Pro Tanto Death

As I entered first grade, the buzz amongst the kids was that Mrs. Dunn was mean. We all hoped for Miss McCutcheon as our homeroom teacher, who was rumored to be the nice one. I celebrated when I learned I was to be in "good" teacher's class. Two years later, my brother was assigned to the "bad" teacher's class, who, as it turned out, he adored.

Looking back, I'm quite certain that we gossiping children were responding to gender and age prejudices. Mrs Dunn was older than our mothers, a veteran teacher, or at least more seasoned than Miss McCutcheon who was a stereotypically pretty young woman in her first job out of teacher's college. It was the classic Disney juxtaposition of a young, innocent princess with a crone bearing a basket of poisoned apples. I doubt any of us were conscious of the connection, but it was there in our superficial judgements. 

I recall this because it's one of my earliest memories of seeing behind my own prejudices. It was, in my life, one of those shocks of recognition after which everything, including myself was transformed. 

The novelist Samuel Butler in his novel The Way of All Flesh writes, "Every change is a shock; every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognize a past and a present as resembling one another." In this case, my belief in the possibility of judging good and bad teachers through stereotypes and superficialities was left in the past, where it belongs, leaving me with a present, not free of prejudice, of course, but rather one in which the person I had become knew to be more open-minded, and less susceptible to gossip.

Another 20th century literary giant, Iris Murdoch put these words into the mouth of a character in her book An Unofficial Rose: "People don't grow old. Old age in that sense is an illusion of the young." I recently saw pictures of Mrs. Dunn and Miss McCutcheon posing with their respective classes. From the perspective of a 62 year old man, they are both young and pretty, hardly distinguishable from one another.

Nothing is new, yet any life worth living is one that is constantly renewed by these pro tanto deaths, these dramatic or subtle shifts in perspective that make it impossible to ever again be the person we once were, for the world to ever again be what it once was. This is what learning and growing is all about, but we must work harder at it as we do what the young might view as growing old.

Murdoch's character, later, when caught out in a contradiction says, "I've told you I'm not a continuous being. My words cannot be used as evidence against me."

As adults in the lives of young children -- parents, educators, caretakers -- we must know that no one, and especially these children, are likewise not continuous beings. From day to day, they experience these pro tanto deaths, emerging on the other side a new person in a new world with new ideas and passions. We can be tempted to label children things like "shy" or "aggressive" or "behind." We can be blinded by those ugly marks we call grades or those assessed deficits we use as evidence "against" them. Tomorrow they will be transformed and it will all be moot unless we make the mistake of staying in the past they have left behind.

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Hi, I'm Teacher Tom and this is my podcast! If you're an early childhood educator, parent of preschoolers, or otherwise have young children in your life, I think you'll find my conversations with early childhood experts and thought-leaders useful, inspiring, and eye-opening. You might even come away transformed by the ideas and perspectives we share. Please give us a listen. You can find Teacher Tom's Podcast on the Mirasee FM Podcast Network or anywhere you download your podcasts.

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