The Business of Educating

The block teeters and falls. With furrowed brow and determination, the architect’s tiny hands maneuver the toys, attempting a new scheme. As the block is gently placed down, a broad smile errupts. Success! She kicks her feet with joy from her accomplishment.

I sit and watch my six month old daughter with awe and wonder. How start of contrast this moment is from the hundreds of moments I experience each day in the classroom: pouting faces, frustration, anger, boredom, apathy… All of which are absent as Lillian attempts to stack her toys, one on top of the other, with passion and vigor. A question begins to form in my mind: When does the love of learning die? What happens? Where does it take place? Who is the culprit? With the assumption that most of my students start off remotely similar to my baby girl, what happens that causes learning to shift from being new, exciting and mesmerizing to being the bane of their young existence?

Albert Einstein said, “It is amazing that any creativity survives school.” Is it the school system that is to blame, with its shrinking lack of intellectual freedom and stressful testing? Is it the lack of purpose that overwhelms the young student’s life as they sit in their desk filling out worksheets that do not resemble anything that they see in real life? Or is there another villain… maybe the neurologically-altering video games and the constant media bombardment of consumerism? Maybe it is the parents? Maybe it’s…

What I do know is that the more important question is what can be done to right the ship and renew their seemingly innate sense of wonder.

My daughter’s attentions are now fully fixed on solving a new mystery: what did I do to make that noise and how do I replicate it? As she pursues this new quest with fresh zeal, I sit and watch with more questions than answers… hoping beyond all hope that she never loses it.

This transpired while coming across waterfall when walking on a wooded trail through a 623 acre nature preserve.

Student: “Whoa! Who turned up the volume on the waterfall?!?!”

Me: “Umm… We are in the middle of nowhere coming upon a… you know… waterfall.”

Student: “Oh… I thought it was like one of those waterfall pictures that they sell at the mall.”

Student: “Mr. G… Why aren’t you at the Royal Wedding?”

Me: “I was invited, but declined so that I could spend the day teaching you.”

Student: ” Really?”

Me: “No.”

For those who do not know, Lillian is my daughter

There are apparently two types of people in this world: Those who produce milk… and those who don’t.

And apparently I am of the second variety.

Me: “One of the reasons that the USA struggled in the Vietnam War was that Vietnam was on the other side of the world.”

Student: “What’s the big deal? Why didn’t we just walk there?”

Student: “Will you sign this absence slip for me please?”

**I rummage around my desk**

Me: “I have a desktop computer, a laptop, an iPhone and an iPad 2 all on my desk right now… But no pen.”

While reading the National Weather Service’s “Tornado Warning,” this gem appeared:

This is a Tornado Warning for Wake County. Serious Hazards include:

A Tornado.

Please seek shelter immediately.

Excellent.

This week, a teacher at our adjoining high school was poisoned by a student.

When talking to a middle school student the following day:

Student: “Did you hear what happened yesterday to the teacher at the High School?”

Teacher: “Yea, that was really tragic what happened.”

Student: “Yea… but the students didn’t like her.”

[rant]
What is going on in our society that students would think the the poisoning of a teacher, or any human being for that matter, was ok if others “didn’t like that person”? There is a serious problem if this is the message that is becoming pervasive in our society. This is the type of mentality that justifies hate crimes and supports genocides as being morally right.

This just sickens me.
[/rant]

Student: “Mr. G, it rained yesterday”

Me: “I know. Do you think that they plug us teachers in and store us in the closet?”

Student: “Hey Suzy! Mr. G came out of the closet this morning!”

Me: “It was in the 1830s that the Natives in the South East United States were forced on a grueling march, as they were being relocated to Oklahoma. Thousands died along with way.”

Student: “Why didn’t they just, like, get on a plane and fly there?”