Provocative Pairs
Learning with the Masters

Volume I: Major Influences Past and Present

By Robert DiYanni, New York University

 Table of Contents

 

Preface

 

PART ONE: Established, Time-Honored Authorities

Introduction
Extraordinary Figures, Sine Qua Non
Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci

 

Chapter One: Ancient Authorities

1. Plato and Aristotle
2. Sappho and Cleopatra
3. Arete of Cyrene and Hypatia of Egypt

 

Chapter Two: Religious Figures I

4. Confucius and Sakyamuni (Buddha)
5. Muhammad and Averroes (Ibn Rushd)

 

Chapter Three: Religious Figures II

6. Moses and Maimonides
7. Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus

 

Chapter Four: Christian Thinkers I

8. Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas
9. Hildegard of Bingen and Christine de Pizan

 

Chapter Five: Christian Thinkers II + 1 Muslim and 1 Atheist Thinker

10. Martin Luther and Ignatius of Loyola
11. Desiderius Erasmus and al Ghazālī
12. Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Chapter Six: Western Writers I

13. Homer and Virgil
14. Michelle de Montaigne and Francis Bacon

 

Chapter Seven: Western Writers II

15. John Milton and Thomas Jefferson
16. Jane Austen and William Wordsworth
17. Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy

 

Chapter Eight: Influential Educators I

18. John Amos Comenius and Horace Mann
19. Johann Sebastian Bach and Zoltán Kodály
20. Margaret Fuller and Jane Addams

 

Chapter Nine: Influential Educators II

21. Neil Postman and Maxine Greene
22. Leon Kass and Martha Nussbaum

 

Chapter Ten: Influential Thinkers I

23. Baldassare Castiglione and Niccolò Machiavelli
24. John Locke and Immanuel Kant
25. Samuel Johnson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 

Chapter Eleven: Influential Thinkers II

26. Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill
27. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir
28. D. T. Suzuki and Thomas Merton

 

Chapter Twelve: Movers and Shakers I

29. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and François Fénelon
30. Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

Chapter Thirteen: Movers and Shakers II

31. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois
32. Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan
33. Rabindranath Tagore and Chinua Achebe

 

Chapter Fourteen: Educators Across Disciplines I

34. Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead (Anthropology)
35. Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson (Psychology)

 

Chapter Fifteen: Educators Across Disciplines II

36. Martin Buber and Parker Palmer (Religion +)
37. Susanne K. Langer and Jerome S. Bruner (Philosophy/Psychology)
38. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Jonathan Haidt (Philosophy/Social Psychology)

 

Chapter Sixteen: Extraordinary Characters I

39. Marian Anderson and Jackie Robinson
40. Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey

 

Chapter Seventeen Extraordinary Characters II

41. Yogi Berra and Yoda, Jedi Master
42. Sister Mary Clarence and Pete (Maverick) Wilson
    [Whoopi Goldberg and Tom Cruise]

 

PART TWO:  Visionary, Modernizing Authorities

 

Chapter One: Influential Scientists

1. Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton
2. Charles Darwin and Elbert Einstein

 

Chapter Two: Medical Practitioners and Researchers I

3. Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton
4. Elizabeth & Emily Blackwell and William Osler

 

Chapter Three: Medical Practitioners and Researchers II

5. Lewis Thomas and Atul Gawande
6. Frank Wilczek and Jennifer Doudna

 

Chapter Four: Social and Political Reformers I

7. Mary Wollstonecraft and Emma Willard
8. Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass

 

Chapter Five: Social and Political Reformers II

9. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
10. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu

 

Chapter Six: Educators and Educational Theorists I

11. John Henry Newman and William James
12. John Dewey and Maria Montessori

 

Chapter Seven: Educators and Educational Theorists II

13. Lev Vygotsky and Ivan Illich
14. Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Paolo Freire

 

Chapter Eight: Writers and Teachers I

15. Virginia Woolf and James Joyce
16. Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin

 

Chapter Nine: Writers and Teachers II

17. Mary Beard and Garry Wills
18. George Saunders and Mary Karr
19. Marilynne Robinson and Robert Alter

 

Chapter Ten: Musicians and Teachers

20. Nadia Boulanger and Andrés Segovia
21. Shinichi Suzuki and Dorothy Delay

 

Chapter Eleven: Choreographer- and Musician-Teachers

21. Agnes de Mille and George Balanchine
22. Yo-Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis

 

Chapter Twelve: Actors and Artists

23. Konstantin Stanislavsky and Uta Hagen
24. Dorothea Lange and Frida Kahlo

 

Chapter Thirteen: Architects and Museum Directors

25. I. M. Pei and Maya Lin
26. Philippe de Montebello and Laurence des Cars

 

Chapter Fourteen: Game Changers I

27. James A. H. Murray and George Grove
28. Vince Lombardi and Phil Jackson /li>
29. Peter Drucker and Margaret Wheatley

 

Chapter Fifteen: Game Changers II

30. Henri Petroski and Jeanne Gang
31. Ken Burns and Neil deGrasse Tyson
32. Bryan Stevenson and Saru Jayaraman

 

Chapter Sixteen: Contemporary Influences I

33. James Beard and Julia Child
34. Grace Hopper and Steve Jobs

 

Chapter Seventeen: Contemporary Influences II

35. Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber
36. Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee
37. Sal Kahn and George Lucas

 

Chapter Eighteen: Popular Contemporary Gurus I

38. David Ogilvy and Jack Foster
39. Roger von Oech and Edward de Bono

 
Chapter nineteen: Popular Contemporary Gurus I

40. Richard Feynman and Edward Tufte
41. Diane von Furstenberg and Tim Gunn

 

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Epilogue: Family Mentors—Edward S. DiYanni and Mary H. DiYanni

Coda: Teaching Credo & Teaching Quotations

Appendix A: My Influential Teachers and Mentors

Appendix B: Teaching and Learning with Colleagues and Friends

Notes

References

 

 

Preface

 

Preface

Each of us can learn from the world’s great masters—past, present, and future. The most

important thing we can take from them may be how to learn better ourselves and how to help others improve their learning. We can learn how to become masters of learning and masters of teaching.

We learn as we have been taught. We become what our teachers make of us—all those from whom we have learned, ourselves included. Who we learn from, how we learn from them, and what we learn count immeasurably. These things matter because, to a large extent, we become what we learn; our learning makes us who we are.

The best masters inspire as well as instruct; they encourage and motivate. We learn from their ideas and their ideals, from their principles and their practices. We learn, too, from their character, from their lives and actions. We learn from what they commit themselves to, from what they stand for, as they teach by living example.

For the masters included, I consider briefly why they taught (and teach)—what motivated them—along with how they taught (and teach). I consider, too, something of what we learn from them; I provide an exposition of key ideas and values, accompanied by brief excerpts from their sayings and writings.

Not all of these masters devoted their lives to conveying knowledge, though many did. Some were reformers; others developed philosophical and psychological approaches to teaching, created practical strategies for learning, or formulated designs with implications for instructional policy and practice. Still others used multiple technologies—television, film, websites, print and digital magazines, video games, and more to reach audiences of millions, as have Tim Gunn, George Lucas, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, John Madden, and Sal Khan, for example.

What makes a masterly teacher, a teaching master? What does it take to reach a level of art and craft such that teaching well seems as natural as breathing? Half a dozen considerations, I think, are relevant to mastering any art or craft, from cooking to broadcasting, from music and dance to medicine and engineering—across a multitude of disciplines, including rhetoric and literature, the visual and performing arts, mathematics and philosophy, history and religion, economics and psychology, science and technology, sports and film, management and magic, fashion and design, and beyond.

1. Masters of every type continue to grow as individuals and as members of intellectual, social, teaching, and learning communities. They remain curious, inquiring into all manner of subjects and disciplines, not just their own specialties (though without neglecting those—keeping up their disciplinary “chops”).
2. Masters sustain their passion for creating memorable experiences for others, especially for their students and followers. They amplify their constituents’ learning, adding immeasurable value.
3. Masters demonstrate and model. They explain and explore. They engage their followers dialectically in dynamic interplay, teacher influencing student and student influencing teacher. And they do these things consummately well.
4. Masters also excite and incite those they instruct. They arouse curiosity. They set minds aflame and hearts ablaze. Master release their followers’ imaginations. They summon them to the mysteries of learning and inspire them to strive for excellence.
5. Masters stretch their students and followers, pitching ideas and lessons just beyond their reach, rousing their effort and will, so they are able to do things not considered possible. Masters enable others to do things they may not be able to do themselves.
6. Finally, Masters awaken powers and ambitions in their followers, while inducing in them an incentive for pursuing their dreams. Masters help others discover what they truly love themselves.

 

In The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery, Adam Gopnik suggests that there is something magical about mastery, which involves accomplishment through accumulated practice, a summation of traditions of practice. Mastery of any art or craft, Gopnik suggests, grows out of generating flow from learned fragments, creating fluency from sequences of small steps. He suggests, as well, that mastery “involves everything we do” and “engages the totality of ourselves.” Mastery is more than having acquired fluency with a discrete set of skills; rather, it shows forth “a unique human presence” (8).

Like other masters of their craft and art, master educators “are not mere repositories of knowledge, but exemplars of a practice” that has become fully realized, embodied, and ensouled in the master teacher (9-10). Gopnik suggests, further, that mastery needs to be demonstrated in performance, fulfilled in practice. Mastery requires accepting the challenge courageously, what he calls “catching the bullet” (201-205). The final mystery of mastery is that the master takes the plunge, leaps into the unknown, accepts the risks, whatever they may be, and in the process, shows how it’s done.

In Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel explains how the master teacher remains always with the student, even as the student becomes proficient at what is being learned—archery, calligraphy, swordsmanship; art, history, music; engineering, mathematics, science; architecture, medicine, nursing; interpreting literature, analyzing visual objects, developing writing and thinking skill—and every other skill imaginable.

Herrigel explains that the physical teacher disappears, but the teacher’s spirit remains, as “teacher and pupil are no longer two persons, but one” (65). It’s a stage of learning where the pupil subsumes the teacher, incorporates the teacher.

The way to become a master teacher, to master the art of teaching, is to never cease to be responsive to its enticements, to remain always a student of its mysteries. These are the mastery goals towards which all educators of whatever type—and all masters, too, I believe, should aspire. In achieving these goals, each of us can be, in George Steiner’s words, an “accomplice to transcendent possibility” (Lessons of the Masters 102).

For each chapter segment of Provocative Pairs, I include two masters. I introduce the book with segments on Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci, Socrates as the West’s first great, influential thinker, and Leonardo as the most versatile, a supreme artist/scientist, gifted across many domains. Each chapter segment provides brief biographical notes about the figures, highlighting educational aspects of their lives. Each considers one or more key educational elements, including comments and quoted passages from each master’s works.

But why two figures per chapter? Why pair up the masters? Because doing so offers the opportunity for comparison and contrast—for examining relationships and discontinuities. Considering one master in light of another sharpens our understanding of both.

In Powers of Two, Joshua Shenk argues that two is the ideal number for all kinds of creative partnerships—from composing and performing songs, writing books and making movies and television shows, to inventing things (xvi-xxv). Some examples: Wilbur and Orville Wright, Vincent and Theo van Gogh, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In science, James Watson and Francis Crick and their double helix (overlooking, sadly, the contributions of Rosalind Franklin). In technology, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as competitors, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as collaborators.

In politics, Ralph Abernethy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and a century earlier, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. In psychology, Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. In sports, Chrissy Everett and Martina Navratilova, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, Micky Mantle and Roger Maris, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (and recently Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alvarez). And from the world of comedy: Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, to cite a few more notable pairs.

Examples from literature include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, Thomas Wolfe and his editor Maxwell Perkins, Ahab and Moby Dick, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale (and Roger Chillingworth). And in more popular genres, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, as well as Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, Batman, Spider-Man and Wonder Woman.

Shenk contends, rightly I think, that some creative collaborations derive from and thrive on a kind of psychic convergence, a compatibility of personality and thinking style. In such cases the cognitive frameworks of the creative pairs match. Other creative pairs work more by opposition and contestation, via competition rather than compatibility and cooperation. These adversarial pairs rival one another in creativity, motivating progress and perseverance, even inspiration, resulting in a productive competitive rivalry. The creative competitions push the creative rivals in their individually successful directions; the collaborative relationships exhibit cognitive interdependence, which fuels their joint artistic successes. Some creative pairs exhibit both tendencies—collaborative convergence and creative dissonance—John Lennon and Paul McCartney providing a famous example.

Every chapter segment of Provocative Pairs concludes with considerations about learning inspired by the paired masters. Most summarize key influential practices of the chapters’ subjects—Sappho and Cleopatra, Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, Grace Hopper and Steve Jobs, I. M. Pei and Maya Lin, James Beard and Julia Child, Vince Lombardi and Phil Jackson, Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, Conrad Hilton and Danny Meyer, to cite a few. Other influential practices and ideas emerge in imaginary dialogues between, for example, Plato and Aristotle, Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Paolo Freire, Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sal Khan and George Lucas, Alan Alda and Peter Schickele, Willie Ruff and William Zinsser, among many others.

The considerations for learning I offer reflect my educational ideas refracted through the lenses of the world’s masters Throughout, ancient wisdom and modern ideas about learning coalesce in contemporary practice.

I have kept the chapter sections short; each provides a brief overview of paired masters’ lives and work along with a taste of their practice. Collectively, the chapters present a smorgasbord of appetizing morsels to sample and savor. Taken together as well—and to shift the metaphor—the chapters invite you on an educational journey through the centuries and across disciplines and cultures. They offer provocations to thought through distillations of multiple kinds of mastery.