Provocative Pairs
Learning with the Masters

Volume II: Humanities, Sciences, and More

By Robert DiYanni, New York University

 Table of Contents

Preface

PART ONE: Humanities +

Literature

Chapter One

1. Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau
3. Walt Whitman and Robert Frost

Chapter Two

4. J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis
5. Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston

Chapter Three

6. Gwendolyn Brooks and Kenneth Koch
7. Tillie Olsen and Shirley Chisolm

Chapter Four

8. George Orwell and Annie Dillard
9. Susan Sontag and Umberto Eco
10. Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chapter Five

11. Harold Bloom and Camille Paglia
12. Michael Hogan and Adrian Barlow
13. Sheridan Blau and Lawrence Scanlon

Rhetoric & Language

Chapter Six

14. Mina Shaughnessy and Mike Rose
15. Kenneth Burke and Ann E. Berthoff

Chapter Seven

16. Deborah Tannen, John McWhorter
17. Gregory Rabassa and Edith Grossman
18. Pat C. Hoy II and William V. Costanzo

Chapter Eight

19. Robert Boynton and Robert Gottlieb
20. John McPhee and Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Steven Pinker and Cornel West

Politics, Society, History

Chapter Nine

22. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
23. Franz Fanon and Hannah Arendt

Chapter Ten

24. Edward Said and bell hooks
25. Lani Guinier and Tim Wu

Chapter Eleven

26. Giambattista Vico and Denis Diderot
27. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Hilary Mantel

Chapter Twelve

28. Jill Lepore and Yuval Harari
29. Walter Isaacson and Richard Cohen
30. Robert A. Caro and Doris Kearns Goodwin

Arts—Music, Dance, Art & Architecture, Theatre, Film

Chapter Thirteen

31. Leontyne Price and Leonard Bernstein
32. Robert Shaw and John Eliot Gardiner
33. Jacques d’Amboise and Twyla Tharp

Chapter Fourteen

34. Bruce Adolphe and Fred Child
35. Naomi Lewin and Robert Sherman
36. Willie Ruff and William Zinsser

Chapter Fourteen

34. Bruce Adolphe and Fred Child
35. Naomi Lewin and Robert Sherman
36. Willie Ruff and William Zinsser

Chapter Fifteen

37. Vincent Scully and E. H. Gombrich
38. Elliot Eisner and Rob Kapilow

Chapter Sixteen

39. William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw
40. Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler
41. David Mamet and August Wilson

Chapter Seventeen

42. Peter Brook and Richard Taruskin
43. Sir Ken Robinson and A. O. Scott

PART TWO:  Sciences +

Math and Medicine

Chapter One

1. Leonhardt Euler, G. H. Hardy & Srinivasa Ramanujan
2. Eugenia Cheng and Steven Strogatz
3. Paul Lockhart and Eric Mazur

Chapter Two

4. Richard Selzer and Paul Farmer
5. Oliver Sacks and Robert Coles

Chapter Three

6. Danielle Ofri and Perri Klass
7. Jerome Groopman and Averroes

Sciences, Natural and Social

Chapter Four

8. Richard Feynman and Edward Tufte
9. Carl Sagan and Stuart Firestein

Chapter Five

10. E. O. Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould
11. Brian Greene and Alan Lightman

Chapter Six

12. Dan Ariely and Robert Frank
13. Gregory Bateson and Clifford Geertz

Chapter Seven

14. Daniel Kahneman and Howard Gardner
15. Alison Gopnik and Paul Bloom

Education, Theory and Practice

Chapter Eight

16. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel
17. Elizabeth Peabody and Mary McLeod Bethune

Chapter Nine

18. Gabriela Mistral and Jaime Escalante
19. Carol Dweck and Peter Johnston

Chapter Ten

20. Robert Scholes and Michael Sandel
21. Theodore Hesburgh and Ruth Simmons

Chapter Eleven

22. John Holt and Hope Jahren
23. A. S. Neill and Joseph Albers

Chapter Twelve

24. Carl Rogers and Fred Rogers
25. Robert Maynard Hutchins and Roosevelt Montás

Chapter Thirteen

26. Benjamin Bloom and Lawrence Cremin
27. Linda Darling-Hammond and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Potpourri—Sports, Self-Help, Magic, Floral Arranging, Hospitality, Gastronomy, Criticism, Creativity, Commentary

Chapter Fourteen

28. John Madden and Bob Costas
29. Timothy Gallwey and Brené Brown

Chapter Fifteen

30. Harry Houdini and Ricky Jay
31. Gregor Lersch & Klaus Wagener and Ella Lawton Grant Campbell

Chapter Sixteen

32. Conrad Hilton and Danny Meyer
33. M. F. K. Fisher and Pauline Kael

Chapter Seventeen

34. Adam Grant and Michael Michalko
35. Thomas Friedman and David Brooks

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

 

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.