A few weeks ago I found copy of the Barbie CD for The Princess and the Pauper. One might ask why anyone would put himself or herself through the pain of hearing the songs from a Barbie movie that is already played over and over again at home. Truth be told, the music in the movies is not bad, and the productions for the CDs are even better – they are actually Broadway quality in many respects. The girls love it. They want to hear the songs over and over again. In particular, Audrey wants to hear them for the same reasons she likes to see some movies over and over again. She wants to figure them out.
Initially her interest centered around the language itself. She would hear a word and like the way it sounds. Then she would want to learn what the word or a phrase meant. There is one song in particular on the CD that both girls like the most. Preminger, the “mean guy”, sings a song about his evil plans to marry Princess Anneliese. One of the word groups they both particularly like is “temporary setback.” Initially Audrey wanted to know what the actual words were. She wanted to sing it, and she wanted to sing the right words. Once she knew them, she proceeded to sing it in the car, all over the house, etc. Eventually she began to hear the words around it and became curious about what the words and phrases meant.
This had led to all sorts of conversations. As we talked about the role of Anneliese and her mother and how they are responsible for their people, we talked about feudalism, the social structure of England at the time, and the plight of indentured servants. Granted, all of these conversations were done at a five-year-olds level and were considered interesting but not necessarily worthy of more in-depth pursuit outside of those particular moments and those particular conversations in the car.
In our conversations, we often shift from talking about the story to playing with the language again. Audrey gets very excited when she hears rhyming words and starts to listen for them after we talk about the way some poems place rhyming words at the end of lines and often create a rhythm to the words. She also starts to notice some of the alliterations and metaphors and questions why Preminger is saying those things. She knows she likes the way they sound, but she also wants to know what they mean.
What strikes me most in all of this is her genuine earnestness to figure this song and story out. She wants to hear the song every morning. When I ask her if she wants me to replay it, she always says yes. Each time we hear it, she asks more and more questions. Sometimes she asks the same questions she has asked before – hoping perhaps more explanation will help her understand it a bit more. I begin to think about whether I have that same level of earnestness to learn. After all, I’m in the “learning business” in my day job. While I am thrilled when I get those scholarly “ahas,” I can’t really recall moments in my life when I was that earnest to learn something. I also think back to my second, third, fourth, and seventh graders as well as the elementary and middle school students I served as an administrator. I search my memories for times when they appeared that earnest to learn something. Then the inevitable questions stare me in the face: At what point do we lose this? To what degree do parents’ relationships with their children and schools (trying to be fair here and not just completely bash schools) strip this earnestness from children? Does our media-drenched society help to strip away the curiosity and earnestness by virtue of the passive way of being it perpetuates? And more importantly, how do I preserve this earnestness in my children?
In my original reflections on this on-going experience, the word “earnest” first came to mind as the most apt description of Audrey’s disposition. Thinking ahead, then, about a possible blog entry, I remembered the play my friends and I did as seniors in high school. We performed it in my basement with the rest of the AP English class looking on. Admittedly, I had to go back and review the plot from Google (Sorry, Mrs. Johnson), and I realized how appropriate it is. The play itself pokes fun at the necessity of being earnest during the Victorian period when the meaning of being “earnest” is quite superficial. The fact that Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff deceive the objects of their suiting is acceptable. As long as their names are ultimately “Earnest,” there is no need for their intentions to be so. The parallels are striking. How earnest are we in schools and society to sustain this genuine love of learning – a love that drives how children see their worlds and guides the way they see and hear things in their daily lives? Does the language of our current policies designate our actions as “earnest” even though much of what we do contradicts a genuine search for knowing more?
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