Lost in the Woods

Whenever I introduce active reading to learners, I like to equate comprehension and the quest for meaning in a text to hiking in the woods. Having been lost in the woods a few times (born usually of my own curiosity and ignorance), I like to ask learners what they would do if they found themselves lost in the woods. Invariably, learners decide that standing in the middle of the woods and admitting you are lost is a good start since accepting such a thing can be difficult. But what if that's all we choose to do - just admit that we are lost and then wait around for help to arrive? Many readers do the same when they encounter difficult text - they stop and wait around for someone to help.

Since many of the classrooms in our building use the rotational model of instruction, learners are expected to work independently and collaboratively in addition to the more traditional direct instruction led by the facilitator. Many of our learners find themselves "lost in the woods" trying to figure out the content in our classrooms, particularly in the independent and collaborative rotations. When they acknowledge being lost, the first response is often to raise a hand or go directly to the facilitator for assistance. While many will say that this is our job as facilitators, we should wonder if we aren't teaching these learners that there will always be someone nearby to supply an answer and/or clarify their confusion. I cannot help but envision someone lost in the middle of the woods with his/her hand raised in the air and wondering why no one has arrived to lend aid. Perhaps if they shake their hand and arm back and forth with vigor it will alter the outcome….

We are facilitators and as such our job is to facilitate learning. This goes beyond just our content knowledge to making sure learners first attempt to help themselves before immediately coming to us. In order for this to happen, it is necessary for us to help learners understand that the first, second, third…attempts to correct confusion may not always be successful. We may reread a portion of text many times, or work to simplify an equation several times, or even walk in a direction that might actually lead us away from where we want to be. But what matters is that we are attempting to embrace our confusion by doing something, by working through the mystery and the unknown in an attempt to figure it out. This is the essence of learning.

We all need facilitators in our lives, but the best ones are those who encourage us to figure it out on our own and provide some tools when needed. Raising our hand in life does indeed draw attention and illicit assistance, if available. All we've learned, however, is that we know how to raise our hand for someone to offer us some assistance - without ever needing to struggle and figure things out. Learners need this struggle in order for real learning to occur. When we end up "lost in the woods," a raised hand won't mean much, but knowing how to think through the situation and take some steps to change it will.

A Passion for Vacuums

My youngest son collects vacuum cleaners. He's seven. These are not toy vacuums - they are the real deal. His collection currently contains about 33 different vacuums, from a 1960s Hoover Constellation canister vacuum that actually hovers above the ground on a cushion of air to a brand new, from-the-box Shop Vac he received for his birthday.

Now, many of you are thinking, "This is a great hobby! His room is probably clean all the time." It’s a nice thought, really, but wholly untrue. His room is generally a mess and often looks more like a thrift store warehouse than a bedroom. No, Sam is good at cleaning other things (when asked), but does not see that his own room should also receive the benefit of his mass of floor cleaning implements.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving with Sam on our way home from running some errands we he asked me when trash night would be for our neighborhood. As a father my suspicions were naturally raised and I resisted the urge to rush home and search the trash cans to see what Sam and his brother Ben may have hidden there. I told him the two days most people have their trash collected in our neighborhood and then asked why he wanted to know. He told me we had just passed a vacuum cleaner outside someone's garage. He wanted to come back on trash night because he thought it looked like one they would be throwing away.

At the time, I figured there would be no harm in collecting the "trash" vacuum because it probably had a burned-out motor or was otherwise broken beyond repair. This would be a good lesson: it's at the curb for a reason.  The following evening - trash night - we drove past the same home and there at the curb was a vacuum cleaner, set to make a journey to the landfill. And by landfill I mean the workshop in our basement. Ben and Sam loaded the "trash" into the car, and the "trash" made its way to the Baker workshop.

At this point you may be wondering about the point of this story. That's a good sign because it means you are still reading. Within minutes Sam had his vacuum tools out and a bucket of soapy water ready to go. For the next hour he worked dismantling and cleaning the new vacuum. He had to be told multiple times that it was past his bedtime until I finally had to turn off the lights and follow him upstairs to his room and bed.

He snuck back downstairs overnight for a time (unbeknownst to me or my wife until the following morning) to work on his new project and was up before everyone in the house to continue. He found videos on YouTube showing him how to fix issues and reassemble parts of the machine. He was completely engrossed in the project, occasionally asking for some assistance from me and watching intently as I removed a screw in an difficult location or reassembled some piece of the housing. He thought critically about how to disassemble certain parts and analyzed how the machine was likely held together when he wanted to reach a certain component.

Sam is passionate about his vacuums and about taking things apart to see how they work. But he rarely displays that same passion and drive when it comes to school. He does well in school, but he rarely seems so engaged in his school learning as he is with his vacuum refurbishing and repair. So when I read What School Could Be (Dintersmith 2018) a few weeks ago, I thought again and again about the passion for learning that is often missing from students in school. Students, when asked, often come to school because they have to - an obligation rather than a desire. Wouldn’t it be nice if the students we teach arrived at school each day passionate about their learning and wanting to be in school?

In Chapter 8 of the book, the author discusses "doing better things" instead of "doing things better." This is an interesting manner of thinking, especially at this point in the summer when our minds have turned to the coming school year. So much of new-year thinking involves reflecting upon the previous year and figuring out how to improve. But does this improvement necessarily mean doing what we've done before in a better way (doing things better), or should it mean doing school in a different, more meaningful way (doing better things)? I thought about my son Sam, as well as my other two children Katie and Ben, and how each of them is passionate about certain things. Then I thought about how many of those passions are or are not reflected in the learning they engage in at school. I know that Sam cannot spend his entire day working to restore and repair vacuums. But what if his learning in school could be tied to his passions? What if he woke up each morning excited to go to school and learn, the same way he reacts to finding a vacuum in a thrift store or salvaging one from the trash collectors?

What if we begin to rethink the way we teach students so that their passion for learning drives what we do in classrooms? What if we do better things instead of trying to do the old things better? I would love to share with everyone a tried and true plan for implementing these ideas, but I cannot offer that at the moment. Truthfully, I'm not even sure exactly what each school day would look like; however I think part of doing better things is understanding where our students are with their learning and what their passions are, and then tailoring the student learning experience to connect passion with content. Imagine students excited about coming to school and passionately engaged in their learning. It's a nice visual and it is possible, because each of us has witnessed a "Sam" truly engaged in learning. Now we just have to figure out how to make that happen in schools. 

(Author's note: The vacuum rescued from the trash is fully operational. It has a new belt, filter, and bag. Currently Sam is not interested in selling this one back to the original owners, as suggested by his father.)