we are who we think we are, aren't we?
scientists are born, not raised
I've been thinking a lot about Dr. Michio Kaku's statement that we are born scientists. (See video from last week.) We are born curious. I see this evidenced everyday through the eyes of my three- year-old grandson. "Why does it do that? What is that?" And my recent favorite, "Is that a bad word?" Leif asks this one continuously. Of course, it could be any word or combinations thereof - and more often than not he asks this for words he already knows. When he asked me if "in it" was a bad word, I said no, and that it meant something we were doing right now. Then I smiled and shook my head in mock seriousness. "No, wait, that is a bad word!" "No, it isn't!" he countered quickly, fully grasping the sarcasm with a giggle. It's become his favorite new game. I've made it a point to answer every question he asks, and even ask him a few of my own. And he tries to answer every question I ask him as well. It's so much easier to practice patience as a grandmother instead of a parent. I get much longer breaks between the Q&As..
I babysat him a few nights ago, and we watched an episode of Blue's Clues. Repeatedly. An episode. The episode culminated with the actor "building" a small tent with a sheet, and after the fourth time watching, I found a few blankets, dragged some chairs and pillows into place, and started to build a tent in the living room. Leif got right into the spirit of the task, once he realized what we were doing. We got inside (er, I got mostly inside - legs were optional) and laid down. He started to pull on the blanket, realizing that he couldn't see the monitor from under it. I told him we didn't need to see with our eyes, and I pointed to my temple. "We can see in here, and we already know all the words," I said, and closed my eyes and starting talking along with the now-quite-familiar-dialog. I opened one eye, and smiled. "I can see Blue and Steve with my eyes closed. Can you?" He was quiet for a few seconds (a miracle!) watching me with doubt, digesting that new idea. But then he copied my behavior enthusiastically. I'd love to say we stayed that way for some time, but I doubt it was more than a few minutes before he was on his feet again, grabbing more toys for our tent. I'm looking forward to recreating a similar experience again. I'm going to shoot for a full five minutes of "listening" without distractions. I know. I can see your head shaking slightly from side to side. But I believe in miracles. And three-year-olds.
marva-lous
"When we listen to schooling discourse we seldom hear of dreams, of possibilities, of grand beliefs, of freedoms, equalities, and happiness. If Heidegger is right, and language speaks us, schooling discourse might be helped by listening to others with dreams." ~Ulveland, Unit 6.
It seems that Marva Collins lived and breathed that idea of dreams and possibilities, and that age is no barrier to understanding and achievement. Marva believes unequivocally that every child is teachable, and the rightful holder of those grand dreams, freedoms and equalities. She gave them more than postitive reinforcement. More like positive reinforcement on sterioids. It was clear from the beginning of the video - and in her creed - that we all have potential. Gifted students. Average students. Troubled students. Over and underachievers alike. She gave her kindergarten-aged students unparalled praise and confidence in their skills and abilities, as they testified to several years later. And to a student, they lived up to that potential: whether as teachers, enterpreneurs or future lawyers.
Marva did more than teach them how to learn, she taught them to think beyond themselves. Beyond their years. Beyond what the outside world might predetermine as their capabilities. As a young adult, Xavier was able to use the notes on Hamlet he had taken as Marva's grade school student for both an high school essay and a English Literature course in college. He was still impressed at the quality of the handwriting he'd had at such a young age. (I remember my own handwriting with fondness - but the keyboard has laid that previous ability to rest.) But Marva had those children reading Shakespeare at grade four, and their favorite authors included Chaucer, Dante, Bronte, and the like. I'm fairly certain that I was still at the Green Eggs and Ham and Are You My Mother? stage. Which I am not disparaging, by any means. I'm so fortunate that my parents encouraged my reading - and never placed any restrictions on me in that regard. But the reading choices never included Othello or Macbeth prior to sixth grade, as I recall. I long to know what I might have achieved in such a powerfully confidence-inducing atmosphere. But don't get me wrong, I thrived in an imperfect educational system, probably because I never doubted my ability to succeed at it. I just had a slightly lower academic jumping off point for junior high.
Of Marva Collins teaching style, Morley Safer noted that "[s]he stands over their shoulders: pushing them, cajoling them and praising them. And the results are apparent to even a casual bystander. Alert and challenged children being pushed beyond the boundaries even most schools set." Listening to the now-adults former-students talk about those experiences, and hearing how they applied that love for learning - and not just for an education - was spiritually moving. I got a little misty eyed I admit, at the testimony of these young men and women. To have guided such passion for learning - and to have encouraged these students who had been disparaged and left behind in the grinding wheel of public education - there are no words. I'm so grateful to have a glimmer of what it feels like to watch a young mind bloom.
I was saddened to learn of the closure of one of her schools a few years back. It's a tragic thing, to understand of the value of an exceptional education, and not be able to afford it for your kids. As a single mom, that wouldn't have been an option for my kids either, even if I do recognize the investment into their lives. I wonder what might have happened to our government's "vision" (or lack thereof) of child education had she accepted President Reagan's offer to be his Secretary of Education? Would we be saddled with No Child Left Behind? Or would we have had a generation of young students reading "beyond" their years, and competing at levels of thinking and learning that would rival the best in the world? Life is full of what might-have-beens. For the students interviewed in this 60 Minutes segment, those lives became what-could-be's.
a class divided
The blue-eyed/brown-eyed lesson taught a profound and emotional lesson in bigotry and racism, during a turbulent time in our nation's history. And it appears that many years later, the lesson stuck. I was especially struck with the genuine fondness with which both the former students and their teacher displayed at the reunion show. These were real people, not actors or paid reality participants. They experienced a real event in their young lives - even if it was just an experiment in prejudice. And there was nothing "just" about it - it was a profound moment for these kids. (And no doubt, their parents.) They demonstrated all the foibles, anger, frustrations and outrage as did their adult counterparts at the end of the program.
This first experiment in bigotry was taught shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And as Jane Elliot learned - her students turned into mean-spirited and hostile little people - all within the course of a day. That was a disturbing lesson in psychology, and in the forces that drive our behavior. During those few days of the experiment, she "watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating, little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes."
Jane very carefully used praise whenever she could for the "privileged" group on their days. She found many opportunities to positively reinforce the new "truths" about these two groups. And was just as careful to point out those negative behaviors for the others. She was quick to use these lessons to drive home her point. She was so quick to use the object lessons at the very time she saw them happening. One any other day, for example, the boy that used a disposable paper cup to get a drink of water, quite naturally, would have disposed of it. One this particular day - as part of the persecuted - she called him out to retrieve the cup and write his name on it. She was able to "prove" that all brown-eyed people were wasteful because of his action. And the child that forgot his glasses the second day was also proof that blue-eyed kids were lazy and forgetful. She was so fast on her feet! She was immediately able to point out two brown-eyed children in the class that had remembered their glasses. Clearly part a superior race...
Jane used phonics cards as part of a class lesson, and during the period when the brown-eyed children were part the "discriminated" group, they spent more than five minutes working through the entire pack of cards. The following day, when they were made part of the "privileged" group, they got through the cards in just two and a half minutes. "The only thing that had changed was the fact that now they were superior people." Wow. That quote is going to stay with me for a long time. (I can't help but wonder about we green- or hazel-eyed people, though - where we would have fit in...) The looks on the faces of those children was heart-wrenching. One brown-eyed girl in particular was so expressive. Confusion, disbelief, hurt and dismay flickered through her eyes and face as she realized what was happening: that her foundation was being taken away, and that so unexpectedly and unfairly the rights and privileges she'd always known were no longer hers to have.
And the next afternoon, hope and joy spread across her face as it was revealed that her teacher had "lied" to them the previous day. And suddenly, capriciously, it was discovered that brown-eyed people had been wrongfully targeted as inferior. All the benefits bestowed upon the "blue-eyes" were now hers to enjoy. What shouldn't have been surprising - because Jane had watched it happen first hand - were the results that came from the informal review of the tests by the psychology department at Stanford. According to Jane, "they said that what's happening here is kids' academic ability is being changed in a 24-hour period. And it isn't possible but it's happening. Something very strange is happening to these children because suddenly they're finding out how really great they are and they are responding to what they know now they are able to do." And conversely, those who were told they were "lesser" beings behaved as such.
We are what we believe ourselves to be.
