As a young boy living in an old Cape Cod with many brothers and no money, I spent a lot of time outdoors. I have many fond memories from my childhood, from stealing goose eggs to playing “push” on an old worn out trampoline. Like so many, my childhood memories fill me with nostalgia and warmth. My boyhood adventures have become so much more significant to me, however, now that I am an educator. I have discovered the importance that independent play had in forming my critical thinking and interpersonal skills. It is these skills that have allowed me to enjoy the success of living a fulfilled life and so it is these skills that I want to cultivate in my students.
My mother took no shame in locking my brothers and me out of the house for hours at a time, not allowing us re-entry for anything less than blood, with nothing but a “boys with brains” platitude as our guide. This required my brothers and I to develop relational skills as we navigated the tumultuous waters of deciding what games to play and what rules to break and who would take the blame if we got caught. Alliances were formed. Leaders were quickly established. Compromise was a necessary evil used to preserve the harmonious sanctity of our “free time.” In short, we were forced to form community. The lessons that I learned about how to function in a small society carried me through my first retail position, where at the age of 18 I became a key holder and manger. They helped me assimilate to the college classroom, my first institutionalized educational experience, having been raised in a homeschooling house till the end of my high school career. It is these interpersonal skills that I depend on to help assist my students in forming meaningful relationships that develop a positive learning environment in the classroom. It would be difficult to overstate the importance that my childhood played in assisting me with the formation of the interpersonal skills that have helped me become the educator that I always aspired to be.
Not only helping me form interpersonal skills, my childhood adventures helped me develop critical thinking skills. As I mentioned earlier, my family did not have an abundance of financial resources at our disposal. This forced my brothers and me to think creatively, finding new and exciting ways to play with the same rusty golf clubs we had possessed for years. We had to learn how to solve problems, for my mother would not unlock the door for any reason less than serious personal injury. Fixing issues ranging from broken scooters to broken friendships, the independence that I enjoyed as a young boy caused me to create strategies for solving problems. Trial and error were in constant employ; many strategies were abandoned, as failure was not an unpardonable sin, but a learning opportunity. I learned the value of assessment and reflection as I faced the challenge of outmaneuvering my brothers in make-believe combat situations. The key to victory lay in constantly learning and adapting guerilla warfare tactics to “snipe” your enemies and be the last man standing. I employ the same assessment and reflection techniques every day as I continually strive to improve as an educator.
All of the activities that I have described began from the time I was 10 years old and continued through my freshman year of high school. These formative years are crucial to the development of young minds. Vygotsky was correct when he postulated that children learn best through play. These years not only created invaluable life skills that have produced success and fulfilment in my life, they also helped set me on a path that has led to my dream career: high school English teacher. It was during these years that I became passionate about storytelling, learning, growing, and loving. It was during these years that I learned the value of community. It was during these years that I fell in love with the idea of dedicating my life to helping students. If these childhood memories were changed, if my boyhood adventures were replaced, so also would the success and fulfilment of my life be removed.
The implications of this realization are far reaching when I consider the subject of modern education. If the goal of education is to create mindless drones that obey the commands of a select and privileged few, then the truth aforementioned is meaningless. If the goal of education is to foster independent critical thinkers that function in a society, then the aforementioned truth takes on a much greater significance. Instruction should center around the instructed, that is the student, and not the instructor. Instruction should be used to develop and foster these crucial life skills, not fill students with myriad facts to be recalled on a single test. Giving students independence, allowing students to fail, and creating safe learning environments characterized by community must be prioritized above any content knowledge. In short, we must afford our students the opportunity to play in our classrooms. Teachers are not experts, filling empty vessels with endless amounts of facts. We are guides, providing our students with opportunities to explore, create, argue, defend, question, learn. If our students are not allowed to experience this kind of learning environment, then I am convinced that they may never grow into the successful and fulfilled individuals that educators are tasked with helping them become.
A ten-year-old boy taught me that.
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