You’ve stated that words have a living, dynamic energy; that they are by nature invitational or evocative and can cause an impact, a response, a shift in perception, and a change in reality. Can you further describe the evocative nature of words?

I’m referring to the immediacy of language; language as a vital, alive, breathing energy that triggers the listener’s creativity. I am referring to a specific commitment to language, one that cultivates a new experience in the receiver. Evocation invites the imagination and can create a new reality.

Let’s try an exercise. Pretend we are face-to-face. S-hhh! Be very still. Don’t move because right behind you is a green, slimy creature crawling up the back of your chair. Try not to move a muscle, because it’s just about to touch your hair with one if its tentacles!

What happened?

Well, first I felt like laughing. I was thinking about the creature, picturing it.

You began to sense the monster behind you. You immediately had certain visceral responses. That’s evocation. And those responses as well as that type of approach are distinctly different from a descriptive approach. Description involves the transfer of information and engages only some levels of the intellect. However, it may not stimulate a greater degree of receptivity in the listener.

You believe that, as educators, we must make a distinction between evocation and simply passing on or handing over information without asking for participation or ownership of the material. Moreover, you believe an innate awareness of the evocative nature of language is quite likely what motivates people to become teachers in the first place.

Stephen Crane said that he wrote The Red Badge of Courage because he wanted to “live it.” Nothing he had read on the subject invited him to experience it and make it his own. By creating an experience, we invite and invest in the most powerful asset we have – the creative imaginations of our audience.

As teachers, we have the opportunity of suggesting to our students, “It’s your creative imaginations that I am most interested in cultivating. And when that is engaged, I know you will own the subject.” The consequence of experiencing is learning.

I believe we become teachers, not only to move our students, but to be moved by them, as well. Our motivation goes far beyond the action of merely passing information along. It is moving when we witness our students teaching themselves. We are the inviters, the cultivators of their innate gifts.

How can teachers reconnect with their natural talent to invite students to, as you say, “create, portray, or inhabit” material presented in the classroom?

We all have the natural ability to be highly evocative. Our training and conditioning may move us in other directions. However, think about what mode we switch to when relating a scary story. Or specifically, what happens when you tell someone about a hard day at work. You might say, “You won’t believe what happened to me today,” and begin to tell the story. You will watch the impact it is making on your listener every step of the way. You will graphically provide details while monitoring the effect. You will use the most evocative language, the most vivid images you can. You want your listener to experience what you experienced.

When we focus our attention on investigating and witnessing the impact of our words, we naturally become more evocative. And sharing impact is a bonding experience. It fosters partnership.

I treasure encouraging teachers to uncover moments when they were naturally evocative: I ask them, “When did you have an impact that was even greater than anticipated? When did you see students light up and their imaginations really take off?”

Additionally, atmosphere plays an important role. Our senses are heightened, our creative impulses are awakened, when we alter the environment. They key is to customize, to have educators articulate what will inspire their own evocative natures. I was recently talking about this with a teacher. I asked about what elements helped comprise a sensorial, evocative environment. She spoke about how much she loved dinner table conversations that go on for hours. “You’re there with great friends, there is a sense of timelessness, and the conversation just continues to roll out spontaneously, lighting up everyone’s imagination.” As a consequence, she decided to bring that idea to her classroom: to have a meal, sit on the floor, light some candles, and talk the subject through. She says the results were astounding.

How can a teacher cultivate full receptivity and participation to learning in the classroom?

First we must be invitational and cultivate partnership. Say to your students, “We’re going to embark on a journey. What I really need is for you to take it on, see it, sense it engage with it. Let’s create it together.” You might ask them “What do you need in order to do that?” This will express a commitment to learning what is needed to cultivate their receptivity. We must learn what is essential to stimulating each person’s unique creative methodology.

For me, when seeking to evoke an experience, it’s important to speak in the present tense, even if the event happened in the past. I then customize my language as I watch the impact on my students. Afterwards, I always investigate their internal reality. “What did you see, what did you sense, what did you fee?” I wan them to know I value the fullness of their experience.

When this approach is effective, what will we see in our students? How will that look?

On one level, it is affirming if they report visual imagery. But when they speak about what they smelled, tasted, or felt, I recognize a greater fullness to their receptivity and ownership. When their experience takes on a kinesthetic texture, when all the senses are engaged, the material is theirs. And as one of my teachers stated: “When I’m in that mode, I have no issues about self-efficacy. I know I’m making an impact.”

With all our recent advances in technology, we can sit in front of a screen, be it movies, television, or computers, do nothing and be visually bombarded. We are teaching our children passivity, to take their imaginations and put them in their back pockets. We are teaching them that technology will portray everything for them, so they really don’t need to participate anymore.

I think students sometimes feel left out. They don’t feel part of it.

In the theater, I believe that in inverse proportion, as the lights go down, the audience’s receptivity opens up. Actors have an enormously powerful tool available to them – the audience’s imagination. The ultimate portrayal happens in their minds. If instead, an actor chooses to take on the entire portrayal and demonstrate all the feelings, the details, the emotions, and the objectives, the message is, “I don’t trust you to create this with me. I’ll portray it for you.” The audience becomes passive and ultimately feels betrayed.

The same is true in the classroom, except the lights don’t go down. When we spin out information without invitation, we are ultimately saying to those on the receiving end, “I don’t really trust that you are going to get this. Let me portray it for you.” When we don’t trust, we work very hard and achieve very little with our students. But truthfully, the students are the artists; they are the ones who are going to portray everything we are talking about. And their imaginations are hungry to do so.

Within the hearts and minds of every one of our students is an internal, creative vision demanding to be called into play. The imagination will even create beyond what has been experienced. Knowing that the entire world I’m looking to communicate already exists in my students’ minds, whether they’ve actually lived it or not, is humbling. We will never be able to describe something as fully as our students can portray it within themselves. What can be evoked is great than anything that can be described in words.

And by the way, one of the simplest and most famous of all invitations is, “Once upon a time…”

The interview was conducted by Shirley Durst, assistant editor for r-w-t, witht the assistance of publishing intern, Anne Marie Vollero.