By Ziv Ardman
Translated from the Hebrew by DeAnna L’am
Lets start with a little exercise: lets close our eyes and think of the word ‘Education.’
What comes up for you when you think about this word? For me, as a survivor of 12 school years, two military courses, and a few years in the academia, the word ‘Education’ brings up a sense of suffocation. The education I experienced was authoritarian and the teachers did not seem to listen to the students.
My education aimed at forcing me to know specific materials, hold on to acceptable values, and acquire skills that were not important to me.
Now that I work with pre-school tots, I try to teach differently from how I was taught, with lots of introspection. On my path I find three emerging principles: humility, listening, and self-exploration.
Humility
It seems to me that for hundreds of years adults have been arrogant in the way they teach children. The arrogance comes from the adult thinking he/she knows who the child is, who the child is supposed to become, and what is good for the child.
It is as if the adults’ physical and mental strength gives them the right to control children’s thoughts and spirits.
This arrogance has been significantly declining over recent years, yet it still exists within many of us, simply because we experienced it as children.
I believe the remedy for arrogance is humility. For instance when I met three-year-old Amit, I asked myself: Do I know who Amit is? Do I know who he will become, or what he is destined to experience? Do I know what is best for him?
The answers, at best, are very partial, and are closer to an intuitive guess than to solid knowledge. Therefore, when I invite Amit to a creative activity, or when I ask him not to throw pasta on the wall, I do so humbly. It is possible that experiencing freedom and rebelliousness is essential for Amit.
My question is - is it possible to have humble educational authority? I think so. Humility is not folding or giving up. It’s not about being weak or victim-like in front of the children.
It is an inner state, which is respectful of the other.
Listening
Yesterday I googled “Teacher” images. What did I find? Pictures of people talking, explaining, waving their hands, or giving permission to others to speak.
A student listens to an educator intently, preferably in silence. But what about the educator’s listening? I believe that therein lays the focal point of conscious educational work. When I work with children, if I’m not having a particularly bad day, I mostly listen. I listen to them and to myself.
How does one listen to a child? I assume this is an art, which can be aligned and perfected over a lifetime, just as is listening to our own feelings or to nature. I believe there is great importance in the willingness and effort to listen.
Listening, as any teacher knows, starts with eye contact. Eye contact is related to the eye level. When I listen to four-year-old Maya, I first come down to her eye level. I do not bend forward toward her, but rather bend my knees and squat in front of her. This is good for Maya’s feelings, as well as for my back’s vertebras.
Then I look Maya in the eye. I look deeply into her eyes, I look with interest, and I listen to what I see in there. I look into her eyes exactly as I would with a close friend.
I look in her eyes quietly and patiently. If she speaks, I listen. If I have a question, I ask her in simple words, so she can understand. If there are no words, I tell her wordlessly that I am here, that we met, that I am going now, and she is always invited to another encounter.
Some children make no eye contact. I put my hand gently on their shoulder or their back, or if appropriate I take their hand. Some children don’t trust, but need a hug. Others are so used to not being listened to, that they don’t believe, to begin with, that you are really listening.
Sometimes, in front of twenty energetic children, two of whom have poopy diapers, three of whom have runny noses, and one of whom threatens to jump from the swing and land on her friend, it is somewhat difficult to practice listening the way I just described. So I try to be fair. Even If I have only ten seconds to listen, I listen well.
Self Exploration
Only when I explore my own self, my values, and my beliefs, can I become a suitable response to a child’s openness, and to her/his life potential.
Only when I dare exploring my own self, I get the answers as to how to be an effective teacher. But what is more important is that by self-exploration I give a child permission to explore their own self.
If I am not a specific “something,” but rather a living, changing being, than the child, too, doesn’t have to be any specific person and is free to evolve in the direction innate to that child.
In fact, it doesn’t matter what is the developmental level of an adult standing in front of a child, but rather the extent of movement within that development. A child who saw their teacher in one state at the beginning of a school year, witnessed the changes that took place, and parted at the end of the year from a teacher who has changed, receives the most important educational message possible.