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Listeningto a Challenging Perspective1

SOPHIE HAROUTUNIAN-GORDON
I. INTRODUCTION

In a forthcoming book, Preparing to Turn the Soul: Teacher Education for a New Century (in preparation), I argue that if elementary and secondary schools are to be places that expect all students to acquire the skills and values they need to take advantage of the rich opportunities that American life offers, then we need schools that treat racial, ethnic, economic, social, and cultural differences between people as resources for learning and, hence, utilize them in positive ways. Or, to put it as Dewey might: schools where differences between people are a basis for conjoining2, or working together to pursue ends that are held in common. Others have argued as much3, but the goal has been difficult to achieve. Indeed, Sarat gives us some insight into why the goal has eluded us:
To be an American is to live an ambivalent relationship to difference: it is to be a neighbor to difference and at the same time harbor suspicions that difference may be our national undoing, that differences can never be bridged, and that without assimilation, disorder lurks just below the surface of our national life. Yetdifference is an integral part of American culture; America is a hybrid nation. Difference has been a part of the cultural life of Americans since the nations founding.4

When Sarat says that to be an American is to be a neighbor to difference and at the same time, harbor suspicions that difference may be our national undoing, he may mean that Americans are both surrounded by yet fearful of those who come from different racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. When he says that Americans fear that differences can never be bridged, he may mean that Americans fear that the interests of other groups outside their own will diminish their power to get what they want. Hence, unless the other groups become assimilated, meaning, perhaps, unless their goals become consistent with the national goals, the other groups may work to advance their particular goals and disorder may break out. Here, Sarat seems to point to the basic tension that agitates our diverse societythe desire to pursue our own
1. A version of the present paper was presented as the Presidential Address, Philosophy of Education Society Annual Meeting, 2003. That address is published in Philosophy of Education Yearbook, 2003, ed. K. Alston, (UrbanaChampaign: University of Illinois Press, 2004). 2. E.g., J. Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: Free Press, 1944/1916), 87. 3. E.g., J. Garrison, A Deweyan Theory of Democratic Listening, Educational Theory 46, no. 4 (1996), 43539. 4. A. Sarat, The Micropolitics of Identity/Difference: Recognition and Accommodation in Everyday Life, in Engaging Cultural Differences: The Multicultural Challenge to Liberal Democracies, eds. R. Shweder et al, (New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 2002), 397.
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interests while at the same time maintaining control over the freedom of others so that our own interests are not jeopardized. Now, in theory, it seems to me that schools could be places where Americans learn to navigate the tension between the desire to pursue ones own interests and the fear that others doing likewise will limit ones success. Schools could be such places if individual interests were, first of all, clear, and second, became shared by others in the groupthe class, the school, the local community, for exampleso that, together, the members of the community pursued goals that they held in common. In order to pursue common goals, people must listen to one another so as to learn what others think and value. In some instances, people must listen to views that challenge their own. Such may be the case when people come from different cultural or economic backgrounds. However, by listening to a challenging viewpoint, one may gain perspective on ones own views and values. One may, upon reflection, decide to modify ones beliefs, and one may also gain help in so doing from the very perspective that posed the challenge. Useful as it may turn out to be, it is not always easy to listen to beliefs that conflict with ones own. In fact, one may choose not to listen, given the discomfort that conflicting beliefs arouse. So the question arises: Under what conditions does one undertake the difficult task of listening to a perspective that poses a challenge? Unfortunately, we know little about the answer to the question. For research on dialogue5, with some notable exceptions [e.g., Fiumara (1991), Garrison (1996), Bogdan (2001), Schultz (2003)]6, has focused upon the speaking rather than the listening aspect. We have looked at such things as patterns of discourse, the content of classroom conversations in which dialogue takes place, types of dialogue, the place of dialogue in teaching and learning and in societyall the time thinking about the speaking aspect of the conversationthe talking. But what about the listening? And under what conditions does one work to listento understand through hearing and learninga perspective that differs from ones own? To address the question, I began by analyzing the case of Platos Theaetetus, in which the young mathematician Theaetetus comes to take a perspective that Socrates suggests and, having done so, proposes a modification of the argument that the two have been constructing.7 In analyzing the Theaeteteus, I came to five hypotheses about the conditions under which listening to a challenging perspective occurs.
5. E.g., S. Haroutunian-Gordon, Turning the Soul: Teaching Through Conversation in the High School. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); N.C. Burbules and B.C. Bruce, Theory and Research on Teaching as Dialogue, in Handbook of Research on Teaching, 4th ed., ed. V. Richardson (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 2001), 110221; Burbules, The Limits of Dialogue as a Critical Pedagogy, in Revolutionary Pedagogies: Cultural Politics, Education, and the Discourse of Theory, ed. P. Trifonas (Routledge, 2000), 25173. 6. G.C. Fiumara, The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening (London: Routledge, 1990); Garrison, op. cit.; D. Bogdan, Musical Listening and Performance as Embodied Dialogism, The Philosophy of Music Education Review 9, no. 1 (2001): 322; K. Schultz, Listening: A Framework for Teaching Across Differences (New York: Teachers College Press, 2003). 7. S. Haroutunian-Gordon, Listeningin a Democratic Society, op. cit.
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First Hypothesis: If one listens to a challenging perspective, then one does so because one has a question that one wishes to resolve. That is, one is more inclined to listen to the different or challenging perspective if one is seeking to resolve a question to which one does not know the answer. The hope is that listening will spark ideas that help resolve the question. Second Hypothesis: If one listens to a challenging perspective, then in listening to resolve a question, ones listening is interrupted. Perhaps the listener hears an idea with which he/she disagrees. Or the listener hears an idea that seems incomprehensible. At such moments, one may stop listening momentarily and ask oneself: Why did the speaker say something so objectionable? What does the speaker mean by that comment? Third Hypothesis: If one listens to a challenging perspective, then the nature of the interruption will determine the direction of subsequent listening. If the listener hears ideas that contradict the listeners beliefs, then the listener may: 1) recognize in him/herself a heretofore tacit belief; 2) question the belief or the grounds for accepting the belief; 3) shift so as to grasp more of the details of the challenging perspective. Fourth Hypothesis: If one listens to a challenging perspective, then one may use criteria provided by that perspective to identify criteria for new, more acceptable beliefs or modifications of the old belief. Hence, one may use the challenging perspective, once grasped, to evaluate ones heretofore tacit belief. It may also provide ideas for modifying the belief. Fifth Hypothesis: If one listens to a challenging perspective, then the question may be resolved or modified, or it may become an even more pressing dilemma. In the latter case, it becomes what I call a genuine question: the question feels even more pressing than it did initially. Given the formation of a genuine question, one may continue the task of listening to a challenging perspective, still with the hope of securing help in the quest for resolution. To test these hypotheses, I present below another case, this one from my own experience as a teacher educator. The case is one in which I was forced to listen to a perspective that challenges my ownnot at all easy.
II. THE PARTICULAR CASE A. Background on the Case

I have been the director of the Master of Science in Education Program at Northwestern University since the fall of 1991. The program prepares people with
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baccalaureate degrees who wish to become elementary and secondary school teachers. In 199697, I assisted two of our teacher candidates with a Masters Project, a research project that addressed the question: Would fourth grade students become more tolerant of people from different cultural traditions if they engaged in interpretive discussions about the meaning of texts that came from a variety of cultures? To answer the question, the two teacher candidates, who I call Marsha and Paula in the book that I wrote about them8, led a series of interpretive discussions with two fourth grade groups of ten students each. One of the groups was from an urban public school and the other was from a suburban neighborhood school. Marsha and Paula, referred to as the leaders below, selected five textsone from Caucasian America, two from Africa, one from French Canada, and one from thirteenth century Moorish Spain. They prepared questions about the meaning of each text and led a discussion about it in each of the two classrooms, for a total of ten discussions. In the last two discussions, they mixed the two groups: they took five students from the urban group to the suburban school and five students from the suburban group to the urban school. An interpretive discussion9 is a discussion about the meaning of some text. The text may be a book, film artifact, data set, painting, mathematical problemany object that has enough ambiguity to permit interpretation of its meaning. To prepare to lead an interpretive discussion, one develops a cluster of questions about the meaning of the text. The cluster consists of a basic question (BQ) and eight followup questions. All of these questions are interpretive questionsthat is, questions that may be resolved in more than one way, given the evidence in the text. The BQ is the point of doubt about the meaning that one wishes most to resolve. The follow-up questions point to particular places in the text. A follow-up question, if resolved in at least one way, suggests an idea about the resolution of the BQ. In carrying out the their Masters Project, the leaders developed a cluster of questions about each text. My job, as their teacher, was to question them about the meaning of their questions so as to help them clarify the point of doubtthe question they wished most to resolveand the questions that followed it up. Often, it takes even experienced leaders four or five rounds of cluster revision before the BQ is clear and the follow-up questions are likewise and, indeed, follow up the BQ. As the leaders discovered, it is no easy task to write a clear question! But the payoff of so doing is that the questioner: a) becomes clear about what he/she does not know and wants to discover; b) identifies passages in the text that suggest ideas about resolution, and hence, gains familiarity with the text; and c) comes to the discussion seeking help from the discussants in understanding the work and, hence, is eager to hear their ideas. In short, the leader is ready to lead. Or so I maintain.
8. S. Haroutunian-Gordon, Preparing to Turn the Soul: Teacher Education for a New Century, op. cit. 9. The term interpretive discussion was coined by the Great Books Foundation, which publishes books and prepares people to lead discussion about the meaning of textsinterpretive discussion.
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I have argued10 that the leaders and the discussants made great progress during the course of the project: over time, the clusters of questions contained fewer technical terms and vague phrases, posed the deepest point of doubt in the form of the BQ more clearly, interpreted the quoted passages in the follow-up questions more fully, and related the passages to the BQ more directly. I argue that as the clusters became clearer, the discussions became more focused, and the discussants seemed to become more interested in resolving questions about the meaning of the text. For example, in the first discussions, both groups flitted between several issues, never fully resolving any of them. In the final discussion, which took place between members of both groups in the urban school that I call Central, the discussants rapidly identified an issue and pursued it for nearly one hour. Despite the fact that some were in an unfamiliar setting and all were conversing with people they had only just met, they questioned one another, built arguments to support their claims using textual evidence, and, when persuaded to do so, changed their positions. The leaders, too, showed progress in asking discussants to clarify their meaning and in posing fewer interpretive questions, which they repeated, thereby helping to maintain focus in the discussion. During the course of the research project, the leaders rarely posed the BQ directly, doing so only if the group seemed to raise it. Perhaps as a consequence, the groups became more and more skilled at identifying a point of doubt that they shared and pursuing its resolution. Furthermore, both participants and leaders seemed to listen better as the discussions progressed, perhaps because they were seeking help in clarifying and resolving issues they cared to address. I argue the above claims in detail in the book. Indeed, the videotapes made of the ten classroom discussions, as well as the cluster preparations themselves, suggest that both children and adults can acquire the skills and dispositions required for preparing, leading, and participating in interpretive discussion. In studying the data from the project, I have come to ideas about how I, as an educator with many years experience leading discussions and preparing leaders, might help teacher candidates more effectively. However, I later discovered that my learning was not as complete as I had believed it to be. The rude awakening occurred, and I found myself listening to perspectives that challenged my own. In telling the story, I refer to the hypotheses, indicated above, about the conditions under which such listening occurs.
B. The Case

After the Masters Project had been completed, the leaders graduated from the Master of Science in Education Program and assumed teaching positions at Central School the urban school where they had conducted the research. Three years passed. One day, the three of us were joined in a conversation by Barry OConnell, an English professor from Amherst College who had spent part of the year working with me at
10. Preparing to Turn the Soul, op. cit.
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Northwestern while the leaders were carrying out their research. As Barry happened to be in town in October of 2000, I decided to assemble the group for a discussion, as informal communication with the leaders had raised an issue. And so we gathered at my home, and I wasted no time putting the question on the table:
SHG: I told [Barry] that at the end of the last conversation we had, you guys broke it to me that you really havent been using interpretive questions while you were teaching, and so my question to you was, well, why not?11 When I say that the leaders havent been using interpretive questions, I mean but do not clearly ask whether they have been preparing clusters of questions and leading discussions about the meaning of texts. Marsha seems to grasp my intended meaning, however: MARSHA: Well, interpretive discussions work best when you have ten kids and I had twenty [in the first year of teaching], and I didnt really have the parental support so that I could call on one of them to be a discussion leader, which means that it would be VERY12 complicated [to conduct interpretive discussions at Central School], and so I started coming up with things like thatAnd then I tried to say: OK, lets just be honest, because I think those are things that you could manage and work through, and find resources if you were really dedicated and said Im going to do this. And then Itried to forget about all that and really be honest andnarrow down the reasons why I didnt [lead interpretive discussions]. And I came up withthree that I think were the main ones. SHG: Why dont you say what they were? MARSHA: The first one was thatwhen I started teaching third grade, I feltthat, OK, my kids dont have books at home, they dont have parents that read to them. They had a kindergarten teacher who focused almost exclusively on phonics; they had first and second grade teachers who rigidly followedbasal programs. Worksheets and standardized test preparation was a HUGE deal in second grade, and thats all they did. Thats what reading wasa worksheet and the Iowa Test Prep Book. And then most of my kids had failed the reading test for Iowa and were repeating third grade and so they hated reading and no wonder: they didnt have any confidence in readingAnd so the biggest goal I saw for myself coming in was: Ive got to make these kids love, at least like, to read, so how am I going to do that? And I didnt think the best way was through interpretive discussion. I thought it was through things like Read-Aloud13 where I could get my kids to laugh at James and the Giant Peach, or I could get my kids
11. Prior to the conversation recorded here, I had asked Marsha and Paula to reflect upon their use of interpretive discussion in their classrooms. Both refer to e-mail messages that they sent me in response to my question. Marsha begins the present conversation by restating three points that she had made to me in her e-mail communication. 12. In the excerpts from transcript quoted here, I give some words in upper case to indicate emphasis placed upon the word by the speaker. 13. Read-Aloud is a teaching strategy in which teachers read books, often fictional works, to their students. See James Treleases Read-Aloud Web site for more information.
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to be mad at Judd and Shiloh, so that was a big part of my reading program. I also had DEAR. time, where they could see that, OK, I can pick up a book by myself or with a friend and this could be a great thing. SHG: DEAR. time. Do you know what this is [to Barry]? PAULA: Drop Everything And Read14 MARSHA: And then I had lit circles,15 which I thought were similar to interpretive discussionthey were more subdued and [child-]centered. The goal and I didnt get there my first year, [although I did in the] second and third yearwas to have three or four students sitting together in a circle having a discussion on their own. And part of that involved asking questions, so I saw that as being similar to interpretive discussion and embracing the same philosophy as interpretive discussion. And then, um, OK, I had one more. SHG: No, those were the three thingsRead-Aloud, DEAR. time, and the lit circles. MARSHA: But were still on reason number onegetting kids to learn to love to read. And I just didnt think, not that interpretive discussion didntbuild self-esteem and all these things, but I just saw it as it couldnt evokesome of the passion I wanted my kids to feel about books; it couldnt achieve the student-centeredness that I thought lit circles could. Um, so that was one reason.

The reader will recall that my First Hypothesis about the conditions under which listening to a challenging perspective occurs is that the listener has a question to which he/she does not have the answer. In the above instance, I had a question, viz.: Why had the leaders failed to prepare clusters of questions and engage their students in interpretive discussion after I had worked so hard and, indeed, they had become so successful at doing so? Now, the above excerpt suggests that, while I had a question I wanted to resolve and may have been seeking help in so doing, I was already having
14. Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) is a teaching strategy aimed at encouraging students to read for the love of it. See, e.g., S.I. McMahon et al, The Book Club Connection: Literacy Learning and Classroom Talk (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 5960. 15. Lit circles, or literature circles, encourage students to discuss works of literature among themselves. Paula makes the following comment: Usingnotes to guide discussion, students work in small groups with a regular, predictable schedule to discuss their reading. Group meetings are student-led, and the teacher is a facilitator who circulates among groups, not a member [of a group] or an instructor. Group meetings aim to be open, natural conversations about books, so personal connections and open-ended questions are welcome [personal communication]. The literature circle strategy is also discussed in S.I. McMahon, op. cit., and in H. Daniels, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups. (Portland, Maine: Stenhouse, 2002). Interpretive discussion differs from literature circles in the following ways: 1) Interpretive discussion does not follow a pre-set format. Instead, the topics that arise depend upon the question(s) that group members wish to resolve. 2) Discussions are led by leaders. Leaders have prepared for the discussion by developing a cluster of questions about the meaning of the text. Leaders are teachers, other adults, or students, who have prepared a cluster of questions and are designated the leader. 3) The aim of the discussion is to resolve a question (or questions) about the meaning of the text that is of concern to the group. Forming a clear question, or point of doubt, is also one aim of the discussion. Discussants are encouraged to share personal experiences that relate to the formation or resolution of the question.
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difficulty following the answer Marsha provided, as I seemed unclear that she was still on the first of three reasons she wanted to give to explain why she did not engage her students in interpretive discussion. So, much as I had a question to resolve, there are indications that I felt uncomfortable hearing the answer and, hence, had difficulty following it. Marsha, however, continued her response:
MARSHA: The other reason was that I walked in as a third grade teacher and my position was created: [Central School] went from two third grades to three third grades. So I went into a bare classroom...I mean there was NU-uh-THING. There was a scissor and there were some old basalsIf you werent there the year before to do your orders, well you dont get any suppliesI didnt even have construction paper, pencils, glue, things thatas an elementary teacher, you just assume youre going to have. And I didnt have math textbooks. I had never taught before. Id gone through a yearlong program at NU [Northwestern University] and now Im supposed to come up with a MATH PROGRAMThere was an incredible amount of time spent Target shopping, Office Depot shopping, getting pencils, getting supplies, figuring out, OK, what science experiment can I do that is in the CPS16 book and then not only what can I do, but now Ive got to make the shopping list and go out and buy all the things to DO this experiment. I just didnt think I had the time to do cluster writing. Because for me, if I was going to do it right, and remembering what Paula and I went through, it was very, very time-consuming to go through all those rounds [of revising the clusters of questions]. So, that was another thing: just time.

When Marsha says, if I was going to do it right, and remembering what Paula and I went through, it was very, very time-consuming to go through all those rounds, she may mean that, given all she had to do getting her classroom in order at Central School, she did not engage her students in interpretive discussion because she did not have time left over to prepare the clusters of questions. Now, as a classroom teacher, she might not have had to do multiple rounds of revision, as neither I nor Paula would have been there to question her meaning. Perhaps, then, it was not just time (or lack of time) but the memory of how it felt to spend the time revising the questionswhat I prefer to think of as clarifying the point of doubt and working to resolve itthat deterred Marsha. She may suggest as much when she gives her third reason:
MARSHA: And then trying to be real honest, my third reason was: I think that to be a successful teacher you have to bring into the classroom things that you love, some of your own passions. I think thats one way to avoid burnout and things like that, not that I was at that point, cause I was a first-year teacherI had just spent a year doing a lot of academic work at NU, and not that I dont like thatnot that I didnt enjoy it, but I LIKE OTHER THINGS. I like doingarts and crafts thingsI wanted to spend time with my kids designing
16. CPSChicago Public Schools.
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covers for their books, and so cluster writing wasnt a PASSION of mine. I remember, Sophie, talking about when YOU did cluster writing in teaching and how you [said] something like, not lived for it, but SHG: Right. MARSHA: It was something that I... PAULA: had to get through...My reasons were almost EXACTLY the same. SHG: Mmhmm.

The above exchange suggests that Marsha, Paula, and I had different perspectives on the activity of developing clusters of questions. When Marsha recalls my saying that as a teacher, I not lived for it, but, she may mean that she recalls my saying that interpretive discussion sustained me when teaching sixth grade. If that is her meaning, then she is correct: I recall telling them that the opportunities to prepare clusters and engaging the students in interpretive discussion were critical to my happiness in the classroom. Why? Because in preparing the clusters, I questioned myself so as to clarify points of doubt I had about the textan experience I found extremely stimulating, especially when I shared it with other adults who then co-led the discussions with me. Hearing their ideas, and, subsequently, those of the students, helped me discover my own ideas, beliefs, interests, feelings, and questions. The excitement of exploring a text was matched only by the exhilaration I felt as my mind would leap again and again into the unknown where I struggled to liberate ideas, first in myself and my co-leaders and later in the students during the discussions. When Marsha and Paula say that developing clusters of questions was something they had to get through, I begin to wonder: Could they have felt discomfort rather than stimulation and delight in the experience? Here, then, was a moment described by my Second Hypothesis about the conditions under which one comes to listen to a perspective that challenges ones own, viz., my listening was interrupted. No longer could I devote my attention solely to the contents of others remarks. While I had begun with the question of why Marsha and Paula failed to conduct interpretive discussion in their classrooms, their comments had challenged my own perspective, and I was aware of the challenge. Why had their experience of preparing clusters been so different from my own? I begin to wonder whether had I pushed them too hard and caused them to reject the discussion-leading experience instead of helping them to acquire the skills and dispositions needed to succeed as leaders. As my listening was interrupted, I found myself in the situation described by my Third Hypothesis about the conditions under which one tries to listen to a perspective that differs from ones own, viz.: I discovered a heretofore tacit belief. I realized that, until this moment, I had believed that I had helped Marsha and Paula to acquire
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the skills and dispositions needed to be successful discussion leaders. Perhaps I formed the belief seeing them progress in preparing clusters and leading discussions while under my tutelage. Now, I began to question my success. What, if anything, had I done, albeit unwittingly, to discourage them from pursuing interpretive discussions with their students? A new question arose for me, and the direction of my listening began to change:
MARSHA: I sent it [an e-mail, during the research period] to Sophie. I said how I was so, discouragedYou would say, Oh, you guys have made so much progress with your cluster writing, and I didnt think I had. I didnt think I was better in many ways. It was always something of a mystery to me, how we got there, and I was just so relieved that we somehow DID get there. PAULA: That we got the green lightfor that round. MARSHA Yeah, because sometimes I couldnt tell what was better. BARRY: Soyou also werent sure how to recognize when it was good and when it wasnt? MARSHA: Right. And you COULD recognize when your kids made beautiful book covers, which was something they had never done before. And it was so exciting to go through the process with them and watch them achieve it and take home their very first book that they were an author of. And somehow that felt like more of a benefit, both to me and to them, than watching a discussion over a few weeks and saying theyre getting better. BARRY: So, Sophie? MARSHA: Sophie was truly the force that kept it goingThere were so many times I would have given up.

As I listen to the above exchange, I hear two ideas: First, when Marsha says, sometimes I couldnt tell what was better, she may mean that although I indicated when questions became clearer in the subsequent rounds of revision, she was not clear why I made those judgments. Second, when Paula says that she felt like they got the green light for a given round, it sounds as though they saw me as an authority whose reasoning about what was clear was beyond comprehension and questionhardly the position I imagined that I had occupied. Had the reasons for my judgments been unclear, or had the criteria I was using to make the judgments been the mystery? And had I seemed an incomprehensible and arbitrary judge? Marsha and Paula continue:
PAULA: We both had an experience in [Sheridan, the suburban school] and I have this sort of [Sheridan] world in my mind, where everything is always better and easier and greater[remembering her mentor at Sheridan] She was invited to something and she couldnt come and she was trying to explain to methat
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she had this very important thing to go toI think the school had started something like a literature group or interpretive discussion. [The teachers were reading] the same text [and] everyone was going to one teachers house. It was after school, and there was wine and cheesethere was peer pressure to go, which you would NEVER find in OUR school; no one would EVER get together after school. I always thought to myself: maybe, maybe, at a place like that [teachers would hold interpretive discussions with students]. SHG: Um.

When Paula says that Sheridan School had started something like a literature group or interpretive discussion for the teachers, she may mean that the school valued the activity because it arranged for and expected teachers to participate. In a place where discussion was thought to be important, for teachers as well as students, she and Marsha might have had more encouragement to prepare for and lead interpretive discussionsor so Paula seems to conjecture. Here, she offers yet another reason why she did not hold interpretive discussions in the class at Central School once she began teaching: the staff and administration of the school did not seem to value the activity. Barry makes the following observation:
BARRY: Yet it was arguably, if you look at what you did, it was the kids at [Central] who showed the most dramatic forms of progress through interpretive discussion. SHG: Mmhmm.

Here, Barry seems unconvinced by Paulas suggestion that interpretive discussion is most likely to be practiced in a school that values it. Why? Because, as Barry sees it, the students at the Central School showed the most dramatic forms of progress, meaning, perhaps, that the Central students seemed to have developed questioning and other discussion skills even more fully than did the students at Sheridan. Now, when I say, Mmhmm after Barrys comment, I seem to be agreeing that their perceived lack of interest in interpretive discussion on the part of the school is perhaps not the most critical reason why the leaders failed to prepare for and lead the discussions in their classrooms. Barry continues by returning to an issue that Marsha raised previously about the love of reading:
BARRY: You know, I take the love of reading thing very seriouslyI have this fantasyprobably very close to [Marshas]that if I can help [elementary/secondary students] become writers and readers on their own, I dont even care what it is. If I can get them excited about reading comic books, this gives them some chance of having a life independent of the circumstances that are going to keep trying to pull them back in a certain way.

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When Barry says, If I can get them excited about reading comic books, this gives them some chance of having a life independent of the circumstances that are going to keep trying to pull them back in a certain way, does he mean that if students learn to love reading, they will develop skills that will open up jobs and possibilities for enjoying life that will not be easily available to them, given the constraints that low socioeconomic circumstances and perhaps race impose upon them? Is he agreeing with Marsha that learning to love reading is a teachers goal? And if so, does that mean that teaching students to participate in interpretive discussion is less important than letting them read bookseven comic booksthat students find of interest? If that is his perspective, and perhaps that of Marsha and Paula as well, then it is a perspective different from my own, and indeed, challenging to it. Here, then, my listening is interrupted (Second Hypothesis) for a second time. Once again, the direction of my listening begins to shift, and I become aware of another heretofore tacit belief (Hypothesis Three), viz: participating in interpretive discussion helps students love reading more. And why do I hold that belief? Because they are finding more meaning in the text as they discuss it, so why shouldnt they love it more? Once again, recognizing a heretofore tacit belief seems to affect the direction of my subsequent listening. I begin to question my belief when I go on to say:
SHG: I dont think I was ever suggesting that you do NOTHING BUT interpretive discussion. I just think that doing it is so difficult that you need all the help you can get, so thats what we were about. And [there were] some goals you had in mind, when you started the projectyou havent mentioned them hereFor instance, the goal of getting kids to tolerate people who come from other cultures, thats a social goal, a very powerful goal for you, its really why you started the project, you know? And I think that the interpretive discussion opportunity seemed like it might be useful because people were talking with one another, it wasnt just that they were going off and reading books that you had picked outSo what you were wondering, I think, when you started the project, was: will these conversations help [the students] to become more tolerant and more open? Thats actually an interesting goal, and it is something that I hope you havent given up as you think about what you want to have happen to children.

When I say, I dont think I was ever suggesting that you do nothing but interpretive discussion, I may mean that other activities, such as making book covers, may be acceptable activities in the classroom. However, while I can appreciate the enjoyment that students and teachers might glean from such a project, I cannot imagine it being nearly as valuable as participating in an interpretive discussion. So, as I read my comment, it seems that I was not questioning my belief (that participating in interpretive discussion helps people love reading more) so much as mollifying the leaders. Indeed, I seem to shift the subject as I continue. Perhaps to encourage the others to consider a benefit of discussion that they may be ignoring, I remind them of the
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goal with which they began the projectthat of getting kids to tolerate people who come from other cultures. So perhaps I am more interested in reminding the others of the value of interpretive discussion than understanding their perspective. Soon, however, I return to trying to do so, as I reintroduce the question of whether participating in the discussions helps participants to love reading:
SHG: Yes, [interpretive discussion teaches people] to listen to each other and lots of other things we could list, right? Skills. But learn to love to read? Umm MARSHA: I used to love The Giving Tree as just a simple little story that just warmed my heart. And after we got into it, I dont know if I loved it as muchNow, The Crystal Stair, I will say, the Langston Hughes poem, thats different. That one, definitely getting deeper into it, even though we didnt have a true interpretive discussion, getting deeper into it made it grow for me. There are a bunch of the ones though, Jean Labadie17 or whateverThere was a period of several months when I couldnt even LOOK at The Giving TreeIf I saw the cover I needed to look the other way because it was so complicated for me that I wasnt sure where I ended up with it.

Once again, my listening is interrupted (Second Hypothesis): Did I hear Marsha correctly? Did she say that she liked The Giving Tree less after she had prepared for and led two interpretive discussions about it with the fourth grade students? Once again, my listening is about to shift, as I discover a belief that I had not previously acknowledged (Third Hypothesis) viz.: the leaders will come to love reading more as a consequence of leading interpretive discussion. Barry questions the leaders about their meaning:
BARRY: You say, well, this wasnt true of The Crystal Stair, and I was actually surprisedI mean, I think I understand why it was true for The Giving Tree, but I was surprised to have you include Jean Labadie. PAULA: That one was too complicated for me.18 BARRY: Well, but was it? Its far and away the most difficult story you gave, and the level of sheer sophistication in that story is enormousI remembergoing through Sophies chapter about [the discussion of Jean Labadie] and thinking, Oh, God, Im so glad this is [Paula] and [Marsha] and its not me, and that they have to struggle to find a basic question hereOf course, Sophie would answer by really getting to the genuine point of doubt [about] this business in which everybody acts as though something is real and it becomes real. How do you talk
17. The story was entitled Jean Labadies Big Black Dog. It is a French-Canadian folktale as told by Natalie Savage Carlson. 18. Jean Labadie is a farmer and storyteller. Jean suspects his neighbor, Andre, of stealing his chickens, and, to scare Andre away from the hen house, he invents a big, black watchdog, who he describes to Andre in vivid terms. Andre subsequently claims that he sees the dog and describes him to others. When they begin to complain that the dog runs wild and growls at them, Jean then shoots the dog in the presence of witnesses, who agree that the dog is now dead.
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about this?If you can get kids to think well about that story, there isnt any text in the world they couldnt take on. PAULA AND MARSHA: Right! BARRY: Thats as sophisticated as I would teach seniors in a literature class in college.

When Barry says, If you can get kids to think well about that story, there isnt any text in the world they couldnt take on, he may be asking: Why do you say that leading interpretive discussion about Jean Labadie makes you love the story less? After all, if you were able to help students discuss how fiction becomes reality[how] everybody acts as though something is real and it becomes realwhy wouldnt you see it as a valuable experience that you, the teachers, helped to create? Here, Barry seems to reason that the experience of leading discussions about Jean Labadie should have made the leaders love the text more, given what they were able to accomplish. Paula responds:
PAULA: I [remember] a time when I could barely keep ahead of my kids in ReadAloud, and I finally quit trying to stay ahead, like you should in an interpretive discussion. And so I read along with them. And at the end of The Sign of the Beaver 19 the baby diesthe baby doesnt make it. BARRY: Right. PAULA: And I remember sitting [there], reading, and you know how like your eyes go two sentences ahead? And I was reading, and theyre all listening because we know something bigs gonna happen, becauseevery day were predicting, when the family is going to comewere VERY into itI saw the lines and my eyes, I started, I looked up, I could see them. As I read the words, were all crying because were so sad to realize this is what happened. And then we took some time and we stopped and we talked about it and it was sort of an interpretive discussion: Why would the author do this? Whats happening?Yes, there was some evaluative stuff going on20, but the point is that to me, that was as powerful as anything that we had ever done [in the interpretive discussion project], and it was spontaneous, and [the emotion] had built up over a month of reading this book. MARSHA: And you experienced the same things with your kids at the same time. PAULA: RightIt wasnt me setting up this point of doubt question that I hoped
19. E.G. Speare, The Sign of the Beaver. (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1983). It is historical novel that presents the clash of values between the Whites and the Penobscot people of Maine in the eighteenth century. 20. The focus of an interpretive discussion is upon trying to determine the meaning of the text. At moments, however, discussants may review the facts of the storythe occurrences over which there is no debate. They may also evaluate the textdiscuss whether they agree or disagree with what they think the text is saying. When the project began, discussants did much more evaluating than they did at its conclusion, and when Paula says, there was some evaluative stuff going on, she may mean that despite the evaluative comments, the participants were primarily trying to understand the text rather than judge whether it was good or bad, right or wrong.
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theyd come around to as well, or.tossing out, or trying to, like, peer at my list to see what the next question wasthat was so complicated for me. And so I thought to myself [that] there WERE times that I think we achievedlike those kids never forgot that bookI had kids who read that book twice after we read it aloud, they went back and reread it. SHG: Right, right.

When I say, Right, right, I mean that I am listening to Paula, comprehending what she is saying. I am also agreeing that even though she had not developed a cluster of questions in preparation for discussions of The Sign of the Beaver, her students may well have come to love the story nevertheless. At the same time, my listening during the conversation has been interrupted at least three times that we have seen thus far: 1) when I heard Marsha say that she could not understand why the questions in their clusters improved when I said that they had; 2) when I heard first Marsha and then Paula and Barry ask whether interpretive discussion helped discussants love reading; and 3) when I heard Paula and Marsha ask whether interpretive discussion helped the leaders love reading more. None of these questions have been resolved thus far. So, while I can listen so as to follow Paulas story, I am listening with at least three unresolved questions on the table, although I may not be thinking about all three at every moment. In addition, there is the question with which we began, namely, why had these two leaders, who had been so successful and shown so much growth, failed to prepare for and lead interpretive discussion in their classrooms? That question has become even more pressing for me, as indicated in what follows:
PAULA: I felt so guilty for not doing interpretive discussion, but when things like that [the shared moment when the baby dies] would happen, Id be like, OK, someones reading the book over again, that [reading/discussion of The Sign of the Beaver] must have done something. SHG: Theres no question, Paula, in my mind, that you were doing things that wheneveryone discovers what happensthe baby dying and everybody was overwhelmed. You said you sort of started to have an interpretive discussion, isnt that what you said? PAULA: Right. SHG: Spontaneously. I interpreted you to mean you started to talk about the meaning of the book, just naturally. PAULA: Right. We did that all the time in Read-Aloud. We did do it all the time. Every day. But they werent interpretive discussions. I hadnt prepared clusters of questions. We were talking about meaning and people were, you know, saying

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this is what I think this means, so they were interpreting things in the book, but it wasnt the true interpretive discussion.

When I respond to Paula saying, You said you sort of started to have an interpretive discussion, isnt that what you said? it may mean that I was hearing what sounded like a spontaneous effort to interpret the meaning of The Sign of the Beaver. When I continue to question Paula, asking her what she meant, I seem to be seeking evidence that she did, after all, carry out interpretive discussion at moments. Perhaps I was thinking that if Paula and her students tried to interpret the meaning of the text and, in fact, did that all the time in Read-AloudEvery day, then perhaps the activity of interpreting the text did help them love the text morejust as I believed. Maybe Paula was actually leading interpretive discussion all the time despite her claims to the contrary. And yet Paula reiterates, But they werent interpretive discussions. I hadnt prepared clusters of questions. And I have to admit that she is right: something is missing if she was not preparing the clusters. So, if she thought it important to help the students interpret the text, why didnt she make the effort to develop the clusters, which would have helped all to develop fuller interpretations? My dilemma has become more pressing. Perhaps I am on the way to forming what I called above, under the Fifth Hypothesis about the conditions under which one listens to a challenging perspective, a genuine question. Barry continues reflecting upon whether participation in interpretive discussion helps students love reading:
BARRY: Im not sure that [the fourth grade students in the project, if interviewed today] would [speak about] love of READING so much, but they might [speak about] something else a little bit different called love of THINKING[While] those two arent quite the same, theyre importantly reinforcing of each other. [Also] when you talk about The Sign of the Beaver, and how extraordinary that moment was, and having taught literature all my life, Im with you completely, and I wouldnt want anything to get in the way of such a moment. But what happens when youre teaching The Sign of the Beaver for the fourth time? PAULA: And you know what happensThats true. Right.

When Barry says that, if interviewed today, the fourth grade students who participated in the project might [speak about] something called love of thinking, he may mean that the experience of trying to understand the meaning of the text might help discussants discover the pleasure of pondering an object that they cannot immediately comprehend. When he says that love of reading and love of thinking arent quite the same [but] theyre importantly reinforcing of each other, he may mean that if one learns to reflect upon the meaning of a text, one may discover more things in it and therefore love it more. Hence, the pleasure of reading will be enhanced because
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of the pleasure that is derived from thinking. Likewise, the pleasure of thinking will be enhanced by the experience of reading, especially texts that permit one to reflect upon ambiguities and thereby explore meaning in life. If I am interpreting Barry correctly, then perhaps I am hearing an argument in support of the claim that interpretive discussion should encourage love of reading. I like the argument, and I am glad to hear support for a belief that I had begun to question. Perhaps I need not yet reject my deep-felt conviction. Furthermore, Barry opens an argument in favor of developing clusters of questions in preparation for discussion when he asks, But what happens when youre teaching The Sign of the Beaver for the fourth time? He elaborates his meaning:
BARRY: And you cant be genuinely there in the same way. That is to say, is there a place, and this is a real question for me, and its the place that Sophie first got to meI was realizing that after years and years of teaching that I wasnt honestly pressing myself in certain kinds of ways because Id had all these situations where X happened and Y happened and I could simulate them again and my kids could be even more meaningfully satisfied, but in fact I was in some sensethe words I used to SophieI was condescending to them without knowing it. Because I wasnt myself in struggle with the material again.

When Barry says, I was condescending to [my students] without knowing it. Because I wasnt myself in struggle with the material again, he may mean that after teaching a given text numerous times, he no longer questioned its meaning and, hence, was behaving as though he knew what the text meant, whereas the students were trying to figure it out. When he says that I, Sophie, got to [him] with interpretive discussions, he may mean that when he and I began preparing clusters of questions about the meaning of texts that we were teaching at Northwestern, he realized that he had not been using the teaching opportunity to explore points of doubt with studentsprecisely the role of one who leads interpretive discussion. For as a consequence of preparing a cluster of questions, the leader enters the class in a state of doubt about the meaning of the text. That point of doubt may or may not be of interest to the discussants, and it may or may not be addressed in the discussion. Regardless, the preparation casts the leader in the role of a listener seeking understanding rather than a dispenser of wisdom. Barry continues:
BARRY: Now the truth is thatI dont have time to do clusters over and over again for every text Im teaching, even when Im only doing two courses. I couldnt possibly do that. Im not fast enough, Im not smart enough, and I would need Sophie all the time for much longer than the two of you. She was devastating to me. She was not nice to me [laughter] because I was much slower, slower than shed hoped. And I never got a pat on the back [more laughter]. And for good reasonSo, but, what did I learn from it?
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Now, what am I hearing? Once again, my listening is interrupted (Second Hypothesis). Barrys description of his experience with me challenges another tacit belief that I had not heretofore acknowledged (Third Hypothesis) viz.: I was helping him to question his understanding of the text, and he was appreciating and enjoying the experience. Had both Barry and the leaders, found my questioning of their questions annoying rather than illuminating? And had Barry, like the leaders failed to recognize that he was making progress in clarifying his questions, which is what he may mean by saying that I gave him no pat on the back? Now I begin to wonder whether the reasons for my judgments about the questions had been a mystery to Barry as well as the leaders. But Barry returns to an issue he raised previously:
BARRY: The other [issue], then, is what and when and how do we reencounter ourselves so as to come into situations that become familiar to us, so we usefully, for the sake of our students, as it were, disorient ourselves again? And where might interpretive discussion, cluster-making come there?

Here, Barry seems to ask: Might it be that preparing a cluster of questions helps us find questions in a text with which we have become very familiarto disorient ourselves, as he puts it? If so, it would seem to perform a very important function. Furthermore, preparing clusters of questions would seem to be something that at least experienced teachers would want to do, so as to continually find new meaning in the text. Paula responds:
PAULA: I have to say that if I had taught The Sign of the Beaver for the fourth time and I knew the material well and I could dig deeply knowing how much I had already internalized, then it [preparing a cluster of questions about its meaning?] would almost seem like an interesting thing to do, and I can completely see why youre right. I wouldnt have cried, cause Id see it coming. But I still believe that first or even second or even third year, when you havent even read the book yet, youre reading it along with them and the times an issue BARRY: Maybe youre leaving something REALLY, REALLY basic out. PAULA: Which is what? BARRY: Is it possible that working with the clusters made you more open throughout your teaching to what you were uncertain about? Less anxious in the face of [uncertainty]? In other words, whether or not you were doing clusters and interpretive discussion leading, did the experience help youbecause I think the most important thing to do for teachers starting out is to help them understand that doubt and uncertainty are absolutely where its at and fine.

Here, Barry asks: Is it possible that working with the clusters made you more open throughout your teaching to what you were uncertain about? Less anxious in the face
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of [uncertainty]? In so saying, does he mean that, since developing a cluster of questions requires one to identify a point of doubt about the meaning of a text, it places value upon the ability to find and clarify points of uncertainty? And as a consequence, might those who learn to develop clusters discover that ambiguity and uncertainty are to be cultivated rather than eschewed, as they lead one into discovery and perhaps new understanding?
PAULA: I think that youre rightWe view things through a totally different lens as a result of going through that experience, theres NO question about that.

When Paula says, We view things through a totally different lens as a result of going through that experience, she may mean that, in answer to Barrys question, experience with interpretive discussion helped her to identify and, indeed, value ambiguity. But is that what she means? Was her perspectiveher lenschanged in a positive way?
SHG: Its hard for me to know exactly where we are because you know what you wrote in the journals [that they completed during the research project] and what you seemed to experience at that time and what youre saying now arent exactly the same thing. M & P: Right.

I hear in my words the reiteration of my initial dilemma: On the one hand, the leaders and the discussants had made so much progress during the project, and the journals of both Marsha and Paula had described many moments when they seemed to be aware of and enjoying the progress. Today, however, they were telling me that they had not developed clusters of questions while teaching, that they were not sure why their cluster writing improved when I said it had, that they were not sure whether participating in interpretive discussion helped discussants learn to love reading or whether preparing for and leading the discussions had helped them to love the texts that they had explored. In short, my dilemma was more pressing than ever. And why? Because in listening to Marsha and Paula talk about why they had not prepared clusters of questions and led interpretive discussions in their classrooms, I had uncovered heretofore tacit beliefs that I then began to question. Indeed, the leaders seemed to have been telling me that my beliefs were not true, at least as far as they were concerned. Hence, listening to them set me on a new questone of seeking evidence that interpretive discussion was having certain consequences that I believed it should have. I have come, then, to the moment described by my Fourth Hypothesis about the conditions under which one listens to a perspective that challenges ones own, namely, the new criteria are used to determine features of the new beliefs or modifications of the old ones. So what are the new criteria that I am coming to expect my beliefs to meet? What should I accept as evidence that leaders see some versions of questions as
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better than others? That participation in interpretive discussion helps people love the texts they discuss? That it helps them love the activity of trying to understand the texts? That preparation for and leading discussion helps the leaders care about the texts, engage themselves with questions explored by the texts, and tolerate, seek, and, yes, love the discovery of ambiguity, uncertaintyof questions! I seek help from Marsha, Paula, and Barry in identifying appropriate criteria as the conversation continues. Here, we focus upon only one of the issues that has arisen:
SHG: I think you would see that the clusters get better, I think theres no question but that they, and evenfrom one draft to the next, they did get better, though what youre reporting is that you sometimes didnt know if it got better, couldnt tell that it got better. That the criteria for getting better werent terribly clear. PAULA: Maybe its more of the clusters than the discussions. BARRY: I do think its clusters. MARSHA: I remember one, at one point when we went to work by ourselves and Sophie was out of town, and we felt like we did a great job, and then we were so proud of ourselves, because it was like, we had worked through several rounds. And when Sophie got a hold of it, it was like, ehhhhh, you know?

When I say, I think theres no question but that they, and evenfrom one draft to the next, they did get better, though what youre reporting isthat the criteria for getting better werent terribly clear, I may mean that while I could see why some clusters were better than others, or why a later draft of a cluster of questions was better than an earlier one, that I am hearing them say they did not understand why I made those judgments. When Paula says, Maybe its more of the clusters than the discussions, she may mean that while she can see why some discussions were better than others, she had trouble seeing why some clusters were better than others. Now, is it, as I say, that the criteria for judging the clusters were not clear? Or is it that the leaders, and perhaps Barry, did not see why I applied the criteria as I did and, hence, called some clusters and drafts of clusters clearer than others? When Marsha recalls their attempt to prepare a cluster of questions without my help and says, we felt like we did a great job, and then we were so proud of ourselves, because it was like, we had worked through several rounds, and when Sophie got a hold of it, it was like, ehhhhh, does she mean that without my prodding, they revised the questions several times, that they were satisfied with their final version and felt discouraged when I questioned its clarity? If so, perhaps she means that at least some criteria for revision were clear to them but that I applied the criteria differently than they, and they did not see why I found their version wanting.

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In fact, I now think that both problems occurred: at times, the leaders were unaware of or ignored criteria that could have been used to detect weaknesses in the clusters, and at times my standards for clarity were different so that I found weaknesses where they saw none, even though we all could recite the relevant rules of evaluation. As a consequence, helping people to strengthen their clusters of questionsto make them clearerrequires more than giving them a list of criteria to apply. While such a list is helpful, use of it must be accompanied by reasoning when application of the rules is unclear. In the above excerpt, I seek help understanding what I should accept as evidence that leaders see some versions of questions as better than others. I see now that I may have been remiss in conveying to both the leaders and to Barry all the criteria I applied when evaluating their clusters, although I did give them some, and in failing to explain my rationale when applying the criteria. Perhaps evidence that a questioner sees some clusters or questions as better than others might be given by: 1) stating the criteria that are to be applied to judge the clarity of the cluster; 2) applying the criteria and explaining why the questions should be changed in particular ways; 3) changing questions using the criteria; and 4) reviewing and agreeing with the reasoning of applying the criteria in particular ways. Perhaps there are other forms of evidence as well. My job, it appears, is to seek multiple forms of evidence so that I am clear the questioner sees progress in clarity of the questions. The conversation that I had with Marsha, Paula, and Barry in October 2000 was not easy. It forced me to listen to perspectives that challenged my own as it raised tacit beliefs for examination. Those beliefs were and still are fundamental to my work as a teacher educator. At the same time, listening to those perspectives allowed me to secure help from the othershelp in determining new criteria that my cherished beliefs needed to meet to be deemed acceptable. Recognition of new criteria, as well as recognition that I hold other beliefs that need to meet as-yet unidentified criteria in order to be sustained, brought about the fifth condition that I hypothesized under which one listens to a perspective that challenges ones own. That condition, what I call the Fifth Hypothesis, is that the question becomes a genuine question. For the question with which I began, or a modified form of it, has become a question that I am even more eager to resolve. The importance of that question for me is evident in the following comment, which I made near the end of the conversation:
SHG: But, clearly [the research project] was a tremendous challenge for you. It was challenging all the time, and I think that part of what Im hearing you [ask] is: Did [preparing for and leading interpretive discussion] make me love the stuff more? Youre saying, Paula,21 [you] didnt want to see those stories again, [you were] so sick of working on all that stuff. So you know, this is to go backto one of the questions I raised earlier. Maybe I could have [helped you prepare for and

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lead discussions] in a way that made it a little easier tolearn it and use it [productively]. I dont know.

What, then, is my genuine question? When I say, Maybe I could have [helped you prepare for and lead discussions] in a way that made it a little easier tolearn it and use it [productively], I seem to ask: What do I need to do to help teachers and teacher candidates prepare for and conduct interpretive discussions in their classrooms? The conversation of the past two hours has made the question more pressing. At the same time, it has enabled me to hear ideas about the criteria that a satisfactory resolution will need to meetthe questions that I need to answer and the sources of evidence that I can gather and examine to address at least one of them and so, to embark upon resolution. I am deeply grateful to Marsha, Paula, and Barry for helping me define and pursue my quest. That they are still in dialogue with me suggests that perhaps all of us have learned from listening to perspectives that challenged our own.22
III. CONCLUSION

The foregoing analysis seems to confirm my hypotheses about the conditions under which one listens to a challenging perspective. We have seen that, at least in the present case, having a question moved me to draw the parties together for conversation and try to grasp ideas that conflicted with my own even when it was uncomfortable to do so. It is interesting to see the second and third conditionsfinding ones listening interrupted and uncovering a heretofore tacit belief that itself is then questionedseem to go together. And as real conversation is complex, it is perhaps to be expected that listening will be interrupted and tacit beliefs uncovered again and again. Indeed, perhaps one difficulty in listening to a challenging perspective is that one is likely to uncover several such unexamined beliefs. If, however, the question becomes a genuine question, one may return to further study of those beliefs on a future occasion. Surely, I will continue to examine my convictions that interpretive discussions help leaders and participants love reading and thinking, and that the clarity of a question is easily apparent. Perhaps most important, I have discovered that I need to find evidence to support these convictions if I am to stick by them.

21. In fact, Marsha had made the comment. See page 13. Perhaps Paula felt similarly. 22. I also wish to thank Marsha, Paula, and Barry for comments on an earlier draft of the paper, for permission to publish it, and for their unfailing support at every turn in our saga.
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