Busy in Bristow: Who Says Curiosity Killed the Cat?

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I just started reading a book titled, Sophie’s World, in which a 12 year old girl ponders the universal, “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” when she finds these questions – along with introductory remarks about philosophy – in her family mailbox delivered by a mystery person. In the remarks, the person tells Sophie that the world is a magical place, yet we lose our wonder in its every day majesty as we become grownups. It’s as if we are the smallest of creatures living on the scruff of a rabbit’s neck which a magician is – even now – pulling from a hat. The rabbit is our universe, and rather than sustaining the natural curiosity and awe which is our birthright, we become fearful and burrow down into the hairs of the rabbit, blinded by the daily woes and distractions that eventually replace any wonder with which we were born.

As I raise young children, I find this to be an apt analogy to the way we live our lives. Youngest Son asks us a barrage of questions each day from sun-up to sun-down. This morning, he wanted to know why the glass was hotter when the sun shone through it. He’s curious about chemical properties and the way everything works. Youngest Daughter came home the other day excited about a challenge to build a robot out of recyclables. She took it upon herself to tape steel cans onto the sides of a cereal box for its arms, and glued various colored pom poms onto its chest to display its emotions. Meanwhile, Oldest Daughter is convinced that once she follows the steps she found on YouTube, she will have Elsa’s ice powers. I believe this is the kind of hope the world lacks, and the kind of intellectual curiosity we’re all born with but adults (myself included) squash in the face of daily drudgeries and our own sad disappointments.[/pullquote] In school – where they spend about 35 hours each week – my children’s favorite activities are hands-on,  simulations, and creative projects that stretch their thinking. None of those translate into a multiple choice (or even essay) test. But because there is no efficient, practical way to test the masses that doesn’t involve bubbling in circles, we – as a people – seem to be stuck with the Testing Engine pulling the rest of our train cars. May is the month of S.O.L.’s, and I find myself more anxious for my children than I thought I would be. What if Youngest Daughter forgets the phases of the moon? (I already have, and we studied them together in October.) What if Youngest Son isn’t as bright as we give him credit for, and we’ve been letting him swim on his own, giving extra time to the other two who test this year since teachers recommended them for S.O.L. Academy (a nicer name than remediation)? Because last year’s scores were only a few points over the passing mark in reading, Oldest Son brought home a letter inviting him to summer school. All three of us were surprised. Until this year, he’s always been on the honor roll, and this year he’s a candidate for summer school? When he and I were in the car the other day, he explained range, mean, mode, and median to me better than anyone ever has, but prior to his telling me what it was all about, he said, “I don’t understand it, Mom.” His confidence is flagging, but his intelligence is not. I am myself a classroom teacher for 19 years now. When I began in 1995, I was handed the teacher’s edition to the 10th grade literature book and a huge binder full of state and county curriculum objectives, and then I was left alone to teach. My best years of teaching were my first five even though they were also my hardest because I was learning my craft and developing the classroom structures which would serve me for years to come. One year, a parent came to me in June and thanked me because the book her son had read in my class was the first one he’d completed since elementary school, and it had reawakened in him a love of reading. Another year, a graduating senior thanked me for teaching her how to write and told me that because of my class, she learned who she was and what her family meant to her. All teachers have stories like these, and it is these moments of grace which are our truest motivations to return each September. Oldest Son’s favorite class is science … when we went to the Science and Engineering Festival in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, he commented on how things worked in nearly every booth. I kept asking him how he knew that, and he told me about the experiments he’s done in science class. Guess which class doesn’t have an S.O.L. this year? Even though the “fun things” are still happening in all classrooms across our county, teachers have to ask themselves at every turn whether or not those experiential lessons will translate to pencil and paper bubbling. Youngest Daughter regularly takes three different versions of the same test and receive three disparate grades. We’re not sure why. Which test do we believe? Which test will she get on S.O.L. day? Will she be judged passing or remedial as a result? And perhaps more importantly, at the end of the day, whatever will she do with so many facts? Will they help her to think critically, to engage in creative pursuits, to invent and innovate and problem solve? And where, oh where, is our awe of this beautiful world and our curiosity about our place in it? I have yet to find the test question which asks my children – or my students – to ask another question rather than provide a rote answer. As I make coffee, drive to work, send them to school, come home, prepare dinner, drive the mini-van taxi, and begin again the next day, I search for the strength to feed their natural wonder with a little bit of my own before our busy-ness burrows us so deeply in the scruff of the rabbit’s fur that we forget the bigger world of which we are all a mysterious part.   
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