1 Way to Focus a Reluctant Student

Sometimes you need to improvise.

One day, during a stint as a tutor in an afterschool program, I worked primarily with one fifth-grade girl who was at first very reluctant to open her New York State history book, explaining in no uncertain terms that she did not want to study New York.

At the time, I was studying American Sign Language, and what otherwise may have been a verbal battle of convincing the kid that she did want to crack the book and get to work took a turn for the lighthearted and stress-free.

"New York?" I asked, signing it into my palm. "I'm from New York. Are you?" As I signed the rest, her eyes lit up in a way that I hadn't seen before. She mimicked my gestures. I broke down the signs for her to repeat.

"What language is that?" she finally asked, and when I told her it was American Sign Language she simply smiled and opened her book.

I'm fascinated that teaching a distracted or reluctant student something new and somewhat unrelated can potentially help her focus. Why did it work? Was she simply ready in her own time, or was it just enough of a break in tension to ease her back into her studies?  Whatever it was then, I stand by the idea now that learning is best when we engage our senses of curiosity and play.

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A revision of an entry in my service-learning journal, October 2009.

Puzzle Wars

"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.

That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family."

-Matthew 5:9 (The Message)

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Today the kids of our Children's Church enlisted in the Puzzle Wars.

First they divided themselves into two groups.  Actually, I divided them into two groups which slowly shifted on their own--and I let them.  The genuine alliances formed in unspoken rebellion made the fight all the more fierce and the activity all the more meaningful in the end.

I found this collection of 24-piece children's puzzles and used two with similar color schemes for our two groups.

Available for purchase here.

Each group received an array of double-sided puzzle pieces. They inferred very quickly that this was a race to see which group would solve their puzzle first.

Partway through the activity, the kids in one team questioned one of the pieces in their assortment. It didn't seem to fit into their puzzle. They asked me about it, but I was nonchalant and they pressed on, grappling not only with the strange surplus but an underlying feeling that they were also missing something.

The other group soon reached the same critical moment.

And the same solution.

And the same results.

Finally, in the midst of their questions and petitions, both groups had an epiphany. They realized that I, their leader and the original source of their materials, didn't physically have the missing puzzle pieces in my possession. I had already given them all away.

They needed to communicate with the people on the opposite side of the room--the same people they had all but ignored entirely once the Puzzle Wars began, save for appraising glances to judge their competition's progress and periodically declare their own superiority.

What followed was something of an informal détente. It was an incongruously peaceful moment during the Puzzle Wars.

It could have been awful. It could have been rife with pillaging and sabotage.

But instead it was an exchange more mutually giving than any negotiation or transaction. It seemed there was no doubt in their minds that their opponents' need was just as great as their own, and that they would quickly and gladly produce the pieces for each other.

And then, with one picture completed, all of the children gathered around the other puzzle to collaborate and finish it together.

And the Puzzle Wars ended with two things:

Collaborative and joyful destruction of the puzzles--the work that, as it turns out, maybe didn't matter so much after all...

Source

...and the natural emergence of one beautiful, cohesive team that will hopefully matter to them for years to come.

Sometimes I Fantasize About Carrying Two Umbrellas

I do a lot of walking, and naturally, the statistics of getting caught in the rain increase exponentially the more you walk.  I’ve also found that we are 387%* more likely to get caught in the rain while traveling without an umbrella, though I may be biased or just habitually underprepared.

Either way, I’ve had my share of unplanned showers.

One cool summer day, I was so thoroughly soaked from the two-mile trek from church that all I could think about was getting home, kicking off my waterlogged flats, and wrapping myself in as many layers of warm, dry things as I could fit on my body.

I was so close I could taste the sweet Cocoa of Victory . . . only to be thwarted by the Gandalf of traffic lights.

While I stood there with rainwater in my shoes and the tease of imaginary cocoa on my tongue, the disagreeable light permitted passage to plenty of cars, but would not yield to button-pressing pedestrians at the crossroads.

So I waited.  For a lull in traffic.  For a light.  For a sign.

And then, just like that, someone with an umbrella leaned over to shield me.  It was generous and neighborly, of course, but it was also comical, because I was unmistakably drenched.  I may have said, “Thank you,” but I kind of wanted to say, “It’s too late for me.  Save yourself!”

It was one moment in time on a small town street corner, but after my bleary-eyed journey squinting between raindrops that I would never outmaneuver, it felt like the climax of a war film.  I was the would-be martyr resigned to self-sacrifice only to be slung over the hero’s shoulder as he limps to the barracks, except my hero had already outmaneuvered the enemy with a scrap of supported fabric.  Instead of limping to our glory, we stood still, side-by-side, two neighbors huddled under an umbrella for one, exchanging greetings and gratitude and smiling up at a traffic light as though to persuade it with kindness.

When we parted, my neighbor was apologetic, but the gesture and the brief reprieve had already brought me more than enough joy to accompany me home.

Within a month or so, I had the joy of paying the act forward twice, once at a bus stop where the rider had been waiting in the drizzle long before I arrived, and once at another street corner in a sudden downpour.  I’ve been learning both to accept others’ generosity and aid and to find joy in receiving, but it felt good to be able to offer others that neighborly love.

Then, whenever I walked in the rain with my umbrella, I became more and more aware of the other pedestrians: whether or not they had umbrellas or raincoats, whether or not the rain seemed to weigh heavily on their bodies and their spirits.

That was when I began to fantasize about carrying two umbrellas.

I imagined giving one away to a different stranger in every storm.  I started spending long stretches of my walks pondering the ethical implications of carrying multiple umbrellas and giving them away.

Would it be cumbersome?  Wasteful?

Presumptuous?  Insulting?

A life’s mission?  An expensive hobby?

An overestimation of the trouble of rain?

An underestimation of folks’ contentedness in the rain?

If there was any way to overcomplicate the daydream, I found it.

Weeks later, in another storm, I walked my boyfriend to the train station.  We took my two umbrellas.  I almost sent one home with him, but he said he’d have little open-air walking to do after boarding the train and he would be fine.

Soon the passengers disappeared, and I was alone on the platform except for one older gentleman with empty hands.

It took a minute to register the circumstances, but then, without any guilt about the overabundance or uncertainty about the gesture, I offered him the second umbrella.

He didn’t speak English and I understood only enough Spanish to know that he was in awe of the storm, but we easily established that he lived along my way home.

As we walked together, he commented on the rain, and I agreed, wagging my waterlogged shoes over the ground to indicate that I could feel the water swishing around my feet.

We laughed.  I was laughing because I was doing a ridiculous dance, but I imagine it looked just as ridiculous to him.

It’s a beautiful thing to experience—that moment with a stranger with whom your only common language is life itself; the moment that you realize it’s more than enough.  What we couldn’t share in words we shared in umbrellas and grins and squishy shoes.

Once we arrived at his building, I almost told him to keep the umbrella, but when he handed it to me, I accepted it back.

These days, if I remember to carry an umbrella at all, I will try to carry two.

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*Research is ongoing.