It’s interesting to me how much of this chapter you spend berating yourself for giving suggestions and advice, for encouraging the kids to consider three steps ahead, for jumping in and helping when enthusiasm dipped. Autonomy and decision making are so absent in modern classrooms, although there is a strong move towards giving at least some of this back to students.
I recently did a week of training around something called “The Big Picture” program. It feels revolutionary to me but all it really is is a version of what you did at this school. You provided experiences and opportunities and students experimented and followed their own interests, trying and sometimes abandoning projects, eventually hitting upon something that “worked”. I’m fascinated by what different philosophies produce.
I’m also reminded of my own daughter, who is so enthusiastic about beginning projects but begs for me to help her. Unfortunately when I do hurt her she always gets so discouraged by my suggestions. She just wants me to sit near her while she does things. When I’m involved beyond that, she’s weighed down by my own anxiety of making a mistake, and she can’t enjoy the mess making without panicking about cleaning up at the end.
You capture so nicely the complex dynamic between teacher/parent and student/daughter. There's so much happening in these moments, much of it yearning for different outcomes ('I want my mum close and involved; I want my mum to see my strong independent self'). I think I berated myself because I felt I couldn't know or work comfortably with all the complexity. And I really wanted to, and a part of the 37 year old me thought I should be able to. I think that spending some years learning to be a therapist - and coming to know that I'd never completely know - probably helped me be less anxious later on ... maybe! :-)
It’s interesting to me how much of this chapter you spend berating yourself for giving suggestions and advice, for encouraging the kids to consider three steps ahead, for jumping in and helping when enthusiasm dipped. Autonomy and decision making are so absent in modern classrooms, although there is a strong move towards giving at least some of this back to students.
I recently did a week of training around something called “The Big Picture” program. It feels revolutionary to me but all it really is is a version of what you did at this school. You provided experiences and opportunities and students experimented and followed their own interests, trying and sometimes abandoning projects, eventually hitting upon something that “worked”. I’m fascinated by what different philosophies produce.
I’m also reminded of my own daughter, who is so enthusiastic about beginning projects but begs for me to help her. Unfortunately when I do hurt her she always gets so discouraged by my suggestions. She just wants me to sit near her while she does things. When I’m involved beyond that, she’s weighed down by my own anxiety of making a mistake, and she can’t enjoy the mess making without panicking about cleaning up at the end.
You capture so nicely the complex dynamic between teacher/parent and student/daughter. There's so much happening in these moments, much of it yearning for different outcomes ('I want my mum close and involved; I want my mum to see my strong independent self'). I think I berated myself because I felt I couldn't know or work comfortably with all the complexity. And I really wanted to, and a part of the 37 year old me thought I should be able to. I think that spending some years learning to be a therapist - and coming to know that I'd never completely know - probably helped me be less anxious later on ... maybe! :-)