Today was going to be one of those “lost” days. I was without a car, navigating a meeting on campus, a conference at Audrey’s school, and trying to get both girls home via the train after Niamh’s nap and before the rain came pouring down. With that in mind, I knew I had a couple of hours to spend with Audrey before picking up Niamh, but I decided that I wouldn’t lug any of my bags of tricks with me on the train.
You see, from the beginning of the year I created numerous bags of tricks. I have the art bag complete with sketch pads, pastels, portable easels, etc. I have the reading bag with literacy manipulatives and early readers. I also have the math bag with dice, cuisenaire rods, and other activities. Early on I envisioned using these bags with Audrey as we sat in coffee shops, gardens, etc. To some extent, we have done that – just not to the degree I’d hoped.
So, when I went to pick Audrey up after the parent conference, I was “bagless.” Nevertheless, we went to Ruby Tuesdays for lunch and for a comfortable way to kill some time while Niamh slept merely yards away at “Horsey School.” Audrey immediately became engaged with the children’s menu. It had cute little activities, some of which were designed for older kids. Nevertheless, she dived into them – asking for help but insisting on ultimately doing it herself. One of the activities was particularly challenging. The sheet had musical notes symbolizing numbers (e.g. a quarter note equaled 4 while two eighth notes equaled 8). The picture then had four notes joined together with addition signs. Audrey had to first translate the notes into the values and then add the four numbers together. In spite of her typical tenacity, I figured the activity would get the best of her – it didn’t. While it required a lot of scratch paper and a lot of “dots” being drawn, she figured them out.
This victory led to a barrage of math silliness. She started counting by tens, and then by twenties; then together we played with counting by 200s. All the while I was secretly bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have my Cuisenaire manipulatives to let her literally embrace hundreds, tens, and ones. It didn’t matter to her – just adding the zeros to the ends of numbers that were more familiar to her was fun enough. We added 6 + 6, and then we added 600 + 600. She squealed with delight to see how BIG 1200 was.
Throughout our mathematical play Audrey was her typical over-the-top silly self – making noises, playing with rhyming words, bouncing up and down on the restaurant booth (thank goodness there were very few customers at this point). Granted, I have more tolerance for this silliness at some times versus others. There are times – particularly at dinner or when we are getting ready for bed – when I tend to chastise her for such loud and silly behavior. After all, those are times where other agendas (completing dinner in a civil manner or preparing for sleep) are more important than being silly. Yet, I know that this silliness is so much of who my daughter is right now. She revels in silliness from the moment she walks in the door in the afternoons until bedtime. The only time she is lulled into some calmer state is when she is anesthetized by television.
So, when given the space to be herself, Audrey is happy, laughing, and above all silly. When she is “contained” for pragmatic purposes (dinner, bedtime) or when she is lulled into a less active state by something like television, she is subdued and quiet. What does that say about formal schooling? Don’t get me wrong. I was a teacher for many years. I know that most of the instructional day must be spent in a subdued mode. There is a time and a place for silliness, and even back in those pre-NCLB days, those times were sparse. But I can’t help but wonder – if this is, in fact, a natural mode for children, what are we doing when we subdue it – and do we, in fact, eradicate it by virtue of the amount of time in which we subdue it? In other words, at what point do children learn that it is not o.k. to be silly? After all, we’ve certainly learned it as adults. On the whole, most adults are not silly. We may crack a joke on occasion, or if you are like my brother, uncle, or late grandfather, you may exhibit wit and more elaborate jokes around those who are close – most of which are calculated and appropriate for your age and circumstances. However, on the whole we have become subdued. I am so thankful that the girls have a silly father. Those of you who know Rick may be surprised with that assessment, but at home, he dives headlong into the silliness with them. It is because of his openness to silliness that our house if filled with laughter most of the time.
So, how do schools create spaces for silliness? In this era of performance-based measures for children, how do we ensure that children continue to perform this zest for life, this uninhibited embrace of fun and laughter? And how do we use that incredibly excited energy as the impetus for learning for the sake of learning? At this point, I have no idea how we do this, but watching Audrey’s antics at the Ruby Tuesday today helped me to realize how essential it is that we try.
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