someone finds in himself and his life a way of handling energy that integrates – by transcending it – what was available [before this discovery was made]. This vertical evolution has been at work . . . in the three realms of the cosmic, the vital, and the instinctual and many more times in the fourth realm of man. Today we are witnessing one more of these leaps.” At least in the Science of Education and at least today, Caleb Gattegno was such a ‘someone.’ He was first and foremost an educator, and: “The educator . . . will not be discouraged by the traditional battles between the future which reaches out with its truth and the past which holds us back in the shape of organized bodies. He will make it known, loud and clear, that his experience assures him that he speaks of a sensible reality and that everyone can equally well assure himself of it. But if people refuse to follow him, his truth, which is the truth, will remain outside the awareness of those who refuse him credit and do not try in their turn to reach his level. All his actions will be based however on this truth . . .” [emphasis in original] Gattegno commented a quarter of a century later: “I cannot consider that anyone will follow me. Certainly not at my request.” [private communication] Other people’s views of Gattegno A number of people have said that Gattegno was ‘overbearing,’ even ‘arrogant.’ There is no denying that his manner in public appearances was often consistent with that description. There are two possible explanations here. The first might be that Gattegno simply lacked skill in interpersonal relations. After all, he was by his own description an introspective man, Kipling’s ‘cat that walked by himself,’ unconcerned to please other people. Another guess is that Gattegno’s sometimes abrasive public behavior was simply an expedient to ensure that people were both emotionally and intellectually involved with what he was doing in their presence. This second hypothesis receives support from two observations. One is that I have never heard of rude behavior in his face-to-face encounters with individuals who are not challenging his ideas. The other is that, in print, though he did not respond directly to criticism, neither did he reject it:
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“I am, as a scientist, only concerned to speak about what I consider to be the truth in the matter. My readers must judge me mainly on whether I have departed from this imperative. [emphasis added] “While I believe that [my] new approach has much to commend it, and while I very much hope that it will be given as fair a trial as my previous suggestions to colleagues in schools, I must point out that it is a one-man proposal based on one man’s experience, of necessity limited, and that the most important contribution of this work is the opening of new vistas in education that should excite a new generation of people to investigate and to experiment with what they find behind the doors that are now put ajar.” My personal experiences with Gattegno also support the second hypothesis. After reading the first draft of sections 6.1 to 6.6.1 of On Humanism in Language Teaching, Gattegno told me that, though my facts were essentially correct, he was disappointed that I had not provided my own ‘creative reactions’ to his thought [private communication]. I also know firsthand that he was quite gracious about accepting unsolicited criticism on matters not part of the substance of what he had written. Here, then, is another myth-maker, but one who, as we have seen, explicitly invited criticism and testing. Quite possibly, on those occasions when he violated norms of polite society, he was simply continuing to exemplify, in ways that most people did not expect, the same teaching approach he was trying to convey to trainees: he was doing what he thought necessary in order to give his hearers a next to minimal something-to-work-with – something that would enable them to move themselves one step nearer to the goal they had in coming to his sessions, which was to find out what he had to contribute to their professional and personal resources. Users of the Silent Way have varied greatly in their manner of dealing with others in the profession. Certainly some have shown ‘the expulsive power of a new affection,’ the zeal and intolerance that come naturally to those who are sure no one before them was right. But as with Counseling-Learning, we may hope that outsiders to this movement will not allow that to interfere either with practical or with intellectual investigation of the many potential values in Gattegno’s work. §