Entry # 12: We're tour guides,
and some kids don't have tickets

The November issue of Educational Leadership begins with an article about babies as collaborative learners. In "The Scientist in the Crib: A Conversation with Andrew Meltzoff," Marcia D' Arcangelo points out the many ways that babies follow the steps of the scientific method in their relentless drive to learn and acquire new skills.

Babies collaborate with their families and their environment as they continuously take in new information and incorporate changes into their repertoire of experience. As a parent who loved watching her babies make discoveries, and as a science teacher, this article seemed right on target to me. I found myself returning to its message throughout the week.

I thought of the article while I was in an Early Balanced Literacy class on Thursday. We were talking about "risk factors." We did a jigsaw activity to determine whether our students were operating at a deficit if their parents were uneducated, if they didn't speak English as a first language, if they were poor, if they were young and male...and the list went on.

Then on Friday, I was reading pieces of Schools That Learn by Peter Senge et al, looking for ideas for a number of meetings I need to facilitate next week. Right in the "Orientation" I read about a learning connection made between a teacher and a middle schooler. It felt great to share this story of a reluctant learner, who was reconnected to his desire to learn by a teacher who picked up on the right cues.

In this early section of the book, called "The Remembered Moment" the author urged readers to do just that, to recall a time when you learned something, when you were burning with curiosity and that interest was captured and satisfied through a learning experience.

Later in this short section, anthropologist, Edward T. Hall states,"The drive to learn is as strong as the sexual drive. It begins earlier and lasts longer."

So what is it that happens between infancy when the drive to learn is second only to the basic physical needs for creature comfort, and adolescence, when so many kids opt out of school? Are they "unmotivated" as we hear so often? Are they "at risk" because of their home environment, or are they "at risk" because of the treatment they receive in our schools?

I'm dizzy with all the bits and pieces of information that my mind is racing between. Are kids rebelling, somewhat unconsciously, refusing to participate in practices that are degrading and painful. I'm thinking of Herbert Kohl's I Won't Learn From You. Are they experiencing all of their true learning, their Flow, outside our classrooms?

A real web of frustration

Maybe the answer is both simple and complex. Perhaps we cannot hope to pinpoint "the" factor that is blocking our progress in the schools. Why are we so obsessed with finding the main reason? Do we need a simple answer so we can come up with a pat solution? Are we just trying to figure out who gets the lion's share of the blame? Do budget dollars depend on neatly packaged proposals?

Now I'm past dizzy, I'm feeling like I want to run away from my own thoughts, but I know I cannot. I don't think teachers who care about their kids can escape the questions or the answers. I think we know that connecting with kids and collaborating with them in the design of their learning experiences is the key.

All the rest, the lack of funds, the particular baggage we all come with, the oversized classes, the bureaucracy, the bias -- it all provides a real web of frustration, a sometimes tangible series of obstacles in the teaching and learning path of our kids.

We are the tour guides and some of our passengers aren't holding tickets. They've seen the tour before, they're bored with it, but if we believe they can achieve, if we believe it's human nature to want to learn, we'll take new routes and arrive at destinations we might never have dreamed possible.

Like the babies in the Ed Leadership piece, we'll embrace change as needed. We'll tap into the potential of our students to continue the excitement they felt when they were little, when they were successful, because they kept on working at the skills they needed and wanted in their lives.

If we can make our classrooms places where learning, where curiosity, is celebrated as opposed to someplace where you "do school," then I think the rest will fall into place.

We are so divided . . .

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the extreme anxiety I'm feeling about everything we do, in light of our current political crisis. As I sat glued to the returns on Tuesday night, I was depressed by the fancy graphics that portrayed our divided status as a nation. While I knew we were not one big happy family and I rejected the melting pot idea long ago, there was something about the starkness of the map that greatly alarmed me.

I was also struck by the coverage that broke down the demographics. Women, minorities and labor represent so many votes in this country and share so little power that I wanted to scream. In fact, I did get pretty loud about it, but my husband is used to it.

When will people with common interests remove the blinders of racism and class chauvinism? When will gender difference stop being a political liability?

My husband went to the gym Friday, and he said Dole was on TV railing about how Gore needed to stop the nonsense, the demonstrations, the challenges etc. The receptionist said, "Gore can't stop it. It's the people and nobody can stop the people."

Yesterday after I wrote this entry, I left for NY. We were going to a show to celebrate my birthday. A half block from the theater there was a sizeable demonstration about the need for a recount and an investigation into voter fraud in FL. We stopped and talked to the demonstrators. It was exciting to see so many people getting involved in issues of democracy.

One person's sign said, "We are New Yorkers. We are all disenfranchised voters from FL." The idea that an "injury to one is an injury to all" is not a new one, but it was heartening to see it in this context.

I still believe in "the People." I still believe that democracy is possible, and I still believe in "our" children. Together we can make a difference, but the getting together part won't come easily and therein lies the rub.

[Editor's note: Deb is co-moderator of the new MiddleWeb listserve.]


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