Camp Creek Blog

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. — Anna Quindlen

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We start out the new school or “school” year (for homeschoolers, when the playgrounds are suddenly gloriously empty during the day! and all the new groups and classes start…) with new supplies and new plans — it’s a fresh start.

How long does it take for us to feel that first wave of disappointment when things don’t go the way we’d hoped?

When we struggle with perfectionism, we have the opportunity to learn something we can share with our children. We have the opportunity to struggle in front of them and show them how real learning and doing works.

When we pay attention to our fears and frustrations, we can learn about theirs. When we give up on being perfect, it allows them to give up on being perfect.

Perfection doesn’t exist — it isn’t real. You are imperfect, flawed, with talents and deficits, successes and struggles — you are real. The only things getting done in this world are getting done by real people, like you.

Do you find it hard to let go of your ideal imagining and get on with the flawed but real work? Do you find it hard to help your kids do it?

How do we work on developing a learner’s mindset vs. getting bogged down in our perfect fantasy?

Perfectionists aren’t people who do something perfectly. Perfectionists are people who fantasize about doing something perfectly. — John Perry

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Anything you want to discuss? Ask? Share? Do it here! It’s your thread.

Words create worlds. Accordingly, positive words will create (mostly) positive worlds — whereas negative words will create (mostly) negative worlds. So use your words wisely, especially your questions — as they tend to create the worlds within other people’s minds. — David Cooperrider

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If you received my newsletter last weekend, you know why it’s been quiet around these parts for several months (and why I had to cease publishing the Tip Sheet). If you’re already on the PBH mailing list, but didn’t see the newsletter in your inbox, check your spam folder (or, if you have gmail, your social and promotions tabs); if you want to get the one I sent last weekend, sign up fast and I’ll get it to you before the new one goes out on Sunday.

Easing back into things, I’m reinstituting an open thread most weekends! Have anything you want to discuss? Ask? Share? Do it here! It’s your thread.

Love what David Cooperrider says above about words creating worlds — and the importance of being careful with your questions. When we talk with children about their interests and plans, we can accidentally kill their enthusiasm with the wrong question. We can create possibilities — or we can accidentally squelch them. I’ll put some of my ideas for engagement-killing questions in the comments!

So what’s on YOUR mind this weekend?

Here’s an article I ran across this week:

Are we obsessed with children’s interests?

Reading that title I preemptively started rocking back and forth and whimpering in anticipation.

The article is actually a very good description of how many educators whiff the opportunity to help children dig into their interests (“whiff” as in swing the bat but fail to connect with the ball).

A better title would be “Why do we keep giving kids OUR ideas and lame activities instead of helping them make their own ideas happen?” — because the problem isn’t with children’s interests, the problem is in how we respond to them. Let’s toss out the bathwater, but please, please, let’s keep the baby. Children’s interests are key to generating the important ideas this writer values.

The problem isn’t supporting children’s interests, the problem is how we respond to them.

If we respond with attention and support in an environment where kids are in charge of doing what they want the way they want, interests are a gateway to deep and lasting learning.

If we respond to every question or spark of interest with a flurry of our own ideas, we take away children’s autonomy — we make their ideas unnecessary. When autonomy goes, motivation and engagement follow.

The writer of this article bemoans the fact that teachers aren’t engaging with children’s thinking — a definite problem. But why turn on children’s interests? Or our interest in their interests? That’s moving a further step backward — now we want them to do challenging work in an area that WE have chosen. We’re not just saying, “Your interests are crap — here, do this instead” … we’re saying “School/learning isn’t about doing things that interest YOU.”

The last thing we want is to have children think of learning as something that has nothing to do with them.

You won’t see children’s best work if you maintain 100% control over what they do and how they do it. You won’t help them become self-directed learners and doers. And you risk children coming to believe learning is “stuff other people give you to do and then they judge it and tell you whether you did it right or not.”

The writer describes an unfortunately typical response adults have to a perceived interest — we do not want to do this:

“A recent example was an educator who noticed a small group of children playing ‘restaurants’ in the sand play area — on one occasion — and interpreted this to be children’s interest at play. The very next day she had set up a dramatic play area in the shape of a restaurant and was ready with activities for menu making, cooking and a party for the mums that Friday. However, when the children arrived, they completely ignored the restaurant and went off on another ‘interest’ based play activity for the day.”

All that work of creating a restaurant in the dramatic play area should, of course, be done by the children themselves — and it should happen organically, not because an adult suggests it. For it to happen organically, the environment must be ready, the interest must be genuine, and the adults hanging around must be attentive and appreciative without getting in the way.

As we say so often in the master class, the process itself teaches you how to support children’s interests. If the interest fades away quickly, if you overstep and they tune out, if it is abruptly dropped because of a lack of space or materials — all of these outcomes help you figure out how to do better the next time. To become better, you must practice.

But this doesn’t mean children’s interests aren’t key to the enterprise; it just means you need to do a better job of supporting children to make their own ideas happen.

I’m concerned about why “interest” is in quotes up there (and elsewhere in the article). Are interests not real? Not worthy of our attention? Are children’s interests so fleeting they aren’t worth bothering about? Is the writer saying the teacher in the example is confusing anything the children focus on for five minutes with long-term interests? (I’m hoping it’s the latter.)

Agree 100% with what the writer says here:

We should seek those experiences that children return to time after time — and listen deeply to what children are telling us about the attraction of these experiences and how they might help us better understand our work with these children — rather than popping in and out of our meer cat holes looking for the puzzle, book, game or activity that we can give to children as our input in to this serious endeavour of searching for new meanings.

Teaching with his little brother as his assistant.

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This week’s small win is from Sarah:

My six-year-old son Luca had the idea in early March to teach a pottery class at our home. The motivation behind doing the class was to make money, and the motivation for making money is (naturally) to buy more LEGOs. Luca has a strong interest in money and an entrepreneurial spirit.

He took a lot of steps to get to make this happen. He created and hung up flyers around town, worked on perfecting the process of making the teapots he was going to teach his friends how to make, met with the local art teacher on his own about how to structure an art class, and created (with my help) an invitation on Facebook.

Going out to hang the sign

He'd been putting a lot of energy into this project and we'd been writing down progress and things we needed to remember in our project journal. He was halfway though making a large sign to hang off the front porch the day of the class when we left on a long trip.

I didn’t hear a single word from him about the clay class or pottery for three weeks. I was wondering if he would pick it back up again, especially since there were about 40 (!!!) people coming to my house on the scheduled day to participate. I wondered if by leaving for three weeks we’d broken the momentum for the project.

Exactly one hour after walking through the door of our home he came to me and said, “Mom, can we get out the journal and see where I’m at with the pottery class project?” We read through our notes. He went and pulled out the sign on his own and picked up EXACTLY in the place he left off three weeks before.

The clay class went great. We set up the classroom space just the way Luca envisioned it. As the class started Luca took his seat, then got super shy and didn’t want to say a word. So, my husband stepped in with his kindergarten teacher magic to get the class rolling. Kreg taught for about the first 15 minutes of the class. At some point Luca started to jump in on his own with instructions and by the 30-minute mark Kreg stepped back almost completely and Luca had gotten comfortable enough to do the talking for the remainder of the 60-minute class.

Kreg and I are both working hard on backing waaaay off of Luca and his work. Having a project that culminated in a public event like a class was an interesting mix of figuring out when to step back and when to step forward. I think we did well.

The 15 kids in the class made some terrific pieces and it looked like everyone had a great time (I did!). Luca made enough money to buy the LEGO set he’d been saving for and he even gave his little brother (who was his assistant) a cut of the profits. ;-) I also think Luca might have inspired his dad to start teaching again, which is way cool.

If we'd never found Lori’s book it probably never would have happened!

Luca editing a photo he took of his pottery for use in the Facebook invite for his class.

All ready and waiting for friends!

Finished work. Class participants’ ages ranged from 4 to 37.