Today I visited the classroom of one of our 1st Grade teachers. Let’s call her Mrs. Dovetail. She was busy organizing her students into small groups, each group working on a different reading or writing task.
Over in the corner I saw four girls at a kidney-shaped table, each intently and independently reading some piece of paper. They were so involved in what they were doing I went over to investigate.
Each girl (let’s call them Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess) had a two-page handout that consisted of very tiny text, written completely in caps, with nothing else. No cute pictures, no colors. Each girl was mumbling to herself as she decoded the text word by word. Their concentration was intense, calm, focused and unflagging.
After about ten minutes, one girl, Betsy, finished the first page. She had read this whole thing to herself, by herself:
Who Was King
CHARACTERS (5) NARRATOR 1, NARRATOR 2, WHALE, ELEPHANT, RABBIT
N1: ONE DAY THE WHALE LOOKED OUT OF THE WATER. HE SAW A BIG ELEPHANT. THE WHALE LOOKED AT THE ELEPHANT. HE LOOKED AT THE ELEPHANT’S BIG HEAD. HE LOOKED AT THE ELEPHANT’S BIG FEET.
WHALE: WHO ARE YOU?
ELEPHANT: I AM THE BIGGEST ELEPHANT IN THE WORLD. I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD!
WHALE: NO, NO! YOU ARE NOT THE KING OF THE WORLD. I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD!
N2: SAID THE WHALE.
N1: A LITTLE RABBIT LIVED IN THE WOODS. HE HEARD WHAT THE WHALE SAID. HE ALSO HEARD WHAT THE ELEPHANT SAID. THE RABBIT SAID:
RABBIT: THE ELEPHANT IS THE KING OF THE WORLD? THE WHALE IS THE KING OF THE WORLD? I WILL FIND OUT WHO IS THE KING OF THE WORLD!
N2: THE NEXT DAY THE RABBIT SAID:
RABBIT: I WILL SEE JUST WHO IS KING.
N1: HE RAN TO THE WATER WITH A BIG ROPE.
RABBIT: WILL YOU HELP ME? MY COW FELL INTO THE MUD. I CANNOT PULL HER OUT.
N2: HE CALLED TO THE WHALE.
N1: THE WHALE SAID:
WHALE: I AM THE BIGGEST WHALE IN THE WORLD. I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I CAN PULL YOUR COW OUT OF THE MUD.
N2: THE LITTLE RABBIT SAID:
RABBIT: COME HERE…I WILL TIE ONE END OF THE ROPE TO YOUR TAIL. I WILL TIE THE OTHER END OF THE ROPE TO MY COW. YOU PULL THE ROPE WHEN YOU HEAR MY DRUM.
Betsy put the paper down, looked up at me, smiled and said, “Phew! I read the whole thing!”
Elizabeth, sitting next to her, looked over from her own paper and said, “Wait. You still have to read the second page.”
Betsy flipped to the second page, glanced at it up and down, and started reading it word-by-word from the top.
At this point, Mrs. Dovetail came over and told the four, “OK, I got the rest of the class working on their independent assignments. Now let’s start reading this together.”
I stopped her and said, “Wait. You don’t have to do anything. You set up the right situation for them and they’re already working very hard on their own, because they want to, because it’s the right challenge for them, and because there’s some connection between what they see on the page and what they sense inside themselves. At this moment, I’d let them be.”
Mrs. Dovetail watched for a moment, seemed surprised, and then went off to quell a minor disturbance in another part of the room.
So I felt this was clearly a case of the children doing the right thing – meeting an intellectual challenge that felt right to them and that totally engrossed them.
However, the two adults in the room weren’t really doing the right thing themselves. Mrs. Dovetail, who’s generally a terrific teacher, wanted to go ahead with her plan for the girls, not really observing what they had undertaken on their own.
And I essentially told Mrs. Dovetail to skedaddle, which in retrospect wasn’t the best thing for anybody. If I could go back in time and relive this moment, I’d ask Mrs. Dovetail to stand with me and watch the kids working on their learning. Watch, then talk with me about what she saw.
Well, this is “Life Without Parkinson’s.” Messy and mistake-laden, but exciting and fun.
And it made clear to me that reading, including learning to read, is not about the teacher, and not even about the text. It’s about the self working with the self. It’s all internal.
stark conclusion. I don’t know if many teachers will agree.