Bird Droppings October 17, 2012

Should we compare children to sponges or containers?

 

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” William Butler Yeats

 

Numerous times over the past few years I have been amazed by four year olds and the level of inquisitiveness as the Early Childhood Education classes use my room as a in school field trip. On a more personal note now watching my granddaughter at nearly two years old inspecting, observing, testing, touching, and soaking up each piece of new information I am constantly enthralled by the learning level. As a part of our career track our high school students who are interested in going into teaching assist in a class with four year children mainly those of teachers in the local schools.

This ECE program is a great hand’s on program for aspiring teachers and a fantastic one on one, often two on one for each of the four year olds who are in the program. Every time I have the ECE kids in my room I am always amazed at the questions and how much like sponges small children are. Absorbing every detail they ask questions uninhibited and openly. A question I have been asking working with high school students now nearly twelve years is when do these sponges soaking up everything around them become simply containers to fill?

It has been so many years, far too many years since I last heard Harry Chapin perform live. He was killed in an automobile accident July 16, 1981. The medical experts who were involved stated he had a heart attack on his way to a concert and lost control of his car. Periodically I will listen to Harry Chapin recordings bringing back many fond memories and always ideas, one of which over the years I have referenced many times previously and as I sit thinking today is what I am addressing in education. The song is of a little boy going to school for his first day.

 

Harry Chapin would speak this line or two: “Your son marches to the beat of a different drummer, But don’t worry, we’ll have him joining the parade by the end of the term.”

Flowers are Red

By Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Then the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Then the way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It’s for your own good..
And you won’t come out ’til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Then the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin’
She said…Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let’s use every one

But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Then the way they always have been seen.

But there still must be a way to have our children say . . .

There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

 

Perhaps in helping my oldest with a presentation on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences last night my thought processes were shifted into gear. While I teach high school students directly over the year I get to meet and work with briefly our four year olds. So as I work with small children I wonder where do the teachers and parents stop them from being sponges and change them all into containers. I thought back in my own educational career which spans many teachers good and bad and many from first grade through doctorates. So often a teacher demands strict adherence to rules within their class room. In far too many classrooms teachers even limit the thinking in their setting. Turn to your worksheet and do all the problems and then read your text book pages such and such. Where is the learning in simply doing busy work? Where is the context and relevance to a child? John Dewey would be having a hissy fit if he could see how little our factory based educational system has changed so little.

“The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.” John W. Gardner

 

The student who does nothing but busy work will never shift to pursing their own education. We teach children they need teachers to tell them what to do and in so many situations they students sit and wait to be told.

 

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” Sydney J Harris

I am a firm believer in reflection but only when it is an inner look not simply parroting the words of the teacher. We need to be opening windows and doors. We need to be making sponges not containers out of children.

“What we have learned from other becomes our own reflection.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

I wish all along I had the second teacher of the little boy in Harry Chapin’s song for every one of my teachers or my children’s teachers. I did by chance have her in second grade, Miss Bethea, who would let us color in rainbows and imagine and be creative. That was a wonderful year of school and here I am over fifty six years later
remembering. I have watched my children flourish with some teachers and perish under others.

 

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.” Joseph Addison

 

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.” Native American Saying

 

Yesterday evening just as the sun was setting I walked out to my herb garden out in my back yard for a moment to check on some plants I had transplanted the day before. As I looked to the east and the rising sun a great red tailed hawk swooped just before me banked about and headed to a nearby tree. As my eyes followed the hawk I saw its mate sitting there in the tree and both flew off. It has been some time since this pair of hawks was hunting nearby although I have seen them many times in the six years we have lived here this was the first in many months. Sitting listening to Harry Chapin singing this song above, is a great way to start my morning of reading and writing. I will end with the Yeats quote as it is what education should be about. Maybe next week while I am off from school I can head up to North Georgia and visit with a program nearly forty five years old. The Foxfire magazine started in 1966 has been produced ever since as a product of a high school class. The program is based on the Foxfire teaching approach which draws on John Dewey’s writing from the early 1900’s. I am always amazed at the relevance of this man’s thoughts to education today. As I have for so many days now going on twelve years please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and always give thanks namaste.

 

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” William Butler Yeats

 

Wa de (Skee)

bird