Friday, August 20, 2004

Goals for the School Year

Last August I asked my daughter what she wanted to learn in first grade, and she said she wanted to learn to read.  I was surprised by the directness of her comment, partially because I’d never heard a first grader speak of reading as a long-term goal before. 

A few years ago, when I volunteered in reading classes at the local grade school, I met all sorts of first grade readers, and it’s true that for many of them, reading was a long-term project. By October, some of those youngsters were confident readers, others had made a good start, and some were struggling.  A few, sadly, had already learned the self-destructive trick of faking their way through school, or trying to.  These kids looked for anything that would help hide the fact that they were not reading. 

These young pretenders were amazingly resilient.  From the pictures they would guess at the words, working cleverly but still never actually reading.  When I urged them back to the big black letters on the page, they would pretend again, hardly looking at the words as they launched into one brilliant ad-lib after another. One boy kept track of where we were in the text by placing his finger right on the word, hiding parts of the letters with his fingertip and thereby guaranteeing that yet another day would pass without truly learning to read. These few children were strange victims of their own powerlessness, and I would not be surprised to see them still struggling in school as they grow older. Perhaps we should pause and think supportive thoughts right now for the primary school teachers in the land.  They have their work cut out for them.

But none of those kids, the readers, the learners, the strugglers, and the pretenders, none of them ever said to me, in so many words, that they wanted to learn to read. I’ve rarely had a goal as clear as that myself.  Judging by the self-defeating aimlessness of the pretenders, having a clear, positive goal makes a difference, and, happily, our daughter achieved her goal for first grade.  Lately when I come downstairs for breakfast I’m likely to find her on the couch reading a small chapter book or paging through an old volume of Far Side comics. She presses me to explain some of Gary Larson’s cartoons, though, for after you learn how to read the words you still have to learn how to read the society they refer to.

And now her sister has announced her goal for fifth grade. The older child recently said that this year she hopes “to explode something with chemicals or melt something in acid.” Since she’s a vegetarian and a pacifist who slips out of the room during action scenes in movies, I think I know what she means.  She wants to make something new and exciting happen in her world.  It’s all about power, not power over others but the power to act, the power to change things, the power to make a difference.  Children, like adults, want to be movers and shakers in their own lives. When I was in college, we used to call that agency, and I’ll bet you that any kid whose school fosters a sense of agency will have a good academic year. 

In that spirit, let’s have our own goal this school year, whether we’re in school or not.  Let’s help each other with agency.  Let’s learn, metaphorically at least, to explode something with chemicals or melt something in acid. As agents of our own learning, let’s have a powerful year.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on August 20, 2004
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