Stick Figures

Watching my three-year-old E develop new skills has been a fascinating journey. A few days after her younger brother M was born she came into our room to show us a drawing of our family. To our amazement, she had drawn representations of people - a circle with two dots for eyes and two long lines coming out the bottom of the circle. Adam and I looked at each other in amazement. How had she learned to draw that? We didn’t teach her. How do kids make these connections without help? It must be hard wired into our brains – the innate ability to learn.

E showing the "stairs" up to the house and two "people"

E has not been “taught” in the traditional sense of the word. She has been given the opportunity to observe, explore and learn from these experiences. She has been given a safe space for these explorations so that she may make “mistakes”. I put mistakes in quotations because the adult world tends to think of them as mistakes. But really, they are not mistakes but rather the journey towards understanding how the world works.

Transformations

I have been thinking for a long time about writing a blog about learning and school experiences but I really didn’t know how to begin. Two thousand and nine brought many experiences in my life that changed me in one way or another. As I think about writing a blog about learning and schools I cannot help but think of how certain moments, experiences, and different people shaped my view of learning both in and out of a formal school setting.

When I think about what a school should be for young people I cannot help but think of my former student Jorge. In many other high schools Jorge would have been ostracized but in the high school where I taught him he was loved and accepted in the community. I remember my first conversation with him on the phone when I called to remind him that we had sophomore retreats in a few days. I had never met him and on the only response I got from him were a few grunts. During the course of that year he would listen and do most of his work but rarely talked. But our small school and advisory program allowed other young people in the school to get to know him through his work and slowly Jorge began to speak more. By his senior year he defended and passed his senior portfolio orally in front of 25 of his peers and teachers. Jorge was the one who is ultimately responsible for his success, but the school and teachers set up the safe space for him to take the risks that come along with learning. Jorge’s success is an example of what our public schools should be doing for our young people. His story should be the rule not the exception.

Jorge graduated almost three years ago and I think about him often. I think about who he was as a student when I met him and how his school experiences in elementary and middle school shaped the learner he was when he entered high school. My world now focuses mostly around preschool age children as I have a preschooler myself. I see how easily she learns from her environment and through play and not formal education. I am left wondering when and how that love and ease of learning changes into something that makes our young people tune out.