Six Facets of Understanding

OK, so we're getting more concrete on what the authors understand as Understanding. Six facets are given, and my immediate reactions to them. 

- Can explain

(As Einstein supposedly said, if you can' explain something in simple language, then you don't really understand it.)
As Einstein supposedly said, if you can't explain something in simple words, then you don't really understand it. This is a nice definition, but gives only one facet of understanding: I'm sure there are many things we understand intimately without being able to explain. Such as people like self-trained artists or musicians, who don't have theoretical language to explain their work and give reasons like, "I just kept painting until I was good at it." Or for example: who understands life in Japan more, a person studying the country in books or a kid that lives there?
All that said, being able to explain something in your own words IS evidence of understanding. So it is still useful to keep.

- Can interpret
This is close to empathy, or at least, the end goal should be.
It's the reason that, once upon a time, I wanted to be a literature teacher. Narratives are vitally important, something inherent to the human species--we tell each other stories and remember them. We  learn from them, whether we realise it or not. Everything is a narrative--the news, books, myths, etc. Every narrative reflects and perpetuates society--our perception of the world can be greatly altered by narratives! Being able to understand them--critique them--is vital, too.

- Can Apply
This, to me, is an excellent sign of "understanding," better than being able to explain things. Knowing multiple uses for one tool (a mathematical formula, a reading skill, knowledge of a historical time period, an actual tool like a hammer or something) is a more useful, more complex grasp of it. It's info that you can use in multiple areas of life, not only to solve problems but to increase your understanding of something. (For example, some study into biology and medicine can give you a better understanding of what went down during the bubonic plague, for example.)

-  Have perspective
Know your own limits!!
It's easier to know your ideological limits once they are labeled by someone, so you can accept, reject, reconsider, or otherwise think about them. It also helps to know what other ideological paths people are labeling themselves with, especially if they're fanatical about it.
Of course you gotta critique those labels! Don't tell me "but don't align yourself to a label!" Heck, no. But knowing all the existing paths helps you think outside of them.

- Can empathize
I'm surprised this one's on here, to be frank. I'm glad it's on there, though. I enjoy that it's listed as a sign of intelligence. I come from a country/area where empathy is seen as some sort of intellectual or moral immaturity: just because something is sad doesn't mean it's not bad or worth it! Like slavery! And drone bombs! But I digress.
I think it's a bit revolutionary to say that empathy is a sign of intelligence, and it's completely congruent with the educational goals we keep saying we want: better-rounded, critical people!

- Have self-knowledge 

Gaining Clarity on Our Goals

Long-term priorities, long-term priorities, this chapter keeps saying. Reminds me of my guidance counselor. It's difficult having long-term, intellectual, spiritual goals in class when the school, state, and students' goals seem to be "learn English." 

I very  much enjoy the book's admission that teachers frequently ASSUME students have the necessary subskills required of an activity, such as study skills, teamwork skills, public speaking, et cetera, and that this leads to problems, the least of which are invalid assessments! How can you accurately assess someone's knowledge of a subject if the public speaking part of the presentation is making them fall apart? These are very valuable skills--it could be argued that they're MORE valuable than some of the facts and shit students are expected to learn--and teachers should not fault students for not having them. They must be taught, and school is the perfect place to learn them.

Ah, the standards issue. A hotly debated topic in the US, it is strangely non-partisan, unlike most issues in the US of A. Basically, everyone hates the damn standards. To me, this goes hand in hand with the chapter on Understanding--if you memorise 989,028,298 facts about WW2, do you really understand more about the war? 

How well do the Chilean educational standards for English measure English ability?

And, do the standards include the aforementioned important subskills?

I have other questions with this chapter. For example, the thing about the Essential Questions as a guide for what's important to learn--how can these be applied in EFL?

What would this look like?

What is a "big idea" and "core concept" in terms of learning another language? 

Big idea: Talking about the past

Core concept: -d/-ed endings in simple past

(??? Or what??) 

I agree that essential questions and big ideas are great for choosing what subject matter to view and how to talk about it, but it's a bit confusing to me in terms of applying it to the actual nuts and bolts of English that we must pass along. 

If  the Essential Question is meant to be a guide for learning, do we put the Essential question in Spanish? What if we write it in English and they don't understand it because their level of English is very low? Is it still a useful guide for the student in this case?

This chapter provided me with a lot of good information, but the applicability to EFL teaching is still unclear to me. I hope to be enlightened in later chapters, and from my classmates' blog posts.