"We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet's crust. As adults we are almost all adept at waking up. We have so mastered the transition we forget we ever learned it. Yet it is the transition we make a hundred times a day, as, like so many willing dolphins, we plunge and surface, lapse and emerge. We live half our waking lives and all our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall. Useless, I say, Valueless, I might add - until someone hauls their wealth up to the surface and into the wide-awake city, in a form that people can use." (p. 17) - Annie Dillard, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New.
Annie Dillard's perspective on what might be our primary charge as teachers to our children is considerably different than the often identified didactic rationales presented when asked the purpose of education. Just as most children require motivation and encouragement to awake in the morning, so too considerable motivation and encouragement is usually required to awaken our children developmentally. Educators (for the purposes of this discussion, an educator is anyone who directly, or indirectly, influences the growth and development of the child) are often heard telling parents that they expect children to arrive at school "awake and ready to learn." At face value such a request does not seem out of line, nor unreasonable. However, the follow-up question that haunts the expectant parties is, "What if the child arrives not awake, nor ready to learn?" Of course, there is a tendency to slip into a subjectification mode where cause and blame are affixed to both people and situations. Experience generally proves that taking such a route adds little in the way of finding a solution to the problem.
Ideally, one hopes that before the tentacles of frustration, anger, and/or despondency put a death-lock on his/her optimism, the person rises to the occasion and actively seeks solutions to what appears to be a dilemma. Once the fear of drowning passes, it is time to analyze the situation and begin the evolution and development of a plan of constructive response. As Germany Kent states, “If you don't put anything in place, do not expect miraculous results to appear.”
Breaking free of the institutionalized doubts and speculations about children and their abilities to become enthusiastic participants in their education, the educator needs to open the windows of his/her mind and think beyond the restricting forces, both real and imagined. It is important not to allow institutional restrictions to prevent innovation and opportunity. Shannon L. Alder suggests, “Don't ever get to the point where you can't be taught because life is a classroom and everyone owns a pen.” It can be difficult at times to "think outside the box" when, for whatever reasons, school district rules and policies seem to put severe limitations on what the individual, or collective, can do without putting themselves in personal jeopardy. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this evolution is developing a mindset such as that of Dodie Smith offers in I Capture the Castle, when stating, “Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!”
Just as important as the students waking up to life and what it offers, is the need for the educator to experience an awakening, as well. The vast majority of individuals who seek to become educators/teachers dream of being a positive influence on the lives of their students. Such a dream is both noble and important. However, Israelmore Ayivor, in Shaping the Dream, reminds the person/dreamer,“Know that dreaming is a waste of ... time and energy if you don’t wake up to achieve them.” Similarly, Ka Chinery, in Perceptions from the Photon Frequency alludes, “Through the many years of what I thought was 'searching', was really the process of 'awakening'.”
Acknowledging the factors affecting the child's, as well as the adult's, awakening will be important if success is to be experienced. Unlearning things that may have been learned, either through instruction or experience, will be a challenge. Perhaps the most challenging will be genuinely accepting the differences in individuals and the need to adapt and modify one's plan to meet such needs. John Marsden applies humor to this matter, noting, “Some people wake up fast. Some people wake up slow. I wake up dead.” So, grab your cup of coffee and let the awakening begin.
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