The Students’ Playground and My Journey
of Self-Discovery
Karen Nesmith
Vancouver, British Columbia
“Our
children’s voices never cease and the teacher is constantly
yearning for something that always seems beyond her
grasp.”
Can
children design a social responsibility framework to
help them solve problems on the playground independently?
When
I began this action research project of having children
design a rubric to help them with crises on the playground,
I believed that if I empowered my students with strategies
to deal with problems on the playground and gave them
the responsibility to design their own social responsibility
rubric, that they in turn would eagerly rise to the
challenge. A rubric is a table, an educator’s version
of a spreadsheet; in our particular instance with problems
down one side, evaluative standards across the top
and how students solve these problems in the body of
the table.
My eagerness to put children in the driver’s seat was a reaction to the
B.C. Social Responsibility Quick Scale of Social Responsibility
(Kindergarten through to Grade 3) which defines expectations
for socially responsible behaviour—for example, solving
problems in peaceful ways—and assigns the student’s
development along a continuum, from “in conflict situations
often expresses anger inappropriately: blames or puts
down others” to “usually manages anger and expresses
feeling appropriately.” I felt the Scale had been designed
by a bureaucracy which failed to include children’s
voices. And, I had confidence in my students—after
all, my students were street-wise city kids who were
very adept at being leaders, often surprising me with
their uncanny ability to behave like miniature adults
in a classroom full of teddy bears and nursery rhymes.
I
turned to the dictionary for inspiration, where I found
Oxford’s epistemological understanding which laid out
the following definitions of rubric and play: Rubric n.1.,
heading of chapter, section, special passage, or sentence,
written or printed in read or in special lettering;
2. direction for conduct of divine service; (my italics) 3. explanatory words,
established custom. Play v. 1. play move about in a lively or unrestrained manner, frisk,
flutter; 2. Pass time pleasantly.
Who would have imagined that the term rubric had theological underpinnings?
I thought it was a lovely coincidence and slightly
comical, that this term, often bandied about by the
school bureaucracy, actually has a touch of the divine
attached to it. That children require parameters for
safe play is not in question. It is only when these “established
customs and explanatory words” are handed as if from
on high, from an unknown entity, that they lack meaning
for the children they claim to protect.
This
spiritual quality would come to serve as the anchor
for my research and for the sharing my students engaged
in—as if we in the classroom were conducting our own “service
of the divine.” Further into my research, I had a chance
encounter with the work of Nel Noddings, an educator
on building loving and caring spaces in the classroom,
who added yet another layer to my understanding when
she spoke of the “state of grace that educators should
strive to create in their classrooms,” thus
validating my research, giving it legitimacy, and making
my experience and that of my students mean something.
While
my original intention was to have the children take
ownership of this rubric by designing it themselves,
the children’s emotional and social anxieties made
me pause. I began to wonder if my intense, city smart
students were capable of creating their own child-friendly
rubric independently, without requiring adult supervision,
guidance, and direction at every juncture. Their young
minds seemed impervious to the strategies suggested
by their peers during our countless class meetings.
They would offer up, as if by rote, amazing solutions,
yet fail, in the midst of a playground crisis, to bring
all this great energy together—it was as if the moment
they left the structured haven of the classroom and
ran headlong onto the playground, they remained immune
to all they had learned mere minutes ago. The same
old problems would appear again and again.. No amount
of class meetings, friendly reminders, hugs, and gentle
loving kindness seemed to have any effect (other than
to calm me down).
And then as if to buoy me up, in a pleasant coincidence, my principal
introduced a second rubric for our school, which was
supposed to be a panacea of sorts for our playground
hostilities, and to serve as a supplement to the Ministry’s
social responsibility rubric. Relieved at the additional
support coming from an administrator who had a wealth
of experience in the inner city, I foolishly assumed
that the children would feel a vested interest in trying
to help the principal make our school playground happier
and safer. Yet weeks later the underlying tone of anxiety
still lingered and we seemed no further ahead—only
more disenchanted.
Monitoring
and observing student behaviour on the playground and
in the classroom has been a cornerstone of the research
of Pellegrini (1995) and Blatchford (1994) The children
in Pellegrini’s research become “subjects of direct
observational methods,” however
the researchers fail to capture the subtle nuances
of playground crises. Indeed, their research model
is far more global in nature. Unlike these researchers,
I was staying up at night worrying about the unique
stressors of my students, my classroom, and my school.
I worried worry because I knew Justin went to bed at
1:00 in the morning because his mother was out entertaining
men. I woke up at 3:00 in the morning wondering if
there is any way I could adopt Annie because her 23
year old mother was finding life far too overwhelming.
Could I empathize with the alcoholic mother (and friend)
who kept on returning to my classroom for a hug and
quiet conversation because she had just celebrated
yet another month without a drink?
Researchers who study classroom and playground behaviour
stand before a far larger audience. Their data and
observations, while rich in detail and insights, cannot
capture the underlying emotions in a classroom, read
the wariness in a six year old’s smile, or read between
the cryptic broken lines of a journal entry.
This is the beauty of action research. We become the goldfish bowl and
it is these very experiences which must be heard. In
larger research models, it often seems as if both the
inner world of the student (Goldstein, 2000; hooks,
1994; Noddings, 1992) and the teacher (hooks, 1994)
has been left on the periphery—with the child remaining
mute and the teacher behind a glass wall.
Yet
my experience suggested that nothing could be further
from the truth. Our children’s voices never cease and
the teacher is constantly yearning for something that
always seems beyond her grasp. And it is these very
voices which ended up giving me a new outlook, broadening
my horizons, and widening my perspective. Contrasting
my experience with these writers finally gave me permission
to see myself as part of the picture alongside my students, instead of merely standing guard. Another
cornerstone of my journey has been the recognition
of my own fearfulness, founded on my belief that I
hate taking risks and that I am hesitant about what
I will uncover while I am on the journey alongside
my children..
When I began this research analysis, indeed before that, when I was having
the children draw pictures of the happenings on the
playground, I thought that I would have children create
pictures, put their pictures in the appropriate category,
code them, ask them why some problems happen in a certain
area and why not others, and then together we would
embark on designing a rubric to deal with these playground
mishaps.
Yet what would it yield beyond what we already knew? Would I end up patronizing
my students, making them stay away from the monkey
bars on rainy days, asking them not to play on the
soccer field with the bigger children when these were
the very things which made playground life meaningful
for the children? Or would this belabouring of these
behaviors just magnify them, making the children less
willing to explore and face challenges? Would such
a rubric simply prevent my students from learning how
to change perspectives and walk in another‘s shoes?
And
then there was the problem of semantics—one that could
be easily overlooked but which needs to be clarified
at the start. What were ‘problems’? Could there be
a disparity, a disconnect between the children’s perspective
and that of their adult caregivers? This was suggested
in the work of Pellegrini (1995) and Blatchford (1989)
and other literature I read, that adults tend to overestimate
rather than underestimate the nature of children’s
playground “infractions.” The children did have problems…we
talked about it all the time but perhaps they didn’t
see them the way I did, or there was a disconnect in
the gravity. Hurt feelings were momentary, yet adults,
me included, often treated them as if being called
a “boo-boo head” was going to scar them for life.
This disparity between children’s and adult reality on the playground
is often mentioned in the research. What looks and
sounds like a problem to adults is often a minor mishap
for children which they can figure out independently.
Changing my understandings of playground grievances
and risk-taking might just create a possibility, an
opportunity, a moment to capture change in the making.
Context—Daily
Recordings of a Playground
Our
school is an officially designated Inner City School
in a metropolitan city in Canada. This designation
arises because 25% of our families are on income assistance,
20% live below the poverty line, there is a significant
percentage of single parent families, and the student
mobility and neighbourhood crime rates are high. The
student population represents over 40 language groups
from over 50 countries.
Our
immigrant and refugee students face challenges of learning
a new language in an unfamiliar classroom context and
in a foreign environment. Their parents are often unable
to find work in the profession for which they were
trained. Living in the downtown core of Vancouver,
and surrounded by apartment towers, our parents represent
a huge diversity in incomes—from people who own apartment
towers, to First Nations families who are struggling
with poverty, and new immigrants who are living with
five people in a one-bedroom apartment. Indeed our
school has 97 families that have been defined by the
school board as being in a state of crisis. We are
a severely over-crowded school with a population of
565 in a building which has a functional capacity of
370. It is not unusual over the course of a single
day to have three to five announcements (interruptions)
talking about safety on the playground and in the school.
My
Grade One classroom is on the main floor in close proximity
to the office. We have ten boys and eleven girls. Their
reading levels span a wide range from mere beginners
to late Grade Four. Their socio-economic, emotional,
and cultural chracteristics, are reflective of the
school at large with a significant number of students
coming from Yugoslavia and other Eastern European countries.
The student’s country of origin is significant in that
it was not unusual for the politics of their homeland
to be played out on the playground. This concept, that
the politics of the state are sometimes re-enacted
on the playground is borne out in the research (Blatchford,
1994, 28).
Children, even as young as six and seven years old, bring their familial
and political values into the classroom and onto the
playground, often with the unwavering support of their
parents, adding yet another layer of complexity to
the life of the classroom teacher who is trying to
instill in her youngsters the value of “keeping their
hands and feet to themselves.”
In
November and December, I took notes and recorded the
children’s descriptions of what happened on the playground.
We would pass around the sharing kitty (our stuffed
toy cat) and the children would offer up their stories
for their classmates, but this process became far too
onerous. It took forever and often cut into valuable “academic” learning
time. Part of me believed that this sharing of stories
was of less significance than learning about how two
plus two equals four. We would talk about how to solve
problems and it always left me feeling at once gratified
yet frustrated. My students knew all the ways to solve
problems but they still had these same problems. Indeed,
many of these sessions invariably turned into victimization
dramas which repeatedly highlighted the same individuals
who seemed to bask in the glow of all of this attention.
Then
in January and February, as a time cutting measure,
I had the children record their happy and sad times
on the playground in a booklet. At the same time, we
also did the same thing on separate pieces of paper,
and we would work on the book after recess and the
paper after lunch.
Then I had the children make up categories for problems, such as “hurt
feelings,” or “hurt body” and separate out certain
spaces on the playground (such as “the mountain,” the
playground, the undercover area, in front of the school,
and the field where they gathered to play).
At
certain points throughout the day we would take time
and the children would separate out their pieces of
paper on the carpet into the aforementioned categories.
We then talked about where the majority of the problems
were happening (on the playground and the mountain)
and discussed various strategies to deal with these
problems. Children became researchers—recording their
behaviour, writing, drawing, reviewing, assessing,
monitoring, and evaluating. Through discussions, we
uncovered, shared and witnessed experiences that couldn’t
easily be categorized.
My
first significant awakening was when I realized that
a perfect, made for administration rubric, was out
of the question. I might want the rubric but how realistic
was it? Perhaps, as the definition of rubric suggests,
I should interpret the rubric as a spiritual code of
conduct and seek out the divine in my children instead
of trying to categorize their behaviour. These new
understandings seemed far removed from what I had originally
set out to do yet I still had to equip my students
to deal with experiences of being called names, or
having hurt feelings and terrible loneliness. Rubrics,
as the definition suggests, can help explain what to
do in a particular setting but they can’t prepare students
for the unexpected.
This
daily recording however, provided me with a snapshot
of the day in the life of many of my students. And
it provided the children with an outlet to write down
their feelings in confidence.
Discoveries—In
Search of a Rubric
Teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization
that promotes their own well-being if they are to
teach in a manner that empowers students.
—hooks, 1994
The
essence of my literature review focused on the parallel
journeys of risk taking and self actualization that
teachers and students must venture on together if they
are to grow and learn, a concept introduced by bell
hooks in Teaching to Transgress.
Yet I’ve gone on this journey with my students and
I’m troubled by the disparity between what I believe
and what actually happens. The children took a running
leap but I held back, they dashed madly onto the playground,
I told them be careful, don’t fall. I used to think
that one of the reasons I was attracted to teaching
was to heal myself and in turn to ensure that the children
in my care became more sure-footed and assertive. I
never realized to what extent I bring my “doubting
Thomas” persona into the classroom. I realized that
it is not so much in what I said to the children but
how I acted, my subtle body language, my nervous laughter.
In
one instance, the children were lining up their pictures,
taking great care to put them in the right category,
and I was frowning, eyes like slits. Rather than praising
them for taking risks and doing something, I was worried
about categories and having every little thing in its
right place so that I could present my administrator
with some concrete key visual which would have the
blunt touch of the teacher but none of the gentle hands
of the student in it. I felt that the product was more
important than the process.
Yet if I took the risk and stopped doubting perhaps I would discover just
the opposite…that the process was indeed the most significant
part of this journey.
When
I reflected on the personal journeys of my students,
such as one young girl, in particular, who tends to
keep many feelings to herself, I wondered how often
she felt forgotten through no fault of her own. She
wrote:
I went to play ground and went to the monkey bars.
I played with Jessica and Valerie. Jessica made me
play in mountain. I didn’t want to play there. I
like the monkey bars.
(and then later on the same day) My big buddy.
When I said can I play with you she ignored me. I
have no one to play with. I fell down. I have no
one to play with.
—Gabi
Once students took the risk by putting their feelings on paper, they introduced
the possibility of change and a new way of looking
at the human condition. Gabi may not have known that
yet but I did. Her booklet became her sanctuary where
she could take risks in a safe and comfortable way.
When
you give children the opportunity to write something
down, provide them with a safe loving community in
which to share it and bear witness to the sad-eyed
suns and flowers, you cannot help but feel richer,
lifted up by the experience. I think, given the right
set of circumstances, little miracles like this can
happen every day. My experience in inner city schools
leads me to believe that schools are far more than
simply institutions of academic learnin—for how can
academic learning happen when children feel lonely,
feel as if they don’t belong, are alienated and afraid?
A basic understanding of Maslow’s hierarchy would suggest
that the fundamentals of love and belonging and simple
human compassion must exist before true, meaningful
learning can occur—and this is what this writing and
our daily confessional provided for us. They made each
experience mean something and when it means something,
the ripples of change seem to surface and fan out.
All
along I had been focusing on producing something concrete,
a document with boxes, a checklist, a rubric. A rubric.
If I had the perfect rubric, I thought I would be able
to offer up a panacea to cure those children‘s supposed
problem behaviours. If they followed it, then the ‘problems’ would
vanish.
But I couldn’t put the playground of life into a little box. All along
I had been wondering if it was all that simple. Was
it naïve of the school system and me to assume that
a simple rubric would somehow make the children arrange
themselves in little boxes to satisfy the orderliness
that their adult counterparts so earnestly desired?
Despite
my research, my thinking and my care, things still
seems much as they it were. I compare this project,
not to a statistical analysis, where an hypothesis
is made, a new strategy is applied, a change of behaviour
is noted and a discussion ensues but rather to the
process of an artist who through practicing becomes
a better painter or the singer who begins to sing a
new song.
Understanding
Ourselves, Understanding One Another—Self Actualization
In Practice
I want them to be educated for grace…(an) integration
of the body, mind and spirit…it recognizes the gifts
and limitations with which we were all born and it
draws our attention to appreciative forms of acceptance.
—Nodding, 2002, 47-8
Noddings (1992) reminded me of the significance of using the shared, collective
experiences of children to solve problems or simply
to reach out and help one another. Parallel to this
understanding of the other is an understanding of oneself.
Through teaching children how to understand and listen
to their own inner voice, through journaling and “testifying” they
might be able to better understand the voices of their
peers. And this reaching out and helping one another
is key because the human experience is by definition,
fraught with a range of feelings and emotions in which
learning to identify with peers and “walking in their
shoes” can be a powerful trigger for youngsters. When
we shared at circle, all of our stories, all of our
witnessing, united us, made us stronger and more confident.
Paramount
in Nodding’s (1992) work is that she does not deny
children their emotions—in all of their messiness,
in all their various manifestations. This is articulated
daily by the youngsters in my class.
I was sad at the slide and I don’t like the slide
because a boy in this class pulled me.
A boy in this class. He hit me at the heart. He didn’t
say sorry.
A boy in this class hit me at the fist and I cried and
he didn’t say sorry
I was running and I fell down and I got a big owie and
I didn’t cry.
I was happy because my friend was happy too and I had fun.
Children are constantly affected by the feelings and actions of others.
Seeing ourselves in relation to one another and the
range of emotions we can experience as a result, is
key to the creation of understanding ourselves in the “midst
of others” and developing as loving and compassionate
human beings with all of our many foibles.
Over
the course of this project the children came to the
realization that what they say matters. The reading
of the words of the page, the impact resonating, the
slow emergence of regret, the getting up and placing
the picture on the wall or carpet were powerful links,
ways of connecting the children to the larger picture,
as if to say we are all in this together, as if each
of them were adding yet another texture so that together
we could have a clearer understanding of the bigger
canvas. There was always a hush as the children waited,
anticipating the next “confession.” We were always
going to be on this journey. Even the smartest and
most popular children in the class were lonely, cried
over fathers who had left or gotten angry, were hurt
by children on the playground or were picked on by
the older children.
In
her discussion of collaborative communication in action
in a local classroom Noddings quotes one teacher as
saying “ …sometimes I’d rather show them I love them
than make them struggle through another reading assignment” (Noddings,
1986, 49). Learning cannot occur until our basic needs
of food, safety, love and security are satisfied. To
a certain extent, it is incumbent upon myself as their
teacher, their caregiver, to ensure that these primary
needs, of love and security, are given the same depth
of devotion and value as those of food and water. For
example, here is a snapshot from my classroom window.
A boy in a different class in Grade Four. I know this person
from school. I’ve seen him before…he pulled my hand…I
said no .He tripped me down and I started to cry.
Ray was helping me. These two girls. They helped
me. My Dad is going to be angry. I told the supervision
aide.
From my window I could see the vast expanse of the playing field. And
when I saw the scene described above part of me thought
that this student always liked to blame others because
he feared getting into trouble (who wouldn’t?)…but
when he came back from lunch and we were sharing he
understated what really happened. And the sad part
is he does have a reason for being upset, as I know
his family, and his dad will be very angry. His sense
of security, at least in his own mind, was temporarily
in jeopardy.
There
were problems with loneliness which I never imagined
and this sense of belonging is the very essence of
self-actualization. “I am sad on the playground because
no one wanted to play with me“ and “I do not have any
one to play with“ were fairly common refrains during
sharing time and in their journals. The maternal side
of me wanted to shelter them from this. Yet I couldn’t
shield them from the reality that sometimes there will
be “no one to play with.” How could they be so lonely
in such an overcrowded school? How could I be so lonely
in such an overcrowded city? And when we shared these
experiences of loneliness, I had to be willing to do
the very things I ask of my children. Reach out, find
a friend, try something new. My vulnerability, or giving
a voice to my vulnerability, surfaced ever so slowly.
It is striving for the best in ourselves and in those with
whom we interact that marks self-actualization and
a community that embraces.
—Noddings, 1986, 22
Parallel
journeys, parallel lives. Through the course of this
journey I have not only come to discover my children,
but to “undress” myself—to see myself as I really am
and to hold up the mirror to all of these imperfections
and the implications they hold, not only for me, but
for other educators. I am reminded time and again of
hooks when she said “empowerment cannot happen if we
refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging our students
to take risks” (hooks, 1994, 24).
I
am now taking a parallel journey with my students.
Not only am I changing residences but I am changing
schools, the latter having come unexpectedly. I know
that to the reader, my changes may seem somewhat insignificant.
I am not leaving Canada, I am not changing professions,
but having taken these steps and having thrown myself
open to new possibilities, maybe I too will discover
new aspects of myself.
I
wonder if Noddings foresaw the trend that education
would be taking towards a more results-oriented model
of education, and to what lengths the educational system
would go in order to pursue this academic vision. Playtime
and recess have become endangered subjects in many
school districts, with many school superintendents
choosing to eliminate it, replacing it instead with
more scholarly and academic pursuits.
I
know that many parts of my academic curriculum remain
untapped simply because of the incredible emotional
and social needs of my children, and as I have traveled
on my journey, I harbour less and less guilt for this
oversight, knowing fully that children being loved
and cared for is more important than an understanding
of rocks and plants. Academics are significant. I am
not denying that. I am simply saying that love is a
basic need and learning cannot occur without it. Any
rubric that we might develop, if indeed we choose to
create one, has to have this quality, this aspect of
nurturance and love built into it, in other words—a “direction
of conduct of divine service.”
Sometimes
it is both exhilarating and frightening to see how
many connections have been created from this one little
spark of change. I am still at the beginning, learning
as I go. My understandings seem to mutate, change,
and alter with every new understanding. At the beginning
of this project, I encouraged risks in my students
and opened myself up to the possibility of change.
Tomorrow, no doubt, will come a new change, a new understanding,
a germ of truth, a genesis.
Could it be that maybe we need to release the divine in ourselves if we
are to release the divine in the ones that we teach?
And that perhaps this is the biggest risk we can take.
In seeing our students stumble, fall, and then rise
up, so we too must stumble, fall, and rise up. Maybe
through living change through all its shapes and permutations—through
all of the embarrassments, humiliations, and joy, I
can serve as a catalyst of change for the students
in my care—for they too need opportunities to play
to discover themselves, and to discover who they are “in
the midst of becoming.”
TWO
DISPARATE VOICES
A school superintendent: “(our aim is )…to eliminate
recess in elementary schools as a waste of time that
would be better spent on school work…we are intent
on improving academic performance. You don’t do that
by having kids hanging on the monkey bars. (Bishop & Curtis,
2001, 35)
“ If children’s free play promotes exploration, manipulation,
and mastery of the social, natural and emotional
worlds in which children live and leads to acquisition
of important skills then logically restricting play
opportunities detracts from significant learning.
(Bishop & Curtis, 2001, 168)
The research of Pellegrini (1995), Blatchford (1994) and Hollingsworth
(1994) told me all along that children are not getting
enough opportunity to play independently and as a consequence
are failing to learn the essential social and emotional
skills which will prove invaluable in their adult life…to
learn the give and take…to compete…to lose… in a world
of their own making.
Learning
this give and take is the foundation of our life and
these events, from the mundane and trivial, to the
life affirming and life changing are an essential cornerstone
in becoming a compassionate and confident individual.
When children are at play they learn about life—all the stuff of living that sitting in rows, in highly structured
environments does not prepare them for. Eliminating
recess eliminates the opportunity for children to better
understand themselves in the context of their peers,
and the possibility to develop the necessary social
and emotional skills that will help them get over life’s
hurdles.
There
is an increasing trend in the United States and in
some isolated school boards in Canada to eliminate
recess. Fearing that it cuts into valuable academic
learning time and seeing it as “dead” learning time,
school superintendents are becoming increasingly willing
to eliminate recess in favour of increasing academic
pursuits. The reader may be surprised to learn that
Noddings, the educator who promotes the importance
of educating for a state of grace feels that playtime
is an “educational dead spot when students all too
often take a break from everything civilized” (Noddings,
2002, 63).
There
is disturbing research coming out of Toronto which
suggests that decreasing boy’s opportunities for playtime
may indirectly lead to increasing rates of suicide
because they have not had enough opportunity to develop
the necessary social and emotional skills. This is
substantiated by the work of Christine Sommers (2003)
who suggests that recess provides boys with one of
the few times during the school day when they can legitimately
engage in rowdy play which boys absolutely need. If
the time for free play in North American public schools
is diminishing and if recess is indeed the time when
children can learn significant social and emotional
strategies for dealing with life’s challenges, then
is suggesting that this might lead to corresponding
increases in suicide too much of a leap to make? Youth
suicide has tripled since the 1960’s (Bishop & Curtis,
2001, 160).
Instead
of looking at the outward aspects of children’s behaviour,
we should spend more time listening to their voices
to fully comprehend the essence of playground life.
Yet the very rubrics that form the basis of my student’s
lives are founded on entirely contrary notions of artificial,
sanitized gradients from “not yet within expectations” to “exceeds
expectations” and suggest that children’s behaviour
is indeed a systematic entity, created out of a series
of discrete behaviors from A through Z.
When
I read bell hooks, my whole understanding, my whole
perspective, was turned on its head. I ventured down
another path, another fork, parallel to that of my
children and I was given permission to include my voice
in partnership with theirs. Ultimately, form ended
up mattering little. My administrator wanted a product
but the process turned out to be everything.
What has struck me since the beginning of this project is how diametrically
opposed the concepts of rubric and play are. One is
conforming, one is liberating. Is it possible that
the two could ever be linked together? Yet I embarked
on a whole separate journey, carefully sidestepping
my safely crafted adventure for a far more riskier
one—full of a thousand awakenings where I discovered
that I needed to play as much as my children did.
Reflections…
Today
I sit in my classroom knowing that this will be the
last May 19th I will spend here, looking
out there at a vista of maple trees flanked by tired
and weary apartment buildings. And that’s how I felt
at the beginning of my journey, saddened in the knowledge
that I may be passing this weariness onto my kids… yet
this journey is merely a stopover and it’s one that
my children have to take along with me. As I grow,
so do they. This was the essential truth that I gleaned
from the work of hooks (1994)—that we need to be
on this voyage of self-actualization together. And
that this journey is fraught with the ups and downs
of simply living—happiness, joy, sadness, loneliness,
anger and frustration. Adding yet another layer to
the canvas was the work of Noddings ( 2002) who understands
that children must learn to cooperate in a world
that will guarantee them a full banquet of emotions
and experiences and that it is our responsibility
as educators to prepare them to live in a “state
of grace” in this collaborative community.
Resources
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