Hello to Here! A Response to In the Shelter by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Notes from a presentation at the Critical Questions in Education Conference, February 2023, San Diego, CA.
Narrative Theology # 1 (or … Narrative Pedagogy)
And I said to him:
Are there answers to all of this?
the answer is in a story
and the story is being told.
And I said:
But there is so much pain
And she answered, plainly:
Pain will happen.
Then I said:
Will I ever find meaning?
And they said:
You will find meaning
where you give meaning.
The answer is in a story
and the story isn’t finished. (Ó Tuama, 2020, p. 5)
Introduction
Pádraig Ó Tuama’s 2015 book In the Shelter (which includes a 2020 postscript) is part memoir, part storytelling, part spiritual reflection, part poetry, part confession, and part advice. And each of those aspects of Ó Tuama’s writing connects, in one way or another, with my own self-awareness as a human and, more specifically, as a teacher. Ó Tuama himself is referred to as a master storyteller, a teacher, a poet, and a theologian.
Within the space of a few pages, Ó Tuama can be solemn, then hilarious, then serious, then frivolous, then profound as he distills and reflects upon lived experience in his native Ireland, but also in Australia and the United States, all places where he has studied and taught. Though I do not suspect he intended it exactly this way, In the Shelter can – in my opinion – serve as a “survival guide” of sorts for classroom teachers at all levels.
To set this up, I ask you to reflect on a brief dialogue that Ó Tuama reports near the beginning of the book. Can you identify with this experience? Do you know of any students who would identify?
“What do you want most in the world?” a friend asked me once.
“To be happy,” I said, without thinking, surprising myself with the truth. “How about you?”
“Oh, to be holy,” he said.
“Shit,” I thought, assuming I had gotten it wrong again, assuming I was wrong again. (p. 24)
I love this short but poignant dialogue! Like much of Ó Tuama’s writing, it is profound on more levels than can be considered in a single reading. My typical responses while reading this book have included nods, deep breaths, muttered expletives, often followed with a second reading, maybe a third, maybe out loud. This is that kind of book through and through. Ó Tuama himself suggests that good writing is “when we read something we’ve always known but have never been able to put into words” (p. 25).
In this review, I will endeavor to present some selected examples from In the Shelter that resonate with my own teacher self. I will be curious to see whether and how they resonate with yours. Since the book itself is not particularly linear in its organization, I have given myself permission to reflect in a similarly non-linear manner.
1. Hello to Here
Here are some words that every teacher would do well to consider prior to entering the classroom each day:
To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise, and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart. Hello to here. (p. 31)
It is my belief that one of the best things we can do for our students is help them become comfortable with “here,” wherever that may be in a particular moment. And for teachers, embracing the here-and-now co-existence of “chaos and fulfilment” and of “delight and despair” seem like worthy ideals (as well as antidotes to burnout).
Ó Tuama suggests that we embrace what he calls “the stories that shelter us” (p. 4). This is what he does with this book and I think this is what we can – and should – do as teachers. What are our stories – the teaching stories, the funny ones, the sad ones, the amazing ones, those that are treasured and those that are recalled with dread – and how do these stories shelter us and, more specifically, shelter our identities as teachers? I came to realize the importance of stories when, a college instructor, I realized that much of the advice and exhortation I had been providing for pre-service teachers came in the form of stories from my own elementary school teaching experience, usually stories with actual names and faces in mind. I think, with Ó Tuama, that we should treasure our stories for the protection and comfort they can provide within the harried and frustrating world of teaching.
2. Hello to Imagination
Ó Tuama wrote this:
To be human is to be in the imagination of God, and the imagination is the source of integrity as well as cracks. To be born is to be born into a story of possibility, a story of failure, a story of imagination and the failure of imagination. To be born is to be born with the possibility of courage. Hello to courage. (p. 53)
Reading this as a teacher, I am reminded that school should be a place where imagination and possibility are celebrated and nurtured. Imagine a third grade teacher greeting his students each morning with the mantra, “Hello to imagination! Hello to courage!” Such a beginning would certainly affect the trajectory of everything else that follows on that day, in that classroom.
3. Hello to Truth
In another of his books, Ó Tuama (2023) writes that what’s “important to remember is that a myth is not something false, rather a myth is something with so much truth that it needs a fantastical container” (p. 12). What can we do in our classrooms to provide students with the tools and materials to build their own fantastical containers for truth? Ó Tuama describes one strategy of his own at some length. The results are creative, revelatory, and magical … and, for the students involved, profoundly true. The strategy is actually quite simple. Here is how he describes it (and by the way, he was teaching in a Catholic school in Ireland at the time):
Each person was invited to close their eyes and imagine themselves taking a walk. This walk, they were invited to imagine, was in a pleasant place of their own choosing, at a time of their own choosing. They were asked to imagine the scenery. At one point, they see a stranger coming toward them and on closer inspection, they realize it is Jesus. He greets them by their own name – and here I’d say the name of everyone in the room – and they engage in a conversation. Depending on the age of the group, the conversation was different, and as time went by, I gave fewer specifics and left more room for them to engage with the words of their own choosing. After a while, they were told that if they wished to say anything at all to this character, they could – and then listen for a response. Shortly after that, the imagination exercise came to an end with them saying goodbye in whatever way they wanted. The whole process took only four or five minutes and then for the rest of the session, we talked about the imagination and the images seen. (pp. 67-68)
How might you reproduce this exercise of imagination in your own teaching context? Who would the stranger be in your implementation of the exercise?
When have you felt “honored” to be treated to the inner experiences of your students?
4. Hello to What We Want
A good and important question for teachers to ask themselves: “What do you want?”
“What do you want?” is the question. What do we want with our lives? What do we want with our work? What do we want with our failures, with our reputations, with our friendships and achievements? What do we want in our faith, and in the truth of our body? What do you want? It is a question that requires simple engagement with the truth – brave, guileless, honest truth. (p. 85)
As educators (especially K-12 but also in higher education), we come to terms with the fact that we are employed to – largely – do what other people want, to teach what other people have decided is important to teach, even to teach in ways that others have determined are best. This is our job … but this can also take a toll. Let’s remember that we are trained professionals, with degrees to prove it. Those degrees certify that we have some insight into pedagogical matters. On the basis of such insight, we stand in a position of authority. And on the basis of such professional authority, we should have the power to make real decisions about what occurs in our classrooms.
I think that, while operating within the (often legitimate) confines of the expectations placed upon us, we should also stop at least once each day to recite and answer the questions Ó Tuama poses here. Listen again:
“What do you want?” is the question. What do we want with our lives? What do we want with our work? What do we want with our failures, with our reputations, with our friendships and achievements? What do we want in our faith, and in the truth of our body? What do you want? It is a question that requires simple engagement with the truth – brave, guileless, honest truth. (p. 85)
5. Hello to Power
Some of us endeavor to teach children respect for differences and some of us endeavor to instill in future teachers the sensitivity to enact this respect in classroom situations. Following an extended and varied discussion of insensitivity, homophobia, bigotry, and short-sightedness, Ó Tuama (2020) recounts a familiar New Testament story (of the woman caught in adultery). His conclusion:
The woman was about to be stoned because of the addictions of the stoners. They were addicted to a violent kind of belonging, a kind of community that forges it borders through selective exclusion. She was about to be stoned with their bone-breaking morals that would prefer to kill a woman rather than examine their own complicity. We all need to be rescued from this kind of power – from both its appeal and its effect. And undoing of this power is seen when power is used for love. Power, used well, should be empowering, contagious, and creative. It should be collaborative, enabling, and protective. It should be self-critical, curious, and brave. It should know its own limits and be prepared to risk its own reputation. This kind of power asks questions to which it does not know the answers and listens because in listening is learning, and in learning is life. Hello to the power of learning. (pp. 240-241)
That’s the kind of power we should claim as educators, based upon our documented professional insight and earned authority. Ó Tuama claims that many of his own insights were born of his experience working with both children and adults in schools, in workshops, and in church groups. While In the Shelter is not a “teacher book” per se, it does represent a rich source of wisdom and reassurance, both of which are critically important but sadly underemphasized in pedagogical circles. I would highly recommend this book to any teacher – at any level – who values self-examination while negotiating the uncertain but deeply significant world of work called teaching.
References
Ó Tuama, P. (2020). In the shelter. Broadleaf Books.
Ó Tuama, P. (2023). Poetry unbound. Norton.