My youngest daughter is in sixth grade, which around here means it is her last year of elementary school. I'm not sure how I can be so young and have children so old, but I guess crazy things still happen.
When the papers started coming home, asking for parental involvement, I said yes. This is why I found myself in an elementary school one day, playing games with sixth graders. And it was fun.
The challenge was simply explained. The students had to get in pairs and sit back to back against each other. One student was given a simple drawing, like Exhibit A here. The other student was given a pencil and a piece of paper. The student who could see the drawing had to explain to the other student what to draw.
There was to be no peeking and no stating what the drawing was. So, in this instance, the student could not tell their partner to draw a dinosaur.
While the challenge was simply explained, it was not easily performed. As you can imagine, there was some frustration as the one explaining would give instructions and the artist would reveal a mess of lines and circles that did not represent the original. Not even a little.
There were so many lessons in this exercise, most of them likely lost on these sixth graders who simply wanted to be done. Primary among the lessons would have been realizing that what I say isn't necessarily what you hear. Communication is so much harder than that.
But there was a second lesson, perhaps one just for me on that day. The goal of the exercise was for the artist to be able to draw a close representation of what the one explaining described. Honestly, isn't this 90% of education? We want students to be able to replicate the knowledge and skills we're passing down.
But what if we're teaching the wrong thing? What if some of the problems, both in our society and in our individual lives, are perpetuated because we continue to try the same things, while expecting different results?
What if, in my life, I am trying to make sense and order out of what I have previously known to be true, while God is really wanting to do a new thing in me? What if I am too like the sixth graders, just wanting to be done with my current challenge, instead of embracing the new adventure I am being called to live?
What could I be missing by my refusal to try something new? And what could I experience, if I was less concerned with things looking like everyone expects them to look? What could be created if I was open to forging ahead into unexplored territory, even if only for me?
Because sometimes when we're trying to do what everyone else has done, we create something better.
When the papers started coming home, asking for parental involvement, I said yes. This is why I found myself in an elementary school one day, playing games with sixth graders. And it was fun.
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| Exhibit A |
There was to be no peeking and no stating what the drawing was. So, in this instance, the student could not tell their partner to draw a dinosaur.
While the challenge was simply explained, it was not easily performed. As you can imagine, there was some frustration as the one explaining would give instructions and the artist would reveal a mess of lines and circles that did not represent the original. Not even a little.
There were so many lessons in this exercise, most of them likely lost on these sixth graders who simply wanted to be done. Primary among the lessons would have been realizing that what I say isn't necessarily what you hear. Communication is so much harder than that.
But there was a second lesson, perhaps one just for me on that day. The goal of the exercise was for the artist to be able to draw a close representation of what the one explaining described. Honestly, isn't this 90% of education? We want students to be able to replicate the knowledge and skills we're passing down.
But what if we're teaching the wrong thing? What if some of the problems, both in our society and in our individual lives, are perpetuated because we continue to try the same things, while expecting different results?
 |
| This doesn't look like the original. It's better! |
What could I be missing by my refusal to try something new? And what could I experience, if I was less concerned with things looking like everyone expects them to look? What could be created if I was open to forging ahead into unexplored territory, even if only for me?
Because sometimes when we're trying to do what everyone else has done, we create something better.
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