One of the most important skills in life is the ability to see patterns. Patterns help us predict what will happen next, why things happened, where we are now. At the most basic level we see patterns in colors, shapes, words, movements, notes, and more. Less obvious, but no less important, is understanding patterns in events, patterns over time, patterns of causality. Everything is related to patterns: science, art, music, nutrition, math, calendars, poetry, grammar…even thoughts and behaviors. Patterns are beautiful, satisfying, grounding.
In order to understand, or create, a pattern, one must step outside the rush of doing and observe and reflect on the observations. As a teacher I am amazed at how disjointed and frenetic the minds of our students are. You can tell by watching how so many jump around physically, unaware of their bodies; how, instead of exploring an object or idea, they treat it like a hot potato. Nothing sticks. There are 2nd graders who haven’t absorbed the pattern of the days of the week or months of the year. I see the dance teacher doing a cool-down where the students lay on their backs, arms at their sides, eyes closed, listening to soft music while she does a guided meditation of the sun and clouds, designed to relax and focus them. You’d be surprised how many cannot relax their bodies or still their minds. Once, while studying lullabies, a music teacher played 5 minutes of a Japanese lullaby for my first grade class. At least 5 kids were fidgeting, and at least the same amount actually fell asleep sitting up!
Patterns can be cyclical, as the circle of 5th s in music or the seasons. In our current cycle of repressive thinking, we have forgotten that children have their own developmental patterns. Instead of letting the 5 year-olds play and discover patterns of their own, we impose patterns upon them, insisting they sit for too long, read and write before they are ready. We ignore their individual patterns in favor of getting content into them. When we talk about making connections, don’t we really mean seeing the pattern between 2 phenomena? Aren’t we looking for patterns among all that data we are collecting? And why do we choose to ignore such patterns as poverty = stress = low academic performance?
Kids are lightning rods, reflecting the world around them. Constant bombardment of stimuli doesn’t allow for the quiet percolation of ideas and insights. How many kids labeled ADHD would lose that label if we respected their developmental patterns of movement and rest, of information input, repetition and expression? How many students-and teachers-chafe under the tyranny of preparing for the latest cycle of state exams, contributing to many students’ current thought patterns that their worth and ability as human beings rests on getting the magic number 3 on THE TESTS?
Our current education system was created after the Industrial Revolution. It’s time to create another pattern.
TalesOutofSchool 