understanding+by+understanding

The Six Facets of Understanding
We have developed a multifaceted view of what makes up a mature understanding, a six-sided view of the concept. The six facets are explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. They are most easily summarized by specifying the articular achievement each facet reflects. When one truly understands, one
 * Can //explain//: provide thorough, supported, and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data.
 * Can //interpret//: tell meaningful stories; offer apt translations; provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make them personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models.
 * Can //apply//: effectively use and adapt what one knows in diverse contexts.
 * Have //perspective//: see points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture.
 * Can //empathize//: find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior direct experience.
 * Have //self-knowledge//: perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede one's own understanding. One is aware of what one does not understand, of why understanding is hard, and of how one comes to understand.

The facets reflect the different connotations of understanding, yet a complete and mature understanding ideally involves the more or less full development of all six kinds of understanding. The first three facets represent the kinds of performances one with understanding can do; the latter three speak more to the types of insights one has. These facets are different but related, in the same way that different criteria are used in judging the quality of a complex performance. For example, a "good essay" is composed of persuasive, organized, and clear prose. All three criteria need to be met, yet each is different from and somewhat independent of the other two. The writing might be clear, but unpersuasive; it might be well organized but unclear and somewhat persuasive. Similarly, a student may have a thorough and sophisticated explanation but not be able to apply it, or may see things from a critical distance but lack empathy. Understanding is always a matter of degree, typically furthered by questions and lines of inquiry that arise from reflection, discussion, and use of ideas. For each facet, therefore, we
 * Introduce the facet with a brief definition, followed by an apt quote and questions typical of someone wishing to better understand what the facet means.
 * Offer examples of what the facet might look like in daily public life and in the classroom, as well as an example of what a lack of this type of understanding looks like.
 * Provide an analysis of the facet, offering a brief look at the instructional and assessment implications. (See //Understanding by Design// [Wiggins & McTighe, 1998] for a detailed discussion of these implications.)

We caution readers to treat these divisions as somewhat artificial and not the only possible take on the subject. The number six is not sacred, anymore than the five-paragraph essay is the only way to write discursively. The analytic framework we offer makes teaching and assessing for subject matter mastery more manageable. Another analysis might yield only three facets (e.g., application, explanation, and perspective) or five (as our initial theory had it). We have no doubt that further analysis might yield a different number of conceptual distinctions and hierarchies, and we, too, may make changes as we hear from readers and ponder further. The number and names of the facets matter less than the differences in meaning of the term "understanding." The important point is that understanding should be seen as a family of related abilities. We trust that readers will see that "understanding by design" is made more likely through the kinds of distinctions we are making here.
 * Misconception Alert**||

Facet 1: Explanation
//Definition:// Sophisticated and apt explanations and theories, which provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions, and ideas.

We see something moving, hear a sound unexpectedly, smell an unusual odor, and we ask: What is it? . . . When we have found out what it signifies, a squirrel running, two persons conversing, an explosion of gunpowder, we say that we understand. —Dewey, 1933, pp. 137, 146

//Why is that so? What explains such events? What accounts for such an effect? How can we prove it? To what is this connected? How does this work? What is implied?//
 * A cook explains why adding a little mustard to oil and vinegar enables them to mix. The mustard acts as an emulsifier.
 * A 10th grade history student provides a well-supported view of the causes of the American Revolution.
 * × A 10th grade student knows the facts of the Boston Tea Party and the Stamp Act but not why they happened and what they led to.

Facet 1 involves the kind of understanding that emerges from a well-developed and supported theory, an explanation that makes sense of puzzling or opaque phenomena, data, feelings, or ideas. It is understanding revealed through performances and products that clearly, thoroughly, and instructively explain //how// things work, //what// they imply, //where//they connect, and //why// they happened. As Dewey (1933) put it, to understand something "is to see it in its //relations// to other things: to note how it operates or functions, what consequences follow from it, what causes it" (p. 137) (emphasis in original). A student reveals an understanding of things—an experience, a lesson by the teacher, a concept, or an individual performance—when the student can give good reasons and telling evidence to support the claims.

Knowledge of Why and How
Understanding is thus not mere knowledge of facts, but knowledge of why and how, laid out in evidence and reasoning. We know that the Civil War happened, and we can perhaps cite a full chronology. But why did the war happen? What was its impact? A student who can explain why steam, water, and ice, though superficially different, are the same chemical substance better understands the chemical formula H20 than someone who cannot. To understand in this sense is to connect facts and ideas, including seemingly odd, counterintuitive, or contradictory ones, into a theory that works. More thorough or in-depth understandings involve more insightful and systematic explanations, where many diverse events or data are linked and subsumed under more powerful principles. When we understand in this way, we can make inferences and offer predictions: We can go beyond the information given to make connections and associations. We understand guiding principles that explain and give value to the facts. Illuminating mental and physical models are one result of such understanding. We can bind together seemingly disparate facts into a coherent, comprehensive, and helpful account. We can predict unsought for or unexamined results, and we can illuminate strange or unexamined experiences.

Warranted Opinions
Explanatory understandings go beyond true opinions (mere right answers) to //warranted// opinions, a person's ability to explain his opinion so that he can justify how he got there and why it's right. Educators call upon learners to reveal their understanding by using such verbs as //explain, justify, generalize, support, verify, prove//, and //substantiate//. Regardless of the subject matter, or the age and sophistication of a student, when the student understands in the sense of Facet 1, she has the ability to "show her work," explain why the answer is right or wrong, give valid evidence and argument for a view, and defend that view against other views if needed. The student with the most in-depth understanding in this sense explains diverse data more precisely and grasps the subtler aspects of the ideas or experience in question. Teachers invariably describe this type of understanding as thorough, nuanced, and in-depth (as opposed to merely glib or grandiose theorizing). An explanation or theory without such understanding is typically not so much wrong as incomplete or naïve. It is not wrong to say that the Civil War was fought over slavery, or that literature often involves good versus evil—just naïve or simplistic. Merely learning and giving back on tests the official theory of the textbook or teacher are not adequate evidence of understanding. Facet 1 calls for a student to be given assignments and assessments that require an explanation of varied and novel events before the teacher can conclude that the student understands what was taught.

Implications for Instruction and Assessment
Instructionally, this facet suggests that we deliberately seek a better balance between knowledge transmission (through a teacher and text) on the one hand and student theory building and testing on the other. A simple strategy is to make sure students have to ask the 5 "W" questions at the heart of journalism: who, what, where, when, and why. Facet 1 calls for building units around questions, issues, and problems that demand student theories and explanations, such as those found in problem-based learning and effective hands-on and minds-on science programs. Other implications for assessment are straightforward—use assessments (e.g., performance tasks, projects, prompts, and tests) that ask students to explain, not simply recall; to link specific facts with larger ideas and justify the connections; to show their work, not just give an answer; and to support their conclusions.

Facet 2: Interpretation
//Definition//: Interpretations, narratives, and translations that provide meaning.

Juzo Itami's films revealed truths to the Japanese they never knew existed—even though they were right there in their daily life. "He could express the inside story about things people think they understand but really don't," said film critic Jun Ishiko. —Washington Post, 1997, p. A1

The object of interpretation is understanding, not explanation. Understanding is the outcome of organizing essentially contestable, incompletely verifiable propositions in a disciplined way. One of our principal means for doing so is through narrative: by telling a story of what something is about. But as Kierkegaard had made clear many years before, telling stories in order to understand is no mere enrichment of the mind; without them we are, to use his phrase, reduced to fear and trembling. —Bruner, 1996, p. 90

//What does it mean? Why does it matter? What of it? What does it illustrate or illuminate in human experience? How does it relate to me? What makes sense?//
 * A grandfather tells stories about the Depression to illustrate the importance of saving for a rainy day.
 * An 11th grade student shows how //Gulliver's Travels// can be read as a satire on British intellectual life. The book is not just a fairy tale.
 * × A middle school student can translate all the words but does not grasp the meaning of a Spanish sentence.

We value engaging storytellers because a good story both enlightens and entertains. A clear and compelling narrative helps us find meaning, where before there may have been only scattered facts, cold and impersonal theory, and abstract ideas. Stories help us remember and make sense of our lives and the lives around us. The deepest, most transcendent meanings are found, of course, in the stories, parables, and myths that anchor all religions. A story is not a diversion; the best stories make our lives more understandable.

Meanings Transform Understandings
The meanings we ascribe to all events, big and small, transform our understanding and perception of particular facts. A student with such an understanding can show an event's significance, reveal an idea's importance, or provide an interpretation that strikes a deep chord of recognition and resonance. Consider how Martin Luther King Jr.'s memorable March on Washington speech ("I have a dream") and imagery crystallized the many complex ideas and feelings behind the Civil Rights movement. Or, think of how the best newspaper editorials make sense of complex political currents and ideas. Meaning, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Think of how much November 22, 1963 (the day President Kennedy was assassinated), means as a watershed event to those of us who came of age in the '60s, and how little that date means to today's students. Or, consider the different readings of the same newspaper account of severe child abuse when the reader is a mother, a police officer, or an adolescent in a foster home. Social workers and psychologists might well have an accepted theory of child abuse in the sense of Facet 1. But the meaning of the event, hence an understanding of it, may have little to do with the theory, which is a scientific account with no bearing on the abused child's view of the event and the world. Making sense of the stories of others involves translation and interpretation. Whether we think of a student struggling in German I, a 4th grader reading //Charlotte's Web//, or a scholar poring over the Dead Sea Scrolls, the challenge is the same: to understand words rooted in an author's intent but a puzzle to the reader who cannot see a clear meaning and significance. Similarly, experts in fields like history and archaeology must reconstruct the meaning of events and artifacts from the clues provided by the historical record. With this type of understanding, teachers ask learners to interpret, translate, make sense of, show the significance of, decode, and make a story meaningful.

Explanation and Interpretation
Explanation and interpretation are thus related but different. We may know the relevant facts and theoretical principles, but we can and still must ask, What does it all mean? What is its importance to me? To us? A jury trying to understand child abuse seeks significance and personal intent, not generalizations from theoretical science. A theorist builds objective and general knowledge about the phenomenon called abuse, but the story told by the lawyer, witness, or journalist may offer more insight. As the example reveals, all acts of interpretation are more fraught with ambiguity than the act of theory building and testing. A text or a speaker's words may have different but valid meanings. As noted researcher, Jerome Bruner (1996) puts it: "Narratives and their interpretations traffic in meanings, and meanings are intransigently multiple" (p. 90). A theory needs to be true to work; a story need only illuminate, engage, and have verisimilitude. The same physical phenomenon cannot have three accurate explanations. But the same stories and events can have many different plausible and illuminating interpretations. This narrative building (as well as the theory building of Facet 1) is the true meaning of constructivism. When we say that students must make their own meaning, we mean that handing them prepackaged "interpretations," without their working through a problem and coming to see these explanations and interpretations as valid, is counterproductive—sham understanding. A purely didactic teaching of //the// interpretation is likely to lead to misunderstanding and forgotten knowledge, and ignores the arguable nature of interpretation, thus misleading students. The inherently problematic nature of certain ideas, texts, and experiences mandates an education that requires students, not just teachers and textbook writers, to develop interpretations and stories, an education that also ensures that student ideas get the feedback necessary to force continual testing and revision of those accounts.

Implications for Instruction and Assessment
The implications for instruction parallel those for the other facets. Educating students so that they will be able to think intelligently as adults requires that //they// learn to build stories and interpretations, not just passively take in official ones. They need to see how knowledge is built "from the inside." For example, a teacher might ask students to fashion an oral history from disparate interviews, a mathematical formula and graph from discrete properties, or an interpretation of a story from a careful reading. Learning cannot merely be the process of receiving what someone else says is the meaning of something, except as a way to model meaning making or as a prelude to testing an interpretation for better understanding the possibilities.

Facet 3: Application
//Definition:// The ability to use knowledge effectively in new situations and diverse contexts.

[By understanding] I mean simply a sufficient grasp of concepts, principles, or skills so that one can bring them to bear on new problems and situations, deciding in which ways one's present competencies can suffice and in which ways one may require new skills or knowledge. —Gardner, 1991, p. 18

//How and where can I use this knowledge, skill, or process? In what ways do people apply this understanding in the world beyond school? How should my thinking and action be modified to meet the demands of this particular situation?//
 * A young couple uses their knowledge of economics (e.g., the power of compounded interest and the high cost of credit cards) to develop an effective financial plan for saving and investing.
 * 7th grade students use their knowledge of statistics to accurately project next year's costs and needs for the student-run candy and supply store.
 * × A physics professor can't diagnose and fix a broken lamp.

To understand is to be able to use knowledge. This is an old idea in U.S. education—indeed, an old idea in the long tradition of American pragmatism and cultural disdain for mere ivory-tower, academic thinking. We all say to young and old alike, "You need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk."

Matching Ideas to Context
Gardner's definition of genuine performance mentioned earlier echoes what Bloom (1956) and his colleagues said in the taxonomy. They saw application as central to understanding and quite different from the kind of plugging-in and fill-in-the-blanks pseudoapplication found in so many classrooms:

Teachers frequently say: "If a student really comprehends something, he can apply it." . . . Application is different in two ways from knowledge and simple comprehension: The student is not prompted to give specific knowledge, nor is the problem old-hat (p. 120).

Application also needs to reflect real-world situations:

Problems should be as close as possible to the situation in which a scholar/artist/engineer, etc., attacks a problem. The time allowed, conditions of work, etc., should be //as far from the typical controlled exam situation as possible// (Bloom, Madaus, & Hastings, 1981, p. 268) (emphasis in original).

Understanding involves matching one's idea or action to context. To show that we understand something we show our ability to use it, adapt it, customize it, not simply plug in knowledge in a formulaic manner. When we must negotiate different constraints, social contexts, purposes, and audiences, understanding is revealed as performance know-how, the ability to accomplish tasks successfully, with "grace under pressure" and with "tact for the concrete situation" (James, 1899/1958, p. 24). Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget (1973/1977) argued more radically that student understanding is revealed by a student's innovation when applying knowledge. He said that many so-called application problems, especially in mathematics, were not truly novel, hence, not indicative of true understanding:

Real comprehension of a notion or a theory implies the reinvention of this theory by the student. Once the child is capable of repeating certain notions and using some applications of these in learning situations he often gives the impression of understanding; however, this does not fulfill the condition of reinvention. True understanding manifests itself by new spontaneous applications (pp. 726–732).

Implications for Instructions and Assessment
Thus, the instructional and assessment implications of Facet 3 call for an emphasis on performance-based learning—work that focuses on and culminates in more authentic tasks, supplemented by more conventional tests. (For more information, see Wiggins, 1998; McTighe, 1996–97.)

Facet 4: Perspective
//Definition//: Critical and insightful points of view.

The profit of education is the ability it gives to make distinctions that penetrate below the surface. . . . One knows that there is a difference between sound and sense, between what is emphatic and what is distinctive, between what is conspicuous and what is important. —Dewey, in Johnson, 1949, p. 104

An important symptom of an emerging understanding is the capacity to represent a problem in a number of different ways and to approach its solution from varied vantage points; a single, rigid representation is unlikely to suffice. —Gardner, 1991, p. 13

//From whose point of view? From which vantage point? What is assumed or tacit that needs to be made explicit and considered? What is justified or warranted? Is there adequate evidence? Is it reasonable? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the idea? Is it plausible? What are its limits? So what?//
 * A 10-year-old girl recognizes the fallacy in TV advertising of using popular figures to promote products.
 * A student explains the Israeli and Palestinian arguments for and against new settlements on the Gaza Strip.
 * × A bright but rigid student refuses to consider that there is another way to look at gun control.

To understand in this sense is to see things from a dispassionate and disinterested perspective. This type of understanding does not involve a student's particular point of view, but instead is a mature recognition that any answer to a complex question typically involves a point of view. Therefore, an answer may be one of many possible plausible accounts. A student with perspective is alert to what is taken for granted, assumed, overlooked, or glossed over in an inquiry or theory.

Seeing from a Critical Distance
Perspective implies seeing from a distance, the ability to see the whole forest, not just the near trees. Different perspectives are often found by asking, What of it? and to see an answer—even a teacher or textbook answer—as a point of view. Perspective involves making tacit assumptions explicit, bringing to light and analyzing unexamined habits of thought and action. Students with perspective expose questionable and unexamined conclusions and implications. Such perspective can lead to a powerful form of insight, because by shifting perspective and casting familiar ideas in a new light, one can create new theories, stories, and applications. When a student can take different perspectives, she gains a critical distance from the habitual or knee-jerk beliefs, feelings, theories, and appeals that less careful and less circumspect thinkers fall prey to. Then she can shift her point of view, try out new ways of seeing, and discover new theories and interpretations. A definition of the verb //understand// in the //Oxford English Dictionary// is "to know the import of" something. By this criterion, the U.S. educational system is not very successful in causing understanding. Few students leave school with an understanding of the value of their schoolwork—and of the value of the discipline required to learn the disciplines. Few can successfully ask and answer, What of it? Such an attitude is central to what is meant by a liberal education. Perspective involves the discipline of asking, Why might this matter? How might its value be clearer from another point of view? How, for example, would my critics see things? In his autobiography, Darwin (1958) noted that this critical stance was key to his success in defending his controversial theory:

I. . . followed a golden rule that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from memory than favorable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views that I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer (p. 123).

Perspective as an aspect of understanding is a mature achievement, an escape from our egocentric beliefs in systematizing different vantage points. Novice learners, just setting out on the road to mastery, may have a revealing point of view, even when they lack a thorough explanation of things. Consider the child in //The Emperor's New Clothes//. But novices lack the ability to take //multiple//perspectives. A student with a sophisticated perspective can simultaneously value teacher and textbook accounts while recognizing them as representing points of view. What is the point of view of the authors of a U.S. history or a physics textbook about what is true, verified, and important? Do other authors share those views? Do different experts, teachers, and authors establish different priorities? If so, what is their justification? What advantages or disadvantages do other points of view have? That this line of questioning seems too esoteric or odd shows how far education is from giving students needed perspective. Everyone recognizes the problem of maintaining perspective in newspaper reporting, so why isn't it addressed in textbook writing? Everyone knows that authors' views shape choice of content, emphasis, and style, so why aren't students helped to use these language arts skills in understanding textbooks and the theories in them?

Implications for Instruction and Assessment
Facet 4 suggests that instruction include explicit opportunities for students to confront alternative theories and diverse points of view about big ideas. An essential perspective on perspective involves encouraging students and designing coursework to ask and answer these questions: What of it? What does it mean? What follows? These questions need to be asked for all core knowledge and texts in the students' experience. One might say that these questions and attempts to answer them are the perspective of any liberally educated person. Instructional and assessment strategies need to better highlight the means and ends of a liberal education, namely greater control over essential questions and ideas so that students can see both intrinsic and extrinsic value in intellectual life.

Facet 5: Empathy
//Definition//: The ability to get inside another person's feelings and worldview.

To understand is to forgive. —old French proverb

"Do women ever come up to you and say, `How did you know that? How did you feel that?'" I ask, and for the first time, he turns and looks at me evenly: "Yeah, that's the normal response," he says in a voice that suddenly isn't so shy. "It's not that I understand women any better than anyone else, but I do understand feelings. . . . All you have to do is imagine what that girl is going through, just turn it around and put yourself in those same shoes. . . . We're all the same people." —The singer Babyface, //New York Times Sunday Magazine//, 1997, Sec. 6, p. 22

//How does it seem to you? What do they see that I don't? What do I need to experience if I am to understand? What was the artist or performer feeling, seeing, and trying to make me feel and see?//
 * An Israeli adolescent empathizes with the restrictive and constrained life of his Palestinian contemporaries.
 * From a recent British national exam: "//Romeo and Juliet//, act 4. Imagine you are Juliet. Write your thoughts and feelings explaining why you have to take this desperate action."
 * × An accomplished basketball player-turned-coach often berates his young players because he cannot relate to their struggles in learning the game.

Empathy, the ability to walk in another's shoes, to escape one's own emotional reactions to grasp another's, is central to the most common colloquial use of the term //understanding//. When we try to understand another person, people, or culture, we strive for empathy. It is not simply an affective response or sympathy. Empathy is a //learned// ability to grasp the world from someone else's point of view. It is the discipline of using one's imagination to see and feel as others see and feel. It is different from perspective, which is to see from a critical distance, detaching one's self to see more objectively. With empathy, one sees from inside the person's worldview, embracing the insights that can be found in the subjective or aesthetic realm. A German scholar, Theodor Lipps, coined the term //empathy// at the turn of the 20th century to describe what the audience must do to understand a work or performance of art. Empathy is the deliberate act of finding what is plausible, sensible, or meaningful in the ideas and actions of others, even if those actions are puzzling or off-putting. Empathy can lead us not only to rethink a situation but also to have a change of heart as we come to understand what originally seemed odd or alien. This kind of understanding implies an existential or experiential prerequisite. If, when referring to such experiences as poverty, abuse, racism, or high-profile competitive sports, someone says, "You cannot possibly understand without having been there," the implication is that insight from experience is necessary for understanding. A recent controversy involving the songwriter Paul Simon echoed the same theme (//USA Today//, 1997). Some Puerto Ricans contended that a Jewish man cannot possibly understand the experience of Puerto Ricans. The subject was a new musical, "Capeman," cowritten and produced by Simon and Reuben Blades. Though we might disagree with that particular sentiment, we regularly acknowledge as teachers that students need to directly or indirectly experience the ideas they study, or their understanding will be hobbled.

Empathy as a Form of Insight
Empathy, too, is a form of insight because it involves the ability to get beyond odd, alien, or seemingly weird opinions or people to find what is meaningful in them. Students have to learn how to open-mindedly embrace ideas, experiences, and texts that might seem strange, off-putting, or difficult to access, in order to understand them and their connection to what is more familiar. They need to see how weird or dumb ideas can seem insightful or sophisticated once they can overcome habitual responses, and they need to see how habit blocks their understanding of another person's understanding. Empathy is linked to self-knowledge (Facet 6) because we must bracket our prejudices to empathize:

The hermeneutical attitude supposes only that we self-consciously designate our opinions and prejudices and qualify them as such. . . . In keeping to this attitude, we grant the text the opportunity to appear as an authentically different being and to manifest its own truth, over and against our preconceived notions (Gadamer, 1994, pp. 238–239).

All great interpreters and historians of ideas need empathy. "If we laugh with derision" at the theories of our predecessors, as anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould (1980) says, we will fail "in our understanding of their world" (p. 149). From his own experience to find new meaning in what had seemed inadequate views about motion in Aristotle's work, Kuhn (1977) suggests:

When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person could have written them. When you find an answer, when those passages make sense, then you may find that more central passages, ones you previously thought you understood, have changed their meaning (p. xi).

An example of the need for empathy can be found in the U.S. system of government. Few students know that for more than 100 years, U.S. senators were appointed, not popularly elected. Fewer still understand why such a practice seemed like a good idea then. It is easy to imagine that our forefathers were misguided or hypocrites. Today's teachers could use assignments and assessments that ask students to role-play as the writers of the Constitution. The challenge would be to make a case to a group of citizens that appointed offices are in the citizens' best interest. A postscript could be to ask for an essay or journal entry on the pros and cons of the current popular vote approach, and a further consideration of the value, if any, of the electoral college.

Need for a Change of Heart
As noted in an earlier discussion of language, understanding in the interpersonal sense suggests not merely an intellectual change of mind but also a significant change of heart. Empathy requires respect for people different from ourselves and openness to what they have to say. Respect for others causes us to more willingly and carefully consider others' views when they are different from ours. It becomes easier, then, to imagine schoolwork that deliberately confronts students with strange or alien texts, experiences, or ideas to see if they can get beyond what is off-putting about the work. Such activity, in fact, is common in foreign language classes that stress cultural issues. It is the point of using many fables and such stories as Shirley Jackson's //The Lottery// and Camus' //The Stranger//. It is key to learning history, a point made by the Bradley Commission on the Teaching of History, which argues that a primary aim of history is to help students escape their ethnocentric and present-centered views (Gagnon, 1989).

Implications for Instruction and Assessment
To ensure greater understanding of abstract ideas, students must have far more direct or simulated experiences of them than most current textbook-driven courses now allow. We refer in //Understanding by Design// to the idea of an "intellectual Outward Bound" to capture the needed changes: Learning needs to be more experiential, more geared toward making students directly confront the effects—and //affect//—of decisions, ideas, theories, and problems. Put differently, the absence of such experience may explain why so many important ideas are misunderstood and learnings so fragile, as the literature on misconception reveals. Assessment must also pay greater attention to whether students have overcome egocentrism, ethnocentrism, and present-centeredness in their answers and explanations.

Facet 6: Self-Knowledge
//Definition//: The wisdom to know one's ignorance and how one's patterns of thought and action inform as well as prejudice understanding.

All understanding is ultimately self-understanding. . . . [A] person who understands, understands himself. . . . Understanding begins when something addresses us. This requires. . . the fundamental suspension of our own prejudices. —Gadamer, 1994, p. 266

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. —Kierkegaard, 1959, No. 1395, 1854 entry

//How does who I am shape my views? What are the limits of my understanding? What are my blind spots? What am I prone to misunderstand because of prejudice, habit, or style?//
 * mother realizes that her frustration with her daughter's shyness is rooted in issues from her own childhood.
 * Mindful of the fact that many students are visual learners, a middle school teacher includes visual organizers and images.
 * × When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Deep understanding is ultimately related to what is meant by wisdom. To understand the world, we must all understand ourselves. Through self-knowledge, we understand that what we understand is often intertwined with what we believe and expect to see, that sometimes what we think we understand is "out there" is actually a mental habit projected onto reality. With maturity, we come to understand that we do //not//understand. "Know thyself" is the maxim of those who would //really// understand, as the Greek philosophers often said. Socrates is the patron saint of understanding; he //knew// he was ignorant and needed to continually reflect and question beliefs. In daily life, the capacity to accurately self-assess and self-regulate reflects such understanding or its absence. Metacognition, or self-knowledge about how we think, why we think it, and the relation between our preferred methods of learning and our understanding (or lack of it), are involved. An immature mind is not merely ignorant or unskilled but //unreflective//. A naive student, no matter how bright and learned, is lacking in self-knowledge to know when an idea seems objectively true but really only fits the student's beliefs, or to know how styles or perceptual frames shape how and what is understood. The challenge for self-knowledge is to learn when prejudice, not insight, determines our understanding. Stephen Jay Gould (1996), Harvard paleontologist and popular writer on science, has eloquently warned about the danger of confusing insight with prejudice:

Our prejudices often overwhelm our limited information. . . . Nature is objective, but we can only view her through a glass darkly—and many clouds upon our vision are of our own making: social and cultural biases, psychological preferences, and mental limitations (p. 8).

This caution is an old one, going back to Francis Bacon's writing 300 years ago on the "idols" (illusions) that impede the progress of science:

The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. . . . [and] when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. . . . It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives. . . . Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometimes impreceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding (Aphorisms 46 and 49, pp. 50 and 52).

What Self-Knowledge Demands
Self-knowledge is a key facet of understanding because it demands that we all self-consciously question our understandings to advance them. It asks us to have the discipline to seek and find the //inevitable// blind spots, prejudices, or oversights in our thinking and to have the courage to face the problems lurking underneath effective habits, naive confidence, strong beliefs, and worldviews. When we talk of subject matter disciplines, such courage and persistence are the essential sources of rationall understanding as opposed to dogmatic belief.

Implications for Instruction and Assessment
Practically speaking, a greater attention to self-knowledge means that as teachers we must do a better job of teaching and assessing self-reflection. In one area, we do that quite well. Many programs and strategies exist to help students develop greater metacognition and awareness of their own preferred learning style. But the ideas expressed in this book suggest that greater attention is needed to self-assess the philosophical abilities that fall under the heading "epistemology"—the branch of philosophy that addresses what it means to know and understand, and how knowledge differs from belief and opinion. For a more thorough account of the facets, readers are encouraged to review Chapter 3 of //Understanding by Design// (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) or the video //Understanding by Design: What is Understanding?// (Kiernan, 1998).

We have already noted that any robust teaching of understanding must grapple with the phenomenon of misunderstanding. And throughout the book, we alert readers to potential misunderstandings of various points. Now we direct that concern to the facets themselves. The following list of misconceptions is not intended to be exhaustive, merely suggestive and cautionary. //Misconception 1:// If a student gives a correct answer to a complex and demanding question, the student must have an in-depth understanding. //Misconception 2:// If a student cannot write an explanation of her views, then she lacks understanding. Both these misconceptions involve the plausible but incorrect view that a student who can provide an accurate answer and explanation on a test understands that answer. But we have all seen students who could correctly give back what they learned, without understanding why the answer or explanation is correct. This concern is one reason that at the doctoral level a dissertation and its defense are required. Right answers, with documentation, could be merely borrowed and not understood. The second misconception is the reverse view, a common problem in assessment: A performance test is an invalid way to assess knowledge when the performance ability (or lack of it, in this case) determines the quality of the answer. For example, a student writes a beautiful and flowing essay but has little of substance or novelty to say; another student is a poor writer but the essay is filled with insights. Often in such assessments, the writing quality outweighs the understanding being assessed—improperly—if the aim is to assess understanding and not writing ability. //Misconception:// If a student offers an engaged and rich response to literature, the student understands that piece of literature. This is a common misconception in language arts. Reader response becomes equated or confused with understanding the text. For example, a student's fluent response to a text is sometimes described in terms that suggest the success is equivalent to a substantiated and subtle interpretation of the text. But some highly responsive and engaged readers get the meaning wrong, and some seemingly detached or bored readers can penetrate to the core of a book's most important ideas and meanings. //Misconception 1:// Any effective performance showing knowledge indicates understanding of that knowledge. //Misconception 2:// Any ineffective performance showing knowledge indicates a lack of understanding of that knowledge. These misconceptions are common in activity-based teaching and performance-based assessment. It is easy to assume that if a student performs well, then he understands; that if he has learned the skills of persuasive writing or soccer, then he must understand what to do. But the two are not synonymous. As educators, we can make assessment clearer by asking such questions as, Does the student understand persuasion? and, Does the student understand the purpose of the game and apply deliberate strategies? In other words, Is there a purposefulness and reflectiveness to performance? Persuasion and the strategies of the game can and must be taught, learned, and assessed using additional performances from the targeted skills. This work suggests that in addition to actual performance applications (Facet 3), students would be asked to explain //what// they did and //why//(Facet 1). The reverse is true. Students who do poorly on a specific performance task do not necessarily misunderstand the topic. As with explanation, they may be unskilled at the performance but understand it. Consider, for example, sports commentators who cannot play a sport but can reveal through analysis their deep understanding of a game. Educators must be wary of making invalid inferences on the basis of performance results. To put the matter more precisely, they need to make sure that they have built in the most appropriate performances of understanding. //Misconception 3:// Application means that a student can correctly answer teacher-assigned problems based on what was taught. This is a long-standing misconception abetted by textbook end-of-chapter problems and standardized tests. Authentic application involves novel problems, realistically messy situations, and adaptations and adjustments to theoretical knowledge and skill. Algorithmic or mechanical application is rarely adequate inauthentic contexts that require judgment, heuristics, problem solving, and adjustment based on feedback. //Misconception 1:// Having an opinion equals having perspective. //Misconception 2:// Perspective implies relativism. Both views represent an ancient misunderstanding that many thinkers have tried to expose and eradicate. Just because one finds a view plausible or well argued does not mean that it is correct. Just because one can find criticisms in all complex theories and arguments does not mean that all theories are equal. On the contrary, criticism is the only way to get beyond relativism. Such perspective is, of course, threatening to those who prosper and retain authority based on an orthodoxy. //Misconception 1:// Empathy is affect, synonymous with sympathy or heartfelt rapport. //Misconception 2:// Empathy requires agreement with the point of view in question. Empathy is not sympathy. It is a disciplined effort to understand what is different, not a question of feeling what other people feel. Similarly, just because one works to understand what is different doesn't mean one agrees with it. Rather, one comes to understand it as plausible. //Misconception 1:// Self-knowledge equals self-centeredness. Self-knowledge is the opposite of self-centeredness. When we know ourselves, we know the limits of ourselves and are far less likely to confuse our views with those of others or our knowledge with our prejudices.
 * Misconception Alert**||
 * Facet 1: Explanation**
 * Facet 2: Interpretation**
 * Facet 3: Application**
 * Facet 4: Perspective**
 * Facet 5: Empathy**
 * Facet 6: Self-Knowledge**