Regardless of your political or religious affiliation, cultural background, gender, or moral views, you cannot dispute that we live in volatile times. Across the globe, humans struggle with hunger, war, and disease on a daily basis. Some of it will touch us in America and some of it is only a quiet, unread newspaper headline. While all of this happens, each new generation of children is educated, graduates, and takes their place among the leaders of our country, while their teachers either capitalize upon or neglect opportunities to affect the future of this earth. Although teachers cannot teach their students everything there is to know about the economic reasons for food shortage, the underlying tensions that begin modern day wars, and the insidious disparities that leave some countries ravaged by disease, they can do something exponentially more important. They can teach children how to care, to listen, and to act. More powerful than teaching an impossibly infinite list of facts, teachers can mold the way our future leaders meditate on conflicts, converse diplomatically, and solve destructive problems.
 |
In our persuasive Power of the Pen unit, we read the words of authors who are writing to change us and we write letters about issues that are important to us and then send them out into the world. |
Katie Wood Ray, in her book Wondrous Words, talks about helping children develop “habits of the mind.” By this, she means that rather teach children a litany of different crafting moves authors make, how to recognize them, and how to apply them, we teach children how to automatically look for them. One of her key ideas is that it is much more effective to teach children how to read like a writer- a habit of the mind- than it is to teach a list of crafting moves. I’d like to borrow her notion of habits of the mind to discuss talk in the classroom.
Like I said in the opening, we are living in volatile times. As a primary teacher, I am constantly asking myself how what I do everyday affects the future. As my philosophy slowly grows along with me, I realize that my goals for teaching must be even more than I previously had allowed for. More than reading for meaning, more for writing with purpose, more than authentic experiences even—because what is authenticity and “real world” learning if it does not positively affect our “real world” once students step foot into it?? The truth is that we are not just preparing children to go out the world and do OK for themselves. We are not just helping children to be lifelong readers, lifelong learners. I think we have a higher purpose.
The other day, I was at Barnes and Nobles (where else?) working on my thesis, tapping endlessly and rather directionlessly away at my keyboard. I love to work there. I find that without my internet connection, with a table, and of course- with a latte, I can get more accomplished in 2 hours than I can at home in 6 hours. There’s only one problem. I’m drawn to other people’s conversations like a moth to a flame. I swear: I’m not TRYING to eavesdrop. It’s just that, when they are sitting only a few feet away from me, their conversations are considerably more interesting than the words on my screen.
So on this day, after I had been working for a while, an unlikely pair seated themselves at a table close to the window. One was an older man- I’d say around 60 or so, distinguished, with a swarthy complexion and a pot belly. The other was a young, t-shirted, spiked haired kid- I couldn’t tell if he was of college age, or maybe even high school. I could infer that they had met each other there and their body language suggested that they weren’t related- maybe they didn’t even know each other that well. They were far enough away that I (sadly) couldn’t hear what they were talking about- just that it was very animated. It seemed like for both them, there was no one else in the room. The expression on their faces was as though they had been waiting weeks- maybe months- to say the words they were saying. Not just when they were talking did they look joyful, but when they were listening.
I needed a break. I got a cup of coffee and played around on my internet-less computer. I glanced up. Tried to lip read, but couldn’t make it out. (A blog is a place to be honest, right?) Then I realized, when in their excitement their conversation volume was turned up- they were speaking Italian! But it wasn’t without some English and lots and lots of gestures.
From my inferences, the older man was coaching the young man on his Italian. Here and there, the young man would frantically gesture, the older man would give him the Italian word and with a bright grin stretching over his face, the learner would dive back into the conversation, for this was not only a lesson. It was themeaning that counted; whatever the subject was, both of them were on the receiving end. They probably had been holding in these words for months. One needed the other equally.
And then came the part that I found to be so poetic and beautiful. Conversation drawing to a close on a happy, boisterous note, the young guy rather abruptly stood up and walked away from the table. I doubt that either of them saw the next part (as I was the only spy). The look on the young kid’s face as he walked away looked like he had just satisfied a gnawing hunger. The smile on his lips was so real and so happy. And the older man? He was sitting at the table lightly chuckling to himself. He didn’t get up immediately. In fact, he was so much in a reverie that he didn’t notice as his pupil walked past the window to his car- still visibly smiling to himself. Finally, the teacher, grin not leaving his face, heaved himself up and wandered out the door. And they were better for having talked.
Conversation is so simple, but oh so powerful. Besides eating and sleeping, it is probably one of the most human acts. We need to talk, just as we need to eat and sleep. Asides from just satisfying a personal need though, conversation is the great unifier. It is conversation that has smoothed over border disputes, solved political conflicts, inspired solutions for peace. Through talk, people not only can transform themselves, but they can transform and transcend their circumstances: they can bring others along with them. I believe I witnessed transformation in a simple conversation over coffee.
We have a higher purpose as teachers, and teaching the art of conversation should not- cannot- be minimized. So how can we teach children to talk well- not just about trivial likes and dislikes and what they’re doing on the weekend? And if we canteach them to talk about bigger things than these, how can we teach the others to listen and respond well? I’m arguing for making room in our curriculum to let children talk. I’m arguing for giving children the time they need to develop a habit of the mind, because won’t that serve them, and in effect serve society- more steadfastly outside the walls of our classroom? We can easily eat up all our time making children hungry for books and purposeful and strategic in their reading and it is worth every second we devote to it. But I wish to send more than readers into the world. I wish to send out changers, feelers, thinkers, listeners. For those are the ones who, in just 20 years, will sit around a conference table with the future of thousands- maybe millions- in their hands. Whether they can effectively collaborate is more life or death than if they can talk about a mental image they made in their latest novel.
Saving the world is no easy task. The ratio of teachers to students is not in our favor, and neither is time. Each of us has approximately 180 days to change the way 20-30 children exist in this world. Given those restraints, would you rather begin at the top of a list of skills and facts and hope you can “finish” them by the end of the year (you won’t suceed- knowledge is infinite), or would you rather affect the way in which those 20-30 future citizens reason through a social situation, the way they express a dissenting opinion, the way they listen to new ideas and make room for them in their minds? I know which one I’d choose.
Let’s not have children wait until college to experience the exhilaration of a rigorous, passionate discussion. Let’s make room in our classrooms to see that children make room in their hearts and minds. That’s what living together on this spinning ball is all about!
Comments