Dear Families,
Following a Child's Gaze: Lessons in Leadership
As the fall breezes have kicked up this week and a few crunchy leaves have started to drift to the ground, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about a little boy who profoundly shaped the curriculum in my three’s classroom at just this time of year. As the maple pods swirled to the ground, and the other children in our class were gazing downward, eagerly collecting the treasures of fall, this boy was fixated on the branches above, expertly monitoring the movement of the squirrels, as they jumped from branch to branch, preparing for the cold months ahead. Gradually, his sharp eye began to draw other children to his side and into his observations. They started to gather around him when we went outside each day, spotting squirrels together, until nearly the whole class was newly fixated on tracking the squirrels’ frenetic movement above.
Over time, this grew into an extended curriculum, in which we observed squirrels, read about squirrels, painted squirrels, took walks collecting evidence of squirrel activity and nest building, and attempted to photograph them before they dashed up a tree trunk and out of sight. The little boy who drew the other children into becoming squirrel scientists, continued to be a leader in our investigation, as the others knew his keen eye could be counted upon to spot the slightest movement in the branches.
Yet, in remembering this study—one of the deepest and richest of my time in the classroom—what remains most profound about the learning experience of the group that year is not the extent to which their representational drawing and painting skills developed as they created images of squirrels in the classroom, or the investigative capacities that emerged as they took clipboards and magnifying glasses outside, or the many counting games we played with the half nibbled acorns we found and the squirrel puppets we kept in the meeting area. The most profound aspect of this memory for me, as a teacher, is the fact that the little boy, who was in every way the leader of this research and the identified expert among his peers, also happened to be a child for whom speaking out loud was, at that time, nearly impossible. Though we knew from his parents that he had extremely well developed language skills, speaking in front of others was paralyzing. For most of the year, we rarely heard his voice, and when we did it was usually an almost inaudible whisper, followed by a quick wide-eyed glance around, as he checked to see who might have heard him.
The experience of this little boy taking the lead in our classroom reflects the most powerful potential of emergent curriculum. When teachers have the flexibility to attend to and follow the children’s curiosities, everyone’s knowledge and expertise is equalized, and each member of the classroom can, not only become a leader, but be seen by their peers as a leader, free from the bounds of predetermined content, roles, and expectations.
I am certain that the children in this particular class extended their academic skills more fully than in any other year, because they were so invested in capturing squirrel data, gathering information about squirrels, and finding ways to express and represent their learning. However, I am also sure that their notions of who has knowledge, power, and the capacity for leadership were dramatically shaped by a year of following a brilliant, silent little boy. And I am sure that his sense of his own place in the world was transformed as he was quietly placed at the center by his peers, who recognized and revered his expertise, even when he could not express it aloud. These lessons in leadership, diversity, and dignity could never have been found in a fall curriculum box, waiting on the shelf to be pulled down each year and inevitably placing my voice and knowledge as the teacher at the forefront of our work. These lessons could only be found by following the gaze of a little boy into the treetops.
Shabbat shalom,
Alicia