons we learned was about the pursuit of “knowledge,” our primary source, the bible, of course. It’s powerful when you teach children they were born in “image and likeness” of God, like Adam, alone in a beautiful garden.
Then, as we read, Eve, the woman was created of man’s rib, making “her,” logically, a second-class citizen in Eden.
Of course, we gobbled up the information. It was a cool story, and it was our story, how we all got here. That’s some pretty powerful stuff, and we hadn't even gotten to the tree, yet. We read on, “And our of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
There it is – “knowledge” but linked up with “good and evil.” So, is knowledge one or the other, or is it both? Was “knowledge” something to avoid? Yet weren’t our teachers telling us to study, earn good grades, and learn how to think. How was it then when we got home, and questioned something our parents said, we’d hear, “Don’t get smart with me.”
Hey, we’re getting some mixed messages here. Maybe “knowledge” could also get us in trouble.
In the story, God instructs the young couple, “…till [the garden] and keep it… you may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Whoa! That’s a heavy message, but what does it mean? I’m not sure how “apples” got a bad rap. There is nothing in the story about an apple tree. So, the story goes, the devil masquerading as a serpent, convinces Eve if she eats from the tree, her “eyes will be opened,” and she will be like God, “knowing good and evil.”
Eve ate from the tree, and she convinced Adam to eat of the tree and “both their eyes are opened, and they know they are naked.” Message: Adam is weak for doing what the temptress, Eve, tells him.
It is clear. Females get the shaft, blamed for man’s weakness. How much does a story like this resonate in a culture. Consider, women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920. They couldn’t even open credit lines or have credit cards until 1974. Men have always held the majority of seats in the legislature, and still haven't had a woman president. Maybe the bible stories take hold more than we realize.
Hmmm, makes you think.
And how about snakes. Since the devil was disguised as a serpent, seems, in Western culture, at least, snakes are the most hated in the animal kingdom. I read about a study where a group of graduate students were studying the impact of bible stories a culture. The class put a rubber snake out on a desolate Arizona highway. The students hid behind bushes and observed. Every car that passed by ran over the snake. One driver was so indignant, he ran over the snake, backed up, and ran over it again, just to make sure.
Next, the class put a rubber turtle on the road, and nobody hit it. One driver nearly crashed trying to avoid the turtle. The power of biblical prophecy? So, when Adam and Even ate from the tree of knowledge, “God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man….” Pissed off because you have to wake up every morning and go to work, to toil, blame it on Adam and Eve.
Is the story literal, some people think so. Or is it a metaphor, a tale about the first two humans on earth, who were punished for not following their creator’s will? Or, is there another lesson, not only about disobedience but about the nature of knowledge? After all, it’s no accident God named it the tree of knowledge. He warned the couple not to eat or “…their eyes are opened.”
Does God not want our eyes opened. Am I hearing echoes of Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis warning us not to be “woke?”
Or is there more in the story, a warning about the pursuit of knowledge? The vehicle most cultures use to acquire and spread knowledge is education, and, more than not, we educate children by telling stories. I even heard a lawyer once say, something like, the best lawyers aren't those with the best evidence but those who tell the best story.
I also wonder why so many people in society call teachers “liberal.” I was thirty-years in education, community college, in the liberal arts, language and literature, and I found many of my colleagues anything but liberal. In fact, education itself may one of the most conservative occupations. Educators hates change. It takes nearly an act of God to get an educational department to change. Sometimes, I think people don't understand the word "liberal," as it applies to education.
Historically, the liberal arts or the word "liberal" didn’t have anything to do with politics, progressive or conservative. From Pythagoras, Socrates and the Greek’s “enkuklios paideia” to the Latin scholars’ “artes liberales,” studying the arts and science was known to offer a “well-rounded education,” or “liberate the mind.” No wonder, they took their stories of Gods and turned them into lessons for the education of their citizens.
What I find today is people want a "yes" or "no", "right" or "wrong" answer to their questions. Why are so many immigrants coming here? Ukraine or Russia? The British or the Germans? Fidel and Ho Chi Minh? Saudi Arbia or Iran? Iraq or Kuwait? Communism or capitalism? Democrat or Republican, Trump or Biden, on and on?
What I’ve learned about knowledge is it's not easy to acquire or to explain. Often, that's what makes a good teacher from a bad teacher. There is always “context,” which frustrates people. They don’t want context. They want an answer that affirms their position, usually political. If you don’t agree with them, you are anti-something. In 1940s Germany they burned books and incarcerated teachers, same in Cambodia, and Latin America, during the dirty wars. Why teachers?
That’s what I call the "burden of knowledge," knowing too much, or, maybe, exactly what Genesis intended. That once Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge and their eyes are opened, they’ll have to figure things out, what does nakedness mean, how do they work, what is good and what is evil, cursed to not just go about living leisurely in their beautiful garden.
If you educate yourself and eat from the tree of knowledge, you might find yourself in trouble, like Adam and Eve, like Pandora’s Box, which I know many people haven’t read, but they do know what story means. Open the box and who knows what terrors you might release, or steal fire (light) from the Gods, enlighten and warm humanity, but find yourself pushing a rock up a mountain for eternity. The great classical poet, Alexander Pope warned, “Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.”
So, if somebody’s asks me, an educator who has studied Mexico and Latin America, about uncontrolled immigration from Latin America, my mind doesn’t conjure up a picture of masses at the border. My mind goes back to particular facts, like U.S. and European policies that exploited Latin America from 1520s to the present, policies that affected the different migrations of people from the south to the north, including my own grandparents.
Now, I’m not saying my conclusions are right, but I am saying there are many factors to consider when answering complex questions like immigration, peace, and war. Are people savages and animals, or are there reasons for animalistic behavior?
For me, the acquisition of knowledge, like Eve eating from the tree, must consider both good and evil, not one or the other, but both. It’s difficult because we’re humans, carrying our own prejudices, likes and dislikes. So, like Prometheus, for me, opening a book or listening to someone’s personal observations, or reading an article, or witnessing an event for myself, is like putting fire in my hand. My vocation tells me to share it, even if it upset the gods, knowing I might be doomed to push a rock up a hill for eternity or be chased out of the most perfect garden ever created.