Filed under: School
I was sitting in my office this past summer looking out the window watching a few high school students do stunts in the parking lot on skateboards. I was drawn to them because of the racket they were making. Not just the crashing of the boards into the parking stops, but the joyous laughter that would spring forth when one of them would pull off what seemed to me to be an exceedingly difficult stunt. My eighteen your old ego wanted to go out and show them how to do it. My sensible forty-something body reminded me the ground was too far away for me to try that foolishness. (That noise you hear is my wife laughing at me being sensible.) I had several choices: I cold learn from them, I could join them, I could watch them, I could stop them. I decided to watch them and learn from them. They had no constraints on their creativity other than gravity. Their minds were dreaming up increasingly difficult stunts to try. When they would struggle through a stunt, they would repeat it until they could do it without failing. It seemed at times that they could make the skateboard levitate from the ground and stick to the bottom of their feet. They could literally fly.
One of my kindergarten teachers awakened me from my daydream. She brought me a young man who was in the summer Jump Start program. He had completed kindergarten and was selected for the program because he was a struggling reader. After two intensive weeks of much one on one work with this teacher, he was ready to read to me, excited to read to me.
He came to the side of my desk and asked if he could read me a story. I smiled and told him I would like that very much. His enthusiasm as he read reminded me of those skate boarders. He was flying! He could read! He read the entire book to me and finished with a huge smile on his face. I looked over at the teacher and could see how proud she was.
One of the great things about what we get to do is help kids explore their worlds. Whether it is from the top of a skateboard or behind a book, on the battlefield of athletic competition or in the salon cutting hair. We get to experience with them the sorrows of failure and the jubilation of success. We get to see the kids fly!
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What a mission we have to help kids discover their world. When I taught first grade I loved the look of a young child’s face that discovered new things. When I do lessons where student get really engaged and they learn new technology I get to see kids fly. What a great profession we have that allows us to observe and take the time to appreciate the learning of children. You have become so elementary so fast!