Mastery of reading and writing requires a master. Still more so life. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Let’s start with what I saw.
A teacher with a treasure chest.
A crowd of kids, leaning in.
The other teacher arriving and whispering a secret about the chest.
The kids swamping her, not wanting to miss a single word.
The chest being opened, and a map revealed.
The second teacher talking about the map and how she had made it look real: scrunching, tearing, soaking in tea.
“If you want to make your own map,” she said, “I’ve got everything ready over here.”
What do you think happened?
There’s the work, the thing that’s to be done. In schools, we focus almost exclusively on that. Learning happens if it’s visible. This is why parents love things being in workbooks.
But is that all there is? Isn’t there something else behind it, underneath it? Some kind of imaginative world, connected intimately with a motivational world. If we’re careful, if we’re intentional, we can harness the force that brings those worlds to the surface and makes them visible.
What is that force and where does it originate?
I think the force is willingness. It’s a force that’s firmly anchored within, and when positively expressed is tightly bound with emotions like love. We must acknowledge that it is always present, but that sometimes it comes with a prefix: un.
In too many classrooms willingness is ignored, prefix or not. The work is to be done, achievement to be achieved, regardless. Of course, it helps if the learner is willing to do it. That makes life much easier for everyone. But if the learner is unwilling? Well, enter behaviour management strategies; enter threats and admonishions; enter fear.
The trouble with this approach is it puts a ceiling on what a learner will do because their heart isn’t in it. I’ve seen this time and time again. I have a significant problem, from an ethical standpoint, with this systemic artificial constraint on the capability of kids.
Schumacher argues that self-awareness is the highest level of being. Self-awareness is an internal force that cannot be seen by others. I’m suggesting that there’s a connection here with willingness because willingness is the expression of our interests, our strengths, our imagination, of what we love. Knowing and understanding what these are on a deep level is a core aspect of self-awareness.
Therefore, it is worth considering the impact of 13 years of school, where willingness is not considered as being relevant, where willingness is mostly expressed with an un. How do we think kids will develop self-awareness without being able to develop an understanding of their interests, strengths, loves; without an opportunity to know what they are willing to spend time on? Don’t we want them to show care, consideration, thoughtfulness, personality; to have no problem devoting time and attention and guts.
Are these not ways in which we come to know ourselves?
Are these not dispositions that lead to deep and meaningful (ha!) learning?
Now, I’m not suggesting that work isn’t important. We need to do things to get better. What I am suggesting is that work should be done in service of the development of self-awareness. For most kids, work is done at the expense of the development of self-awareness and what we’re ending up with are screeds of kids who are only willing to do what’s required and nothing more.
School, for most kids, becomes an uninspiring place with no place for their imagination.
Alright, fine Bevan, I hear you saying as I imagine you reading this. What’s the answer?
And I say to you, Play!
But not of the blocks and lego variety. We need to move beyond seeing play as something that’s cued by objects and all about what the kids do. We need to see it as an ethos that can be brought to bear in any context, one that is anchored in a phrase I wrote down yesterday when I was watching those two wonderful teachers cue the willingness of the kids with the treasure chest: participatory encounters.
You see, I’d been trying to work out how they’d hit the mark so resoundingly. As I thought about what I’d seen in their practice, I realised something - they are constantly involved with their learners. They are genuine participants in learning, with every day bringing new, varied encounters that deepen their knowledge and understanding of the force that lies within the kids. Importantly, they act on this.
And so, ‘participatory encounters’ is something to be aiming for. Think about the connotations that phrase carries: openness, relationships, dialogue, understanding, partnership, action, adventure …
Live in that world long enough and you begin to understand how to unleash the force that drives your learners.
In the last post I wrote about the power of stories, arguing they are the ultimate connection device, and I think it’s worth considering the place of story in what I opened with.
The teachers opened with a story: treasure, maps, secret things hidden away, adventure. It was a story that fired the imaginations of all the kids, and because of this a force tightly associated with the development of self-awareness was cued: willingness.
Now, this happened because the story was rooted in what they knew about the kids, built through a practice grounded in participatory encounters. (The more I think about and write that phrase down, the more I like it.) ;-) And so, the story reached them easily, connecting strongly with their interests and imaginative worlds.
Just as importantly, they also included small pieces of another story - a couple of aspects of what the school values as important learning. In this instance, being curious and collaborative. I say important because this helped the kids see how their willingness connected them to a story outside of themselves.
And so, think too of the stories these teachers can now tell these kids about their engagement in the treasure chest story. There’s one boy in particular I can’t get out of my mind. He’s generally rougish, but yesterday spent an hour making maps with 6 other kids, and then an hour at ‘spy base’ making notes in his spy notebook with 3 other spies. Think about the impact a learning story could have on how that boy sees himself. Think about how it will help him understand what he’s capable of, of how it can connect his willingness to the dispositions the school values.
Is that not a great gift? - an inclusion story, anchored in a willingness story.
Awesome, Bevan! I'm encountering the 'un' in myself today...luckily, it's my day at home and this is just the inspiration I need. I even had an email this morning from a concerned year 9 parent (a teacher herself she informed me at our zoom interview) who wants to meet with me again to discuss her son's worrying unwillingness to write! I think I may need to construct an adult sized treasure chest complete with maps and a spy base just for her!
Agree ,Belen!worth to read .