When I read this verse in Proverbs this morning, I paused for a while and thought of the value of keeping one's mouth shut, and yet today's entry may be my longest one to date. I finally did what I've been putting off. No, not the Mensa test. I pulled Sylvia Ashton-Warner's "Teacher" off the shelf and started reading it. A ritual I've practiced every July for the past 18 years, once I've read the introduction I'm past the point of no return. The first professional book I ever read, it tells the story of Ashton-Warner's years teaching Maori 5-year-olds in New Zealand. It changed my teaching life before it began. The book taught me to teach children instead of covering content, to let the organic vocabulary of my 6-year-olds determine the direction of the curriculum, to understand that it is the cultivation of a deep relationship that unlocks the mind and releases the tongue.
As I read the book today, I jotted down lines that moved and thrilled me, even more so now than when I first read them all those years ago. Now when I read, I have images in my mind of children, hundreds of children in classroom and playground interactions, that lend credence to the words.
- There is a comfortable movement from the inner man outward, from the known to the unknown, from the organic to the inorganic. The thing is to keep it a gracious movement, for it is to the extent that the activity in an infant room is creative that the growth of the mind is good.
- I never teach a child something and then get him to write about it. It would be an imposition in the way that it is in art. A child's writing is his own affair and is an exercise in integration which makes for better work. The more it means to him the more value it is to him. And it means everything to him. It is part of him as an arranged subject could never be. It is not a page of sentences written round set words, resulting in a jumble of disconnected facts as you so often see. It is the unbroken line of thought that we cultivate so carefully in our own writing and conversation.
- To the extent that a teacher is an artist, and according to Plato there should be no distinction, his inner eye has the native power, unatrophied, to hold the work he means to do. And in the places where he can't see, he has a trust in himself that he will see it, either in time for the occasion or eventually. And he would rather risk a blank in his teaching than expend cash on the middleman. He wants the feel of the glamour of direct engagement. He wants to see in his mind, as he teaches, the idea itself, rather than the page it is written on. He wants to work from conception itself directly upon the children without interference form the image of its record on a book. He wants to work in a way that to him is clear, without conflict and without interception.
It is that last one that both excites and scares the mess out of me right now. I could spend the next couple of weeks doing as others do, writing plans from teacher's guides, collecting word lists, planning units. But I have to wait and see who will be in the class and let their loves, hopes, fears, and fantasies determine the word list. Instead of pig, three, sticks, bricks, straw, our word list might be tire swing, hurricane, Dora, nightmares, Mama, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Barney. I remember one August morning a couple of years ago, all gathered on the rug sharing our most embarrassing moments, Maddie announced that she wanted to share something she could no longer keep to herself. "I've never told anyone before, " she said in a trembling voice, "but I just want you all to know I still like Barney." Connections were made, understanding looks exchanged, community was strengthened, Barney made his way onto the word list and was a good way to introduce r-controlled vowels during the phonics period. No payment to the middleman.
So I can have a vague outline of the day's schedule, and arrange the room to promote interdependence in some areas, autonomy in others. But some things will just have to wait until the children arrive. And, again, while thrilling in some ways, it is frightening in others. I never will have it "figured out". As Ashton-Warner writes, "I'm just a nitwit let loose among children. If only I kept workbooks and made schemes and taught like other teachers I should have the confidence of numbers. It's the payment, the price of walking alone. I've got to do what I believe. And I believe in all I do. It's this price one continually pays for stepping out of line. I'm feeling too old to pay it. But I must do what I believe in or nothing at all."
Well, speaking of embarrassing moments and Barney, I have purple hair today. My hair has been so lifeless lately, I thought it might help to put a wash-in hair color on it to build volume. The picture on the product package looked about right for me, a light brown with blond highlights, but somehow it turned out decidedly purple. Tim says it's auburn and he likes it, so I said okay but would you tell me if you didn't. It's an established fact that he won't. So I have purple hair with great texture and volume.
I finally got my Denver photos developed. I didn't take very many, but I put them together here: http://mrsatwood.com/Denver.html
