Often imagination can bring severed parts together, can integrate into the right order, can create wholes (Maxine Green, 1995, p. 38).
The Conference with its theme of the place of the imagination in education affords the opportunity to explore how learning can be promoted through one activity that invariably engages the imagination in order to “bring severed parts together”—the autobiography. Autobiography is becoming recognized as a valued method for promoting self-reflection and self-definition (Gornick, 2001; Dominicé, 2000). Still, autobiography is generally assumed to be a literary endeavour and associated with the artistic aspects of education. However, I would like to propose that autobiography actually encompasses not only artistic aspects, but also scientific and philosophical. In this Conference paper I explore these three possible aspects—the artistic, scientific, and philosophical—as they are revealed in the autobiographical writings of my graduate and continuing education students, and how these contribute to student learning and growth. For this purpose I turn to the many autobiographies of my graduate and continuing education students in the United States, Canada, and Europe that I have been collecting over nearly a decade. As I immerse myself in these narratives, I take note of the abundance of metaphors—aspects of imagination—that students draw to characterize events of their life. I notice the instances of recollection, meaning-making, self-awareness, and self-construction—the bringing together of the ‘severed parts.’ In their stories I recognize aspects of the artistic, the theoretical, and the moral.
Propositional Inventory
The work of philosopher, Maxine Greene (1995), contributes to our understanding of the connection of the imagination with the process of creating a self and an identity. According to Greene, imagination permits us to move beyond the taken for granted, to view our world from different angles, to consider alternative realities, and to envision a possible identity. When we can imagine things being otherwise, we can begin to act as though they can be changed. Drawing on John Dewey’s work, she likens the imagination to a “gateway” that permits meaning of past experiences to be brought into the present. She is suggesting that through the remembered past and the meanings they permit, our understanding of our present becomes unified and integrated.
One of the means by which past experiences are brought together is through autobiography. French autobiographer and historian of discourse, Philippe Lejeune (1989), defines autobiography as “retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (p. 4). He suggests that writers of an autobiography enter into an “autobiographical pact,” a contract, whereby the writers commit to the task of coming to terms with their life (Eakin, 1989).
Since the 1950s scholarly interest in autobiography has grown within the field of literary theory as well as in other disciplines (Gullestad, 1996). Among the literary theorists, Olney (1980) and Randall (1995) examined autobiography from the perspective of psychological development. Smith and Watson (1996, 1998) have compiled edited collections of feminist literary analysis. In education, Witherell and Noddings (1991) and Dominicé (2000) have examined story and narrative as the primary tools in the work that teachers and counselors do. And Josselson & Lieblich (1999) have advanced autobiography as a source for narrative research.
Method
As my appreciation for autobiography has grown, I have been giving my students in several of my graduate and continuing education courses the opportunity to write their life story as their (elective) final assignment. The assignment is fairly straightforward. “Imagine that a publisher has asked you to write five chapters of your life story. Consider a title for each of the five chapters and complete 2-3 pages for each chapter.” I have been amazed by some of the challenges, hardships, and tragic events they had endured, and that rarely surface during normal class activities. What began as a novel experiment has emerged as a powerful learning tool.
Since receiving my first autobiographical paper, I have been collecting these student autobiographies. I had wondered about the effect on them of writing their stories, and with this purpose in mind and after the course had ended, I began to invite students to participate in my autobiography research, and if willing, to re-submit their papers for this purpose. I also arranged to interview one group of such Canadian student writers six months after their course had ended. Through taped interviews with fifteen of these students I explored the process and effects of their autobiographical writing. Among the questions asked were: What, if anything did you learn from the autobiography? For whom was your autobiography written? What were the most enjoyable and what were the most difficult parts of the process. On the basis of the narratives and the interview data, the major themes concerning both the experience of writing and the uses made of their autobiography were analyzed and described in earlier papers (Karpiak, 2000, 2003).
Findings
In the course of their writing, students look primarily to the past as they relive and remember events of their life. Invariably, however, once the past has been revisited, they reflect on this lived past and on the meaning and significance of life events. And finally, most often in the last of the five chapters, they turn to the future and project themselves into possible choices and actions. In the following paragraphs each of these will be explored briefly will illustrations from the students’ writings.
Imagining the Past
Writing their story sends students on an archeological dig back into their history to recover and reassemble the pieces of their life. They write about what was, what happened; they recall, remember, revisit, and review early events and experiences. Some begin with their birth, and of the family into which they were born; some even begin with the marriage of their own parents. Many recall their first experiences of school. In one such instance, a student described his attempt to board the school bus on his very first day of school, only to have his efforts blocked by the family German Shepherd that positioned himself between the would-be student and the bus. Only the actions of his frantic mother running out in her pink bathrobe and curlers were able to save the situation. Students write of their relocations to new communities, their love relationships, of cultural dislocation, personal failures, and overcoming losses and adversity. In the naming of their five chapters they highlight key life events and turning points that now come to be associated with their present sense of self. These turning points are captured in the various chapter titles of the student autobiographies: “From the Himalayas to Halifax,” “The Diverted Dream,” and “Baseball, Cops, and Blood.”
The narratives and the associated emotions of sadness, joy, anger, humour, and distress contain such evocative language, so unlike the language of their more formal writing. Their imagination becomes evident through their use of humour and metaphor. As an example of the humour, one student opens his narrative with these lines describing his beginnings:
It was a very close race. In fact, we were neck and neck for several months, but in the end, my twin sister was born into this world before me. With a mere six minutes between us, I was forever labeled the last of six children.
One doctoral student begins with a reflection on the universality of reading and professes her own love of it:
Symbols. Marks hardened in ancient clay. Charred wood scrawled on the rough stone of caves. An alphabet of letters transformed into words conveying the ideas and feelings of one human mind to the mind of another. We call the ability to translate the written symbols of our spoken language “reading.” Reading. The ability to read is the finest single thing I have even learned.
Writers draw on such a range of metaphors: the ‘brushstrokes’ of their life, the colours of their life, their growth in identity from being ‘a puppet to a dancer.’ One African American student beautifully illustrated the use of metaphor and first alerted me to its power. She had described the various periods of her life through the metaphor of “crossing over.” Beginning with her childhood, she recounted the time of “crossing over” from home to kindergarten, then of “crossing over” into an ‘integrated’ neighbourhood, and finally of “crossing over” to become an educator and trainer of adults. Through her example she demonstrated metaphor’s capacity to reveal meaning and patterns in our life.
Imagining the Present
Writing about past events and turning points prompts students to shift to the present tense and to make connections between past and present, and on the significance of past events to their present life. Some begin to see the past in a new way, now noting something different in it. Others articulate their understandings about their own actions and those of others. As one student remarked, “I played the role of the innocent.” They make observations and arrive at conclusions about the past and about life in general. In effect, these writers articulate their theories of life. As an illustration, Louise, earlier in her narrative, describes and reflects on the events of her childhood and then she comments, below, on its effects on her adult life and on the lives of her children.
My children all married and had children, in whatever order. I can see clearly that some of the problems they had, and have, are directly due to being raised in an alcoholic home, and it hurts my heart. I wish I could undo it, and that I would have left sooner—than have to remind myself I did what I thought was best at the time. I wanted them to have 2 parents at any cost. The cost was too high.
Later, near the end of her narrative, Louise reconnects with her past again and contemplates its impact, for better and for worse, on her identity:
Some days I drive past some of the old spots. Out near the location of Auntie’s farm are country roads named after pioneers we used to visit. A cottage subdivision, named after my grandparents, on the land which was their homestead. Pieces of the mosaic of my life. My heritage of unconditional love and caring on one side. Mixed messages and criticism on the other. Complicated the task of knowing who I am.
This tendency to make meaning of the events of their life appeared so frequently and spontaneously as to suggest that it might even have been their unconscious motive for writing. It even suggested that this search for understanding and meaning was a natural inclination and perhaps even a motive for pursuing further education.
Imagining the Future
As writers come to the end of their narrative, and having understood more about their life and the way in which events have shaped their identity, they most often turn their eye to the future. In this perspective they express their resolve as to how they ought to or want to live—the sorts of things they want for their children, what kind of partners and friends they hope to be, what they aspire to as professionals, in what way they intend to serve others, and what they hope to leave behind. As an illustration, one student, who likened the educational process to the nature of the sea, expressed his vision of becoming a special kind of educator:
With time it is my deepest hope that I will develop into a teacher that can create the safe harbor for my students. That each student will find a space within the classroom that invites them to give voice to their ideas and experience. So someday a student will say, [he] was my lighthouse. This is the supreme legacy of a teacher-learner.
Analysis &Discussion
Novels are completed when they are finished, but the memoir changes its own conclusion by virtue of being written…. I am not at all the same person, when I handed the manuscript over to the publisher, as I’d been when I began. A memoir may always be retrospective, but the past is not where its action takes place.
(Nuala O‘Faolain, 2003, p. 52)
In her second memoir, Irish author, Nuala O’Faolain records not only the details of her life, but also her observations on life: “The first thing is that you must live. So long as you are alive, something might change.” And in this second memoir she comments upon the effect on her life of having written an earlier one. With this earlier memoir, she knew that she was no longer the same person; writing that memoir had changed her. “A memoir may always be retrospective, but the past is not where its action takes place” (2003, p. 52).
Another author, Carlos Gébler (2001) in the last chapter of his memoir looks back over his life story and makes this observation about his own literary process: “The story was in two acts: act one, what happened, act two, what I understood” (p. 379). This observation leads to further self-reflection, “My new take on the past had initiated a miracle. These thoughts made a little hole in my head and out of the hole all the toxins that had accumulated over forty-four years began to trickle away” (p. 402). And this leads him to theorize about the benefit of autobiography: “You can’t change the past but, with understanding, you can sometimes draw the poison out of it” (p. 405).
In the previous section I described the students’ processes of imagining the past, imagining the present, and imagining the future, which appears to characterize autobiographical writings, including those of my students. In order to look more closely at the significance of these processes, I draw on the work of developmental theorist, Ken Wilber (1995), who provides a valuable framework for analyzing personal narratives. Throughout the past two decades Wilber has devoted his attention to the theme of lifespan growth of consciousness toward more integrative and complex psychological structures. Taking first a historical societal perspective, Wilber observes that whereas modernity differentiated science, art, and morality, it is the task of post modernity to integrate them. The needs of a global society are such that they require a worldview that brings together what was earlier differentiated, a worldview that integrates “the big three”—science, art, and philosophy.
Wilber applies this same challenge to individual development. Correspondingly, an integrative worldview in individuals would bring together the exterior span of the science with the depth of art, and the community of philosophy. Wilber suggests that the effect of integrating the "I," “it,” and "we" is to bring the artist (represented by the "I"), the scientist (the "it"), and the philosopher (the "we") together in each of us. Consequently as we consider issues and phenomena, whereas we might approach these initially from the perspective of the factual, scientific "it," we would also delve more deeply into our interpretations, our own history, and our feelings and attitudes, thereby including the “I.” And by extending our concern beyond ourselves to inquire of its effects on the larger social sphere, we would encompass the “we.” The integration of the these would serve not only the development of us as individuals toward a more integrated, complex and inclusive perspective, but it would also serve society’s struggle with present issues by bringing these perspectives together as we deal with these.
Returning to Nuala O’Faolain’s (2003) memoir, mentioned earlier, I notice the extent to which this integrative aspect that Wilber (1995) proposes is evident here. For instance, having described the many details of events and happenings, O’Faolain directs her attention to her own processes of personal survival (the artist), and writes, “I grew a skin over my wounds first by finding words for them and then by purging the words of their power—by making them utensils in a job, a task.” (p. 187). Later she theorizes about the value of autobiography (the scientist), “Surely the self has begun to move toward health when it takes itself seriously enough to tell its story?” (p. 192). And elsewhere, she expresses her moral stance regarding life (the philosopher), “But when we object to the death penalty it is because one life stands for all life” (p. 186).
Both O’Faolain and Gébler are seasoned writers with memoirs written in a literary context, and this might lead one to assume that this kind of self-reflective process is limited to experienced writers working in a literary situations. But as I turn to my students’ autobiographies, I cannot miss noting the close correspondence between these comparatively short narratives of the students, written for a class assignment, and the more developed, lengthy, professionally published memoirs of writers like O’Faolain. When students write their life story, they similarly remember and record events and experiences, and then, like O’Faolain and Gébler, they turn to observations of themselves, of others, of learning, and of life, even imagining a possible future. As they compose their autobiographies, they, too, emerge as artist, theorist, and philosopher. In the paragraphs that follow I explore how these actions of reflecting, theorizing, and philosophizing are revealed through the autobiographical writings of my students.
The “I,” the Artist
The artistic dimension includes not only self-expression but also the willingness to know oneself, to gain self-awareness and self-understanding. The qualities or criteria distinguishing the artist, the “I,” include interiority (the inside view), subjectivity, sincerity, and truthfulness about one’s inner state (Wilber, 1995). Interiority suggests self-awareness and self-understanding and the willingness to explore one’s depth. And whereas these writers of autobiographies may not have any more self-knowledge that anyone else, what is significant is that “they know who they are at the moment of writing. They know they are there to clarify in relation to the subject in hand—and on this obligation they deliver” (Gornick, 2001, p. 30).
The students’ writings reflect the artistic “I” in two most significant aspects: the first concerns their capacity for self-expression through imagining and writing about past, present and future (as was discussed earlier in the paper). For many students writing their life story is a novel experience, unlike any other assignment they have done. Most have never written about themselves in such a personal way. In the course of writing they discover a capacity to write that had not been previously evident to them. They realize that they have a story to tell and that they have the capacity to write in a way that expresses directly and honestly.
The second instance of the artistic concerns their willingness to explore themselves, to gain understanding of themselves, and develop insight into their own actions. In other words, these writers are willing to explore their own interiority, and through the act of writing, to become known to themselves (just as authors O’Faolain and Gébler had done). In the course of their writing, they reveal their tendencies and needs, the roles they have inadvertently played, and the factors they believe as having shaped their life. They describe decisions and difficult choices, taking action, and then they expound upon the consequences for their life. One writer summarized the course of her development in this way:
I’ve come a long way from those dark days in Detroit. That day of childhood dreams where the seeds of the future were planted. Remembering where I came from is humbling and I don’t ever want to forget my roots. I appreciate what I have achieved because of where I began and where I am now.
The “It,” the Scientist
The criterion for the scientist is the presence of a match or correspondence between the propositions stated and the acts as they are disclosed (Wilber 1995). The scientist emerges out of the reflective process of the writing, as writers turn to theorizing about themselves and about life in general. On the basis of having taken a step away from and becoming a thoughtful observer of their own life, they draw conclusions about life (just as O’Faolain and Gébler had done). They address a number of themes and offer their perspectives. Among these, one concerns the view that we actually have less control over our life than we imagine. As one woman noted: “when I look back, my life took such curves at every stage. That is one thing now I am sure about. That nothing is what you plan it to be. You should always plan for the unexpected.” Some writers recognize that we never actually outgrow our childhood issues and needs, that despite our maturity, when certain situations arise, the child emerges and the same feelings associated with childhood are still there. Other writers conclude that life comes in both positive and negative forms, and that “life can sure throw some rotten apples.” Some came to understand that the lessons we fail to learn earlier come back to be learned over and over again. And others noted that we all carry our “cultural baggage” as we traverse through life.
Students, especially those who had endured a difficult early childhood school experience made insightful comments and recommendations concerning the needs of young children. One such student, who recalled the many instances in childhood of personal humiliation in the classroom, made the following observation about the classroom:
Sometimes I think that teachers forget that children are people too and that they deserve as much respect and patience as an adult does. Their young minds are there to be molded and nurtured. One comment or action could squelch their creativity, self-esteem and motivation toward obtaining a successful education.
And finally, as one writer looked over the events and experiences of her life, she recognized the many consequential events, and noted that change is an ever-present reality. Currently coping with a recent marital separation, she demonstrates the correspondence between propositions and events (the scientist), as she comments on what she had learned about change:
The only thing I can say with some certainty about life is that it will always change. My life was progressing down a comfortable path and I was beginning to feel secure in the direction I was going, or so I thought. I am finding that the old saying, the more you know the more you do not know, is very true. I have come to the realization that life is very humbling and knowledge is a way to stay open and focused and a path to continual growth.
As Vivian Gornick (2001) has noted, truth in an autobiography is not so much a matter of actual events, but rather has to do with the effort of the writer to engage with the experience. She concludes, “What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened” (p. 91).
The “We,” the Philosopher
The final aspect, the “we” brings out the writers’ moral perspective on life, what has been learned, what philosophy has emerged out of life and living. The criteria for the philosopher, the “we,” includes goodness, justness, relational care and concern, where actions with each other show kindness and mutual understanding, and where the maxims one proposes might be universal (Wilber, 1995). If it is true every philosophy is an autobiography, then their present philosophical perspective reflects where they have come from, what has been their story. Throughout the five chapters, but especially in the last one, they philosophize on matters dealing with learning and education as well as personal development. Some highlight the importance of taking personal responsibility for actions and for making personal choices; some focus on the value of doing what is right and not only what is expected. Some highlight their awareness that the most important things in life cannot be measured. Some note the preciousness of life; and others how little control we actually have over life events. And finally, awareness is expressed of the universality of life’s problems, issues, and concerns.
One student who, over his lifetime came to recognize the importance of education and life-long learning defines his position with respect to work and learning. And then he highlights the vulnerability of learners, both as children and as adults, and, based on this understanding, describes his own efforts with respect to students:
People should be continually seeking to expand their intellectual horizon. Allowing oneself to grow and recognize the changes in ones life and behavior is essential to growth and development.
If one was turned off by education at a young age, it does not necessarily determine whether they will successfully learn as an adult. The argument that children are resilient and will bounce back from undesired learning experiences is just as valid in adults. Adults, who believe they are not smart enough to pursue higher educational goals because of something that occurred in their early formal education, should give higher education a try. I have shared many learning experiences at the Masters level with adult learners who did not perform well in high school who had the most profound impact in class due to their own unique life skills and experiences. The ability to accept and believe in all people from any background is an important virtue to hold and value for every adult learner and educator. Ultimately we learn from each other.
Oftentimes the writers’ philosophy is directed to what kind of parents they want to be, as in the case of Angela, who being a soldier and one who did not recoil from defeat, articulates her hopes and lessons for her soon to be born baby:
I hope my baby does not choose to walk in my shoes because they were very heavy at times. Yes the choices I have made and what fate has dealt me have made me a stronger person but the tears and turmoil it took me to get there were sometime more than I could bear.
The most important thing I’ll share with my daughter is that it is all right to be defeated, it is only accepting that defeat that would make her a failure but I’ll love her despite her shortcomings. My love for her is unconditional.
Summary
Currently in most spheres of society including the major disciplines, the artistic, scientific, and philosophical dimensions are kept separate. But as is evident, when adult learners sit down to write about their life, they are moved to bring these three dimensions together. In looking at the past, they re-collect the scattered images of their life. They bring form to what may have been random events. The artist gives these quality, strength, character, and shape, often through images and metaphors. The scientist makes sense of the experiences, furnishes a logic or understanding of what happened, makes statements about their meaning, and draws conclusions. And when the philosopher emerges, statements center on issues of values and of morals, as the narrator turns beyond the self toward the wider spheres of family, profession, friendship, and society.
Conclusion
When students undertake the work of an autobiography, they invariably move to the past as they recollect and reconnect with significant and memorable events in their life. Then they turn to the present and reflect upon and make meaning of those past events. And then they turn to the future, and ask, now that I know this, what will I say further? In this paper I have acknowledged this process of imagining past, present, and future, and how importantly this may be related to their own development.
As I began this paper I suggested that autobiography is more than an artistic or literary endeavour, but rather one that encompasses other dimensions of ourselves, our self as theorizer, who makes connections between lived events and propositions about life, and also our self as philosopher, who holds a moral position on matters beyond our immediate self. Earlier, Wilber (1995) had pointed out that the more we draw on the various parts of ourselves, the artist, scientist and philosopher, the greater the likelihood of the integration of these aspects within ourselves. And this same integration is importantly connected to higher stages of development. Looking at the stories of students and the way in which they have invested themselves in all of these areas (albeit to varying degrees), and following Wilber’s position concerning the relationship of this integration to development, then it can be said that they have furthered the process of the own growth. My own research into the experience of those who had written their stories would substantiate this claim (Karpiak, 2000, 2003).
….my life is the making of a story I couldn’t have predicted and one [that] careful planning hadn’t phased, couldn’t touch. I like the idea of being an unfinished novel, an untold story in the process of the telling. My task in life is reading the book as I’m in the midst of the writing, replete with experiences, changing meanings, and a cast of real people (Roberta, student).
It is fitting that my paper would end with the words of a student who, having written her life story, likens it to a novel that is still being written, and she, as the one who is living it, finds herself also the one reading and the one creating and ‘changing meanings.’ But the difference between a novel and an autobiography is that the latter is never finished. As students write their life story, and contain the scattered fragments of their life into five chapters, they become known to themselves in ways that change them. Like Nuala O’Faolain, for whom change came about from having written her memoir, these students, too, are changed.
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