Excerpts from Upcoming Book: Beyond Good Parenting: The Art & Science of Context, Learning & Partnership
Trial and Error
In the late eighties and early nineties I was introducing computers into my company’s early childhood programs. I would try out new programs at home before installing them on the computers in the centers. One weekend I brought home a Disney program that had Mickey Mouse and his friends doing different activities in different rooms of a house. I booted it up and then as I read cover on the box, I realized I had left not only the instructions but also a color-coded keyboard cover at the child care computer center . This special soft-rubber keyboard cover obscured the standard keyboard symbols with colors and shapes to use to manipulate Mickey’s travels and activities. I put the box aside and thought, well, I’ll check this out next week when I go back to the computer lab. I left the program running on the computer.
An hour or two later, Auguste, who was 3 at the time, called me over to the computer. “Daddy, look!”, she said, and she proceeded to show me all the things Mickey could do and all the places he could go. I watched her push different keys to get Mickey to go different directions to go into different rooms, to pick up and use different objects in the different rooms, change the décor in the rooms, etc. It was quite complex. She had learned which keys to push to make Mickey do whatever she wanted him to do. She had learned the whole program with no instructions and no color-coded keyboard cover. And she had learned it in probably less time than it would have taken me or anyone else to “teach” her, and less time than it might have taken me to learn it from the instructions.
* * *
How did Auguste learn this? Trial and error! Push a button and see what happens. Young children are continually learning this way (only they don't yet know the words “trial and error”) by merely sensing - observing, hearing, smelling, touching and sometimes tasting (hopefully not always!). Then they experiment, make predictions, and test them out. Auguste was not unique; in an hour or so any three-year-old who felt safe to explore the program would have known which buttons to push to cause which response by the characters.
Now consider this: if in an hour or two it takes a normal three-year-old to figure how a program like that works, how long would it take a three-year-old child to figure out which buttons to push to get his or her parent to do what s/he wants? How long did it take your child to learn who to ask for something, you or your spouse, to increase his or here chances of getting a “yes?” Or when to ask for something and when not to - just by looking at your demeanor in the moment?
There are several reasons why many children struggle in school, or struggle with different subjects or different teachers in school. I think they are all related to the way we view learning, the way we view ourselves, and the way we view our children. We introduce new words to our children, along with the meanings (along with our associated negative feelings and thoughts), such as “error” and “mistake” and “fail.” But without mistakes, errors, and failures, a human being will not learn much if anything. And we learned, as our children will, to avoid them, which inhibits learning in schools.
Another view on this: in his amazing book, Everything Bad is Good for You, author Steven Johnson talks about explorative learning as “probing.” Probing is another term for our innate human drive to learn. Probing is experimenting, making hypotheses, and testing them out. Why aren't our children coming out of our schools and becoming the world's leading scientists, whose work is totally about probing, hypothesing? Let the scientists test the hypotheses rather than testing the scientists.
As we parents begin to shift our understanding of what is relevant and what is not when it comes to learning, and focus on what messages we are passing on, we will begin to make choices that will empower our children's sense of who they are and what they can accomplish.
The Field Trip
At a staff meeting one day during my first year of working at the community preschool, we decided to take the kids on a field trip. We would go to a great outdoor playground at Haines Point in Washington, D.C. – where the Anacostia River meets the Potomac River. We would go the following week. And I would drive the van.
I seemed to feel more excited about going than the other staff. Having never been on a preschool field trip before, I listened to the other teachers and watched their responses to it. Managing a group of children in public - being sure everyone was always safe - was a big accountability, and the consequences for missing something (or worse, someone), could be severe. Perhaps the more experienced staff were being more realistic.
So the next morning, being the driver, I got to “work” on it. I had a meeting with the class of three and four-year-olds about the rules. They already had a good idea from either earlier field trips or riding in the car with their parents: no yelling, no hitting, no sticking their arms out the window – pretty basic stuff. I was clear it wasn't a knowledge issue, it was a behavior issue.
Even though a rookie, I sensed that the way to find out how to handle it successfully would be to ask the children. So I asked “Why not yell?” “Because its too loud!” someone offered. “Just because!” someone else said. “Because it hurts my ears!” was another response.
I said, “Well, okay, that may all true ... but still we sometimes yell when it doesn't work for each other, don't we? Here's why it matters on a field trip ... at least when I am driving. One, I’m driving and my most important job to keep us safe. If I can't see or hear what is happening around us, I wouldn't be able to make decisions to do that. I need to see out the front and back windows, and hear what’s going on outside. If someone got hurt on the field trip because we acted in an unsafe way, do you think we would take you on any more field trips?”
“N-o-o,” they said.
“Do you think your parents would let you go on any more field trips?”
“N-o-o,” they said.
“I think you're right!” I said. “And I don’t want anyone to get hurt or have a hard time on the trip, either. So, shall we set it up so we can all go on more field trips? And have fun, too?”
“Yes, yes!”, they said.
“Okay. And me too!" I added, "Do the teachers, me included ... do we tease each other ... well, sometimes we do, but we stop when we see it is making someone mad or upset ... but we don't hit or throw things out the van windows or yell on the van, do we?"
“No …”, they said almost in unison.
“Do you?”, I asked. A moment of silence.
There were a few “no”s, then a “sometimes” and “I don't but he does”, and even a “I do!” I thanked them for being honest with me. Then I said this: “You know, I want to go to Haine's Point … in fact I like to go a lot of places … but not if I'm not going to have fun. It isn't fun for me if I have to keep telling someone 'stop doing this' or 'stop doing that' – like going out of sight of us, or running ahead of the rest of us, or lagging behind when it is time to go. Do you have fun when the teachers are upset and yelling?”
“No,” they said. And one piped up, “Yes ...”
I looked at her and smiled. “Yes, I used to think it was funny - at least sometimes - when my teachers got mad. And some people seem to like making other people upset. Thank you for telling me that.”
“Well … in either case, most teachers don't like it, definitely not at this school. So I suppose you might get to go on a lot more trips with us and with your parents if they all have fun going too. What do you think?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So its up to you – it really is. We teachers can go to the museum anytime we want, but you can't, not yet. So how do we make this work so we can go on lots more field trips together this year?”
So we made a list of rules that would keep us safe on the trip. Then I said, “What happens if you 'break' a rule?”
“You get in trouble.”
“No-o”, I said.
“You go in time-out.”
“No-o”, I said, “What happens is - we turn around and come back. It’s about all of our safety.” They were silent, like waiting for something else to be said. “I mean it,” I said, matter-of-factly. Then I said, “Is it a deal?”
They said “Okay.”
Then I said, “Is there anyone who doesn’t agree to this?”
One boy said, “But what if I forget?”
“One of us will remind you - no problem. And if then you don’t stop doing whatever you are doing, we turn around and come back – all of us. Got it?”
“Yes,” they said.
So we loaded up the van and the extra cars and everyone was excited and talking. Just before we started to drive, I reviewed our agreement and what happens if anyone doesn’t follow it. After a few blocks a reminder or two was necessary.
After a couple of miles, just after we got onto Rock Creek Parkway, a couple of kids got into an argument, and started poking each other across another seat. They got a reminder, stopped for about five seconds and started up again. I pulled off Rock Creek Parkway and pulled over into a parking area. They knew something was up - their eyes were wide open and they were looking at me, each other, and outside. One of the teachers said she would move one of the kids so he would have to sit next to a teacher. I said, “No, don’t do that. Let them sit where they are. We are going back to school just like we agreed we would.”
Then I said to the kids, “I know most of you were doing what works, and thank you very much … that was great. And some of you weren’t - no problem either - and we agreed we’d turn around and go back, and so that’s what we’re going to do – because we said we would. And by the way, no one is in trouble - we are just going back to school.” And that’s what we did.
It was a silent ride back to school. Even the other teachers were silent. Later one said that she was surprised that I did that. I let her know I was too, and that I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go, but was already more excited about future trips. That was the first and last field trip on which we ever came back because of behavior that didn’t work in the van. No time-out needed, no lecture, nothing but doing what we said. And future trips were looked forward to by the staff.
Some of my thoughts on this story ...
There are always - always - consequences for our choices in life, and for our children in theirs. Noting what those consequences are provides the most efficient and powerful behavioral learning possible.
By listening to our children, validating (honoring) their responses, giving them as much factual information as possible, and allowing them to freely choose, we can expand our own appreciation of each other and what it is like to know that our choices, and therefore we, make a difference. This may sound like I'm saying "Put your three year old in charge." I'm not. I am saying, in safe situations, let your three-year-old choose his or her behavior knowing whatever consequences there are, and let him or her know that he or she is loved by you no matter what choice he or she makes.
And had you asked me back then, "Marty, what did you do that worked?" I'd have been hard put to tell you.
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