John Levine shares about his experiences with awe and what it means to others.
At the end of another semester I reflect on my college writing class organized around the theme of Awe. One of the books we read is Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner. The book provides activities for gaining access to awe. One involves looking at a life-size mount of a Tyrannosaurus rex and noticing how that observation changes one’s mindset.
We take a “field trip” to a paleontology museum so students can try the activity themselves. Before the visit, I tell them about my first taste of awe visiting the Museum of Natural History as a pre-schooler. We then spend five minutes observing the museum’s T-rex in silence. Their homework is to write about that experience.
As I read their reflections, I’m surprised and a little disheartened. While most dutifully report they felt a measure of awe, I wonder if their responses are performative. After all, the course theme alone is a leading question. And then there’s my priming them with my own awe around dinosaurs.
In his book, Keltner explains that when in awe, people feel less like individuals and more part of a greater collective. While some of my students wrote about feeling calmer, most weren’t able to disengage from their individual workaday student mindset. One student focused on the construction of the mount, while another compared the dinosaur skeleton to the human anatomy. Another student questioned the entire purpose of the exhibit. Critical thinking, yes, but where was the awe?