On his first day of Kindergarten, I made a deal with my son. Every day, when he comes home from school, Nano needs to tell me the following things about his school day:
1. Something that was easy.
2. Something that was hard.
3. Something new he learned.
4. Something nice he did for someone else.
Nano and I are working on this blog together, to document his journey through education. I don't know how long it will last; heck, I don't know how long my kid will happily come home and answer the "How was school?" question with something more than a grunt and a shrug. But that Nano shares these things with me is probably a lot less important than him contemplating his answers to those questions. They are the kind of metacognitive stuff that we educator-folk hope all our students will consider as they leave campus each day. More importantly, they're a simple model of the things each of us, as life-long learners, should ask ourselves when our heads hit the pillow each night.
These are his answers for today, and my questions for a lifetime of education, parenthood, and the honest, real perfection we touch without knowing it when we're in kindergarten....
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1. Something that was easy on Friday... Oh yeah, we did a Circle Map, and it was easy. (What's a circle map?) It's a giant oval...kind of a little medium... and it's for putting on pictures of things on the oval and writing words about it in the corner. (What do you use it for?) Dad... it's a THINKING map! It's just for schoolwork! It kind of helps you think. We were putting T things on there like TURTLE, TENT. In the middle, she put a little tiny oval and wrote an uppercase T and a lowercase t in the middle. (So...) --so [the teacher] puts the letters in the middle, and we cut out the pictures and color them, then stick 'em on with glue sticks or regular glue. I like glue sticks better because they're easier and they don't spill on your friends. (....)
2. Something hard...we had some math and it was hard. (What was it?) I think it was... oh yeah, it was about plus. It was adding. I was adding ten plus twelve. Actually, that's easy. (What's the answer?) 22. (Yep.) Yep. It wasn't really hard. School isn't really hard. The homework that you and Mama give me is harder than the work I do at school. (Like what?) Ohhh... Piano! And writing the "The quick brown fox" so many times and the Mrs. Willis letter [note: Nano takes care of the neighbors' cat when they go out of town. The teacher in me turned it into a teachable moment for my kid to practice his writing.]
3. Something that I learned was my AR test. I learned that you have to read the story, you have to remember the words and the pictures of what I saw, and the pictures in my brain of the reading. And then you take the AR test and you get them all right. (How'd you do on your AR test?) Pretty good. I missed none. (That's pretty good, buddy.)
4. Something nice I did for somebody... I teached the teacher "nocturnal" and "diurnal." (Tell me about that... how'd that happen?) In the afternoon, we write sentences. And we take turns reading them. (What was your sentence?) I said "Bats are nocturnal, but we are diurnal." (What did your teacher say) She said, "Wow, did I just learn something new?" And I didn't say anything. (Why not?) After I told her, I had to keep quiet and listen, because it was another kid's turn to talk.
As a father, a husband of a teacher, a middle school administrator, I have daily opportunities to be proud of others. When I made the shift from being a classroom teacher to being an assistant principal, I wondered if I would miss teaching. I wondered if I would miss that sense of accomplishment and pride that came with teaching sixth graders about the four cores and all the Life that happens in the gaps between them.
I soon learned two things about myself...
First, I derived the same joy from watching other wonderful teachers teach-- making the little light bulbs above students' heads illuminate with understanding, watching their faces smile knowing their teacher cares for them and their success, feeling that collective emotional inertia that occurs in a classroom when something funny happens, or when thunder claps outside, or when a student walks in on crutches and everyone feels concern for one of their own. I didn't need to be the catalyst for that... I could enjoy watching others create that classroom community, that sense of care, comprehension, and compassion that make a "bunch of kids" a "class." In powerful ways, watching a teacher teach is better than being a teacher teaching.
Second, as an assistant principal, I still get the daily opportunity to connect with students for those teachable moments. They're the good stuff, the kind of questions without specific answers we ed-folk live for:
- What would you have done differently?
- You made a choice, and got a consequence... What would have been a better choice?
- If you had a rewind button, what would you go back and change?
- What have you learned... and what have you learned about yourself?
The good stuff. Helping students make better decisions and be the best human beings they can be... warts, and all.
...Which brings me to how honored I feel to have this kindergartener in my life, acknowledging all the people that are working to insure his success. My five year old might not be able to articulate that Thinking Maps are an educational language of eight visual patterns based on fundamental thought processes that assist cross-curricular comprehension, reading fluency, and writing skills... but he's using a Circle Map correctly as a brainstorming tool, complete with a frame of reference. That's a nice deposit in the Bank of My Kid's Future. Thanks, teacher.
My son also taught me this week that maybe my second question each day-- "What was hard today?" -- isn't always going to have an answer. Resistance, challenge, obstacles, even failure are the things that build competency and strength. But then, every now and again, there is probably some catharsis in doing something well that you already know how to do. Sometimes you run for your life, other times you run for your run. Granted, that doesn't stop us teacher-parents types from giving our kids HOME homework... but nobody's perfect. Besides, I think the stuff we're giving him is too easy anyway.
Maybe when you're a bright five year old, it's easy to be "smart and sweet." Maybe the trick is finding a way to support and nurture both, or better yet, supporting our kids to sustain both for themselves. If we all do it right... or more appropriately, understand when to guide, and when to hide...there will be just as many "smart and sweet" fifteen year olds in about ten years.
Until then... well, I'm pretty much making this up as I go along. Wouldn't have it any other way, though.
