Peripheral Visions: Learning along the Way

by Mary Catherine Bateson

Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life, is our guide on a fascinating intellectual exploration of lifetime learning from experience and encountering the unfamiliar. Peripheral Visions begins with a sacrifice in a Persian garden, moving on to a Philippine village and then to the Sinai desert, and concludes with a description of a tour bus full of Tibetan monks. Bateson's reflections bring theses narratives homes, proposing surprising new vision of our own diverse and changing society and offering us the courage to participate even as we are still learning.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, Self Help, Productivity, Memoir, Essays, Mental Health

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Mary Catherine Bateson (born December 8, 1939) is an American writer and cultural anthropologist.

A graduate of the Brearley School, Bateson is the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.

Bateson is a noted author in her field with many published monographs. Among Bateson's books is With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, a recounting of her upbringing by two famous parents. She has taught at Harvard, Amherst, and George Mason University, among others.

Mary Catherine Bateson is a fellow of the International Leadership Forum and was president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies in New York until 2010.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Marcia Conner · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite insights from any book, "Rarely is it possible to study all the instructions to a game before beginning to play, or to memorize the manual before turning on the computer. The excitement of improvisation lies not only in the risk involved but in the new ideas, as heady as the adrenaline of performance, that seem to come from nowhere….Living and learning we become ambidextrous.”

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another favorite book that I've gone back to and read from for sustenance. As the daughter of both Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson she has led a remarkable life. This book traces her experiences living in Israel, Iran and the Philippines with her daughter. She has dexterity to learn from her transient experiences. She works as an educator and one of her exercises is to ask, "adults to work with multiple interpretations of their life histories by composing two brief narratives, one focused on continuity, the other on discontinuity." She says, "Everything I have ever done has been heading me for where I am today." It should seem like everyone knows this, but she is the first I've read who uses it to full advantage.

[Lynn Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would love to stand on a soapbox and exhort everyone to read this book. A beautiful memoir on a personal level and a wonderful education about cultural differences from a woman who has lived and worked in many different cultures and thought deeply about the impact these experiences have had on her, and by implication about the profound impact we have on the cultures we come in contact with. Beautifully and thoughtfully delivered.

[Lillian]

Favorite quotes ... #1- Most learning is not linear. #2- Ambiguity is the warp of life, not something to be eliminated. Learning to savor the vertigo of doing without answers, or making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasure of recognizing and playing with patterns. #3-If we can find ways of responding as individuals to multiple patterns of meaning, enriching rather than displacing those traditional to any one group, this can make a momentous difference to the well-being of individuals and the fate of the earth. What would it be like to have not only color vision, but culture vision, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others?

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

p 11

Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.

p 42

The lessons of school gain authority because they are layered onto earlier informal learning in the home, which is where we learn how and what to learn and how to transfer knowledge from one situation to another. These vital skills mostly remain outside of awareness. Looking at how much has been learned within a few weeks of birth proposes a new kind of respect both for nonschool learning and for the capacities of the very young. Children and traditional peoples, even illiterate peasants who have had enough exposure to the city to regard themselves as profoundly ignorant, have vast amounts of knowledge long before teachers and social reformers get to them. An awareness of the knowledge they already posses could in itself be a revolutionary force.

Not only do we not know what we know, we don't know what we teach.

p 62

Caring and commitment are what make persons, and persons in turn reach out for community. Personhood arises from a long process of welcoming closeness and continues to grow and require nourishment over a lifetime of participation.

p 64

We think of the self as a central continuity, yet recognizing that the self is not identical through time is a first step in celebrating it as fluid and variable, shaped and reshaped by learning.

[Ron Christiansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marked a time in my life, the last year of my master's degree, where I was finally able to begin to connect my academic and personal life, able to see how a book like this, academic but not peer reviewed, were speaking of the same issues present in the journal articles I poured over as I wrote papers. And here I acquired skills which would eventually allow me to completely deconstruct religious TRUTH.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read and re-read this at least 10 times. Every time I learn something new. It is a wonderful book on many things, mostly understanding yourself.

[Brenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing isn't very exciting.

[Ellen Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. Everyone should read it.

[Michael Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are multiple ways we come to know. Bateson lets the reader consider their own lived experiences that influence our epistemology.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very quotable text. A transition in thinking for me. I feel that I have been given new eyes, that strangers are merely foreigners, who come from other backgrounds. The people I have not known in this world intrigue. Every person brings their personality to the table of performance of everyday life. To be a part is the greatest endeavor. My art, academic, personal and professional life feel merged now. Hesitations are gone, as I "learn along the way."

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

an anthropologist/cultural geographer's delight! Bateson begins in a Persian garden in Iran and gives us wisdom and insights into life there. She journeys through the world, gleaning bits of wisdom and reflecting on what she sees and learns in each location. Delightful!

[JD Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable: the daughter of Gregory Bateson ("Steps Toward of an Ecology of Mind") and Margaret Mead writes a series of essays on her life in various parts of the world. I found her commentaries on Iranian culture before the Islamic revolution most illuminating.

[Mary Jo]

I totally loved Composing a Life so Jan Lewis lent me this book and it is pretty dang good itself.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meditations on learning and pedagogy. Great book for educators.

[Dodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bateson writes about different cultures. She's spent time both in Iran and the Philippines and has interesting tales from both cultures. It is a series of essays.