21 Edna Pontellier as she gradually begins to see herself through her own eyes rather than through the eyes of others. Other female characters in the novel serve as alternative models for being a woman in turn-of-the- century America. In the gallery I directed my students to spend time independently looking at paintings like William Merritt Chase’s Woman in Black and Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s Lady with Cello and think about how any of them reminded them of Chopin’s characters. I hoped that this activity would lead to enchantment, a moment of physical and temporal “suspension,” as Bennett would say. In our fast-paced, social-media-driven lives we often move through the world too quickly and concentrate too little. Asking my students to reflect on their reading and look at these paintings in silence gave them an occasion to slow down and dwell in wonder. After they had a chance to work on their own, I asked them to collaborate. Research in the learning sciences tells us that to solve complex problems, collaboration is essential. Smith purposefully admits diverse students with divergent ways of thinking and different life experiences because deep learning and problem solving benefit from the exchange of varied points of view. In the gallery exercise, I instructed my students to gravitate to a single painting about which they wanted to talk. At this point I made sure that at least two students gathered next to each painting. I then gave students time to talk with one another to test out their thoughts about connections between the paintings and the novel. Of course these connections were associative—not literal. Each group then presented their ideas to the rest of the class, as we moved from painting to painting. Limited space here prevents me from recounting the richness of these on-the-spot presentations and follow-up conversations, but suffice it to say that these students surprised, delighted, impressed and challenged one another with precision and brio. Some students asked questions and made observations that caused us to move around the gallery to look at other artworks. Many drew from experiences they had had with art history, the study of women and gender, American studies and other fields to point to particular paintings and provide support for their ideas. In the learning sciences we call this transfer, or the ability to apply what one learns from one context in another. A liberal arts education at Smith is not about learning something in one class, taking a test, and forgetting about it. These students demonstrated that they can make connections between what they learn in different classes, and that they can do so on-the- fly and orally in front of a group. Thanks to the staff and donors of the Smith College Museum of Art, who support such remarkable teaching and learning opportunities for enchantment, collaboration and transfer. Floyd Cheung is a professor of English language and literature and American studies and director of the Sherrerd Center for Teaching and Learning.