This is a bit of a longer posting, which I hope you will take the time to read. – Paul
As a teacher looking to create meaningful learning experiences for my students, I am a constant observer. My goal through careful observation is to try to understand and experience the cognitive, emotional and physical perspective of the learner. By understanding this perspective, I am much better able to design experiences, or create learning encounters that are accessible and meaningful to him/her. This learner-centered approach has been espoused by many pedagogues over the twentieth century. It was underlying the work of cognitive scientist, Jean Piaget, and his stage theories of learning. It is at the heart of the humanistic psychologists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. More recently intentional observation, followed by careful reflection and subsequent planning is a cornerstone of the broad movement toward developmentally appropriate practices and the pedagogy of Reggio Emelia education, among others.
In a recent chat with author and educator Ba Luvmnour (Natural Learning Rhythms and Optimal Parenting), Dr. Luvmour explained, “This is the fundamental and foundational shift. The teacher must always strive to see through the learner’s eyes, walk in the learner’s shoes, experience the world within his skin. This is the mandate of the holistic teacher. Let get of our adult perspective and live in the world of our students.”
However, in trying to make this shift, we face huge obstacles. It can be very challenging to not only experience the perceptual realities of young children but also all the social, and emotional contexts that envelop these perceptions. It is the rare occasion when, as adults, we can do more than observe the children learning but actually experience the same process fully and wholly.
So over the last two weeks when I had the following frustrating learning experience, I reveled in it. I bathed in it and immersed myself in all its gloopy, sticky mass. I have been reflecting on my own process, and using it as a new lens through which to view my observations of student learning. Here’s the story:
Our class has been interested in reducing our use of resources. One desire has been to limit our use of electricity. We decided that it would be a good idea to first monitor our usage for a period of time and then try to reduce our usage through simple conservation practices. We discovered the location of our electric meter and began to take daily readings. This turned out to be not so simple. There were two meters, one for each of the buildings on the site. One had an easy to read five-digit number. The other was an odd-looking series of analog dials. Each dial had a single, clock-like hand surrounded by 10 digits 0-9. This meter proved more challenging, much more challenging. While the hope was that student meter-readers could record our data each day, we quickly discovered that reading this meter would require adult support.
I went out each morning to read the meter with student helpers. At first we simply wrote down the number each hand pointed to and created a five-digit number. After a couple of days, I realized the numbers were not progressing in regular intervals as expected. I took a closer look at the dials, and surmised that they must work like a five handed clock, but with each hand on its own face. Thus if the hand of one dial was almost at nine, but still between 8 and 9, then it should be read as 8. I tried to confirm this assumption by looking at the dial prior to some of these “nearly there” readings; and, as I suspected, the dial prior was usually (though not always) pointing to a high digit – much like the minute hand would point to 11, just before the change of the hour.
Yet the following two days’ readings still did not produce the expected progression of data. I returned to a close inspection of the dials and realized, that some of the dials’ numbers proceeded in a clockwise direction but others were written in a counter clockwise progression around the hand. In fact this confusing discrepancy occurred in an alternating pattern so that every other dial was to be read counter clockwise. (Who thought of this system??) Now, mystery solved, I proceeded to collect my data. Yet again the data did not produce anything like expected results.
Finally, I called the power company where a patient “ remedial tutor” for the learning impaired meter reader told me that you must read these dials from right to left. Start with the dial on the right and then move towards the left to create your five digit reading. “You’re kidding?” I said. “Why?”
“That’s just the way they’re made,” was the response. “You know it would be much easier just to look at the reading on your bill at the end of the month.”
“Thanks.” I said.
So I returned to my daily recording and I still got confusing data. Maybe at this point it was my errors in reading, but honestly I was so frustrated and disheartened by the whole process, by the myriad of apparently senseless rules that I have quit trying. Now we read the easy-to-read meter only. And I’m not sure how I feel about this choice.
What has been fascinating for me though, as I reflect on my attempt at learning the process of “learning to read” anew, has been my progression through the many stages I often see in my students, including all of the emotion, angst, and compensatory cognitive strategies that all too often accompany the process of learning, especially when the task or skill is not “developmentally appropriate.”
When I first struggled with the meter reading, I simply felt confused. Yet I fell back on my own strong self-concept. I know I am capable and literate. I must be doing something wrong. I will investigate deeper, figure this out, and try again. This self-concept was extremely important in allowing me to make subsequent attempts.
I experienced embarrassment as I publicly, with kids at my elbow struggled to read the numbers. It was humiliating to struggle with what should have been such a simple skill, in front of those whom I needed to hold me in high esteem. The embarrassment was heightened as I would return to the classroom and have to explain to the whole class, as I struggled to enter the obviously inaccurate data onto a large chart at the front of the room. I found myself resorting to humor and distraction to save face, and make my obvious confusion seem excusable. I blamed others a lot, the power company, first and foremost, for creating such obstacles to my reading.
Often I experienced added pressure associated with time and time became my enemy. I felt confident that if I had adequate time to puzzle this out, to sit and watch the dials move, or check on them more frequently I could be successful. But each morning at the prescribed time, I would have only seconds or at best minutes to decode this cryptic nonsense, and this again was a public process. I felt anxiety build as the prescribed time approached each day, and this anxiety proved to be another hindrance to my learning and problem-solving process.
Most interesting, I found myself resorting to all kinds of dysfunctional strategies to avoid the painful learning encounter. I would delay meter-reading time, or even skip days – until the students called me on my negligence and poor work habits. I would dismiss the inaccuracies in any way that would allow me to escape personal accountability – the dials were screwy, the glass was smudged, the meter was broken, etc. Ultimately I began to devalue the importance of the task at all. It really didn’t matter if we ever read this meter, maybe we should just read the other easier one.
Every part of this process, the fear and anxiety, the pain and embarrassment, my initial resiliency and determination, and eventual frustration, and resignation are things I witness every day in the emerging literacy of the students I teach. The slow and unsteady progress, that seems to come in fits and starts – breakthroughs followed by backslides. The amazing resilience and steadfast willingness to try and fail again and again. And the endless accumulation and refinement of coping and avoidance strategies.
Learning any new skill is so full of confusing rules, bits and pieces, that all seem to have exceptions and odd meaningless quirks. Nowhere is this more obvious than in decoding our written language. There are so many rules, that the reader just accepts on faith, but then dozens if not hundreds of exceptions that make the whole process so muddled. Why does the letter “c” sometimes say “S” and sometimes”K?” What does it mean “y” is “sometimes” a vowel. Speaking of vowels…don’t get me started.
I guess the strongest lesson learned for me, for the moment is to keep striving to ensure that the whole process of emerging literacy is a joyful one. Let’s collectively commit to building our kids’ self concept, as this is the essential foundation for any learning or risk-taking. Let’s keep celebrating accomplishments and approximations towards conventional accuracy. Let’s recognize effort. Let’s allow time, privacy, and dignity to be always present in the process. Let’s be mindful of kids’ anxieties, fears, pressures and self-doubts. Let’s always keep a sense of humor, joy and fun as an integral part of the wonder, mystery and adventure of learning. Perhaps more than anything, let’s respect each individual’s unique trajectory. Literacy or any new skill, might come fast and easy, or more slowly. Let us notice when a perceptual ability or neural pathway, may not be in place to allow a certain step to occur in the process.
When I struggled with the counterclockwise dials or the fact that the whole meter was meant to be read from right to left, I was reminded of those kids who at age 5 or 6, or even 7, do not yet have predictable directionality in their perception of the written text. In demanding accurate decoding and fluent reading we are asking them to perform a meaningless circus trick that makes no cognitive sense, given their perceptual reality. Add our impatience, the internal peer pressure from the growing group of readers around them, embarrassment, humiliation, etc etc. How might forcing them through this process affect them in their long-term relationship to learning or reading? How might it be different if we turned the heat down from an angry rolling boil to a gentle warm simmer, and allowed the gift of time and biological development to work its magic?
I encourage you, adults, parents, teachers, to try to learn something new. Preferably a skill that you have never tried before. Ideally one, that you might be afraid to try, one for which you have little background knowledge. Watch yourself learn. What helps you, what impedes your progress? See the world through your child’s eyes. You will learn much more than the skill!!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks for your children’s patience and support. They are great teachers!!!!
