Tracks to Clementine

The Other Kind of Crucible

My Monday afternoon class is full of loud crayon throwers. And I can't blame them: it's half-past snack when they show up and I'm sillier than their favorite uncle. It's makes for a room full of giggling and wriggling and fun, but it also makes for a room full of kids whose group concentration is fuzzy when I want it to be razor sharp. Add into that a complex storyline involving a Star Snatcher who has swallowed all the stars so everyone has to pay for light and a girl who is constantly running so the Star Snatcher won't steal the stars in her eyes...right, anyway, it's a case where what we're doing in class often requires quiet focus and abstract thought at a time of day which would probably be better served by entertaining Extreme! Action! plot lines complete with relay races disguised as dénouement.

If I'd gone that route everyone would have a good time and I probably wouldn't be filled with occasional moments of terror. But it also would have been too easy. This way, I have to come up with creative ways to get them to pay attention. One of those ways has been to hold class with the lights off.

We've been having class in the dark for the past five weeks at least. What with Daylight Savings, dark has been getting darker and darker. For the past three weeks, I've used the track lighting, which puts out about the wattage of three night-lights. Yesterday, I turned the lights off completely and we figured out how to move around safely without being able to see. And we have to: next week we return to the Place of Shadows and must work for the Star Snatcher in complete darkness to foil his plot (natch).

This class has twelve six- and seven-year-olds. At the end of every class, each kid says an "I remember" and I write them down. This serves two purposes: (1) students see that their ideas are important enough to be in words on paper and (2) I won't forget what we did in class. They usually say things like "I remember you licked the tree" or "I remember we had to sing to get Lily to stop running," but yesterday one girl ended the day with "I remember I wasn't scared of the dark like I usually am."

And that's why I don't just teach with exercises that exhaust. It's harder, but they get to learn not to be afraid of the dark. I want them to learn that dark doesn't mean that something bad must happen, that they leave class with the strength to face scary elements in many kinds of dark. Hopefully, they're also learning that not being afraid doesn't mean there isn't anything to be afraid of, that bravery should never equal blindness.

Yesterday was one of those times when I realized that what I want my students to learn is something I'm still trying desperately to learn for myself.

Posted by Ida at November 18, 2003 10:53 AM