Feedback

The house we have built seems solid, its foundation, boundaries, topics. Its content. So much content fills this house, top to bottom. What is it that this house teaches? Does it teach a person how to stretch? How to take a risk? How to pause and contemplate? Does it protect them from insults and critiques that seep deep into the framework? Is there weathering that cannot withstand time…?

What are all of these little stones for, if not for the merry task of skipping into the river? We watch and count the skips. Celebrating the smooth sailing ones that touch the water the most, yet fly the farthest. Why are we not more interested in why the rock failed to skip this time? What is it in that throw that’s different? Did someone try to throw it from a different angle? A different force? A different rock? Why are we summing up an entire person’s worth by the length and repetition of this trajectory? The circuitous path tells a story of the connections the child brain makes, to make sense of the world. 

Teachers, we try so hard to give feedback using tests on paper, on the computer, but we are sending such conflicting signals to these developing minds. We have good intentions in pointing out the things they do not know, the details that should be more carefully examined. But what about all of the complexity the child has uncovered by their challenge with our questions? Why are we not sitting with that and churning it over? Letting the child throw the rocks, make the pathways. Let them grow bored and find the next interesting thing to pursue. Let them slip and grapple, then find a new hold that allows them to reach higher ground. 

Our role? 

Teachers…At our best… what we can give is a bit of light on the things that are special. We can put a little light on all of that. In a world losing the tangible. Putting phenomena in front, but letting them drive through it. Feedback. So important - should stem from questions from both mentor and student. Why? Which? Where? What for? What is the usefulness in spending time analyzing this more deeply? Does this rock have something in it we need to know? Or was it just pleasant and interesting to throw it and watch it putter on its first touch of water? They will throw many more and may never know the answer, and that is just fine.