Why this blog?

"... Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Letters to a Young Artist, R. M. Rilke

Rooted in the promise and challenge of growth ...

these are letters from a young teacher.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Field trips: the ultimate ECS

I've been reading a book lately called "Brain Rules", by molecular biologist John Medina, who is miraculously finding a way to teach me about my brain, and the brains of my students.

... And about the all-powerful ECS - emotionally competent stimuli - that serves to keep the brain paying attention, as emotionally engaged as it is cognitively. The role of emotion in learning is no new idea - I've known for a long time, for example, that my mother was afraid of dogs for so long, without knowing why, until her parents told her she was bitten by one at age 1. Everybody has something like that, that usually catches them when they least suspect it. On his website www.brainrules.net, Medina has much more actual research.

So, why is it - as I suggest in my title - that field trips are the ultimate ECS? Because we went to a local pumpkin farm last week and the only thing I remember in any great detail is the feeling of my arm falling asleep because there were two fast asleep three-year-olds balanced on it. I could have stayed in that moment forever.

I reflected more, though, on Diana, another three-year-old who cried her whole way through the farm visit. It began when she arrived at school and realized we weren't leaving for the farm until after morning circle and snack - continued when we went to visit the animals first before gathering the pumpkins - and did not cease until we were back at school. Her mother was one of the chaperones, so she stuck by her side for the most part, dismissing it as "Well, you know, she just gets the idea in her head, and doesn't want to let go of it".

Another example is the firefighters' visit to the school today. They came in all their gear, a ladder truck, and even extended the ladder out as far as it could go, just for show. I greatly appreciated that the man who showed the kids the gear very carefully showed how he put it on, and crawled up to them on their level, instead of bearing down on them like a wooly mammoth. (When I thanked him later, he mentioned he has a Kindergartner at home, himself. Good learner.)

Regardless, most of the kids were absolutely astounded, and quickly incorporated firefighter characters into their free play later that afternoon. ... Except for one ... Kevin, at the sight of the firetruck, grew quiet, and preferred to look away from the firefighter in the suit. He also declined to climb up into the firetruck. I couldn't quite gather what it was that frightened him, or caused him to pause, but it was clear there was a much different emotion at work for him.

The reading of this emotional resonance has become a way for me, over time, to get to know my students from a more nuanced perspective. It has nothing to do with their capacity, their intelligence, their abilities or mistakes ... it has everything to do with the pure experience of life. Both Diana and Kevin showed distress at our activities, which, I suppose, could have been considered a 'bother', or maybe just 'too bad'. But I found myself wanting to look a little deeper, wanting to be able to read both situations better. Would it have helped me help them? I don't know. More importantly, I begin thinking about how to help (which is often how I think of my teaching - helping, that is) from the vantage point of the emotion of an experience, rather than the content of a lesson.

Not that the latter is not important! However, how can I expect my students to engage in any content learning if the context of that learning is not a positive stimulus to their emotions. In other words, can you take in any new content when you are in distress?

Back to field trips, briefly: We've been in school all fall. We see each other every day. But it took a field trip for me to see more of some students, and that was valuable seeing. It has left me wondering what will happen on the next field trip ...

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