What's the Big Idea? Abstracting and Analogizing

          Abstracting is the process of looking at something in a different way.  It involves really focusing on the basics of an object or concept to get to the fundamental workings of it.  It might involve using one or more of the five senses that we wouldn’t expect to use.  For example, I know how a book looks and feels, but will I discover something new if I smell it?  Listen to the pages as they are being turned or listen to the book being dropped on the floor?  Picasso told us that we must see with our minds, not our eyes.  Truly getting to know to know the nature of something is challenging, but rewarding.

Abstraction can both come from and lead to analogizing.  When something is stripped to its core we are better able to see how it relates to something else.  When we are able to look at just one feature of something it becomes easier to compare and contrast it with other things.  Analogies are the relationships that two things have based on a single, basic characteristic.  Analogies are often confused with similarities.  Analogies, however, are relationships where no obvious similarities can be seen.  It is sometimes the functional resemblance that defines the relationship.

Children may be better than we assume them to be at creating abstractions and making analogies.  They are likely to have fewer preconceived notions about what things are supposed to be and the way things are supposed to work.  Without those walls to prevent them from seeing things in new ways, they may be better able to see things for what they might be.  When my kids were younger I would laugh when they would take something literally.  They still amaze me with their ability to really see things.  Although I will never know my students as well as I do my own children, I encourage conversations that will help me to see things the way that they do.  We often need to simplify things as teachers.  It is the nuts and bolts of things that make up the curriculum.  Students can help me to “remove all traces of reality” to find the “idea” of something.

Poetry, too, can show us the essence of something.  Abstract poetry uses rhythms, textures, and sounds to convey its message rather than (or in addition to) just words taken at face value.  It is sometimes way the words are printed on the page that tell us something about the author’s intention.  An excellent example of this is the poem by e. e. cummings from the chapter.  The way he organizes the words on the page lends itself to the way the poem is read.  Similarly, Gary Snyder used an analogy to Indian music to construct his poem “Burning the Small Dead.”  His poem used the ideas of melody and chorus to move the poem forward, and again the structure of the poem contributed to the feeling of it.