Wild Child Wednesdays: Small Wonders

We headed out into Moran State Park this past Wednesday in search of small wonders.  I was recently re-inspired by Clare Walker Leslie's book The Curious Nature Guide to begin what will probably prove to be a never ending collage of, "brief images of nature that urge us beyond ourselves."

Except, we didn't get far.

Upon entering the woods we immediately spotted a few mushrooms, some tiny, impossibly intricate flowers, and then an opportunity for discord.  An, "I saw it first" moment was followed by an impulsive moment of destruction - and in thirty seconds flat "if I don't get it you won't" had happened.  One child took off toward the stream, the other toward a tree.  It was a stand off.

Luckily, just last week while struggling with a familiar bout of homeschool overwhelm - I had a game changer type epiphany that had me prepped to take this conflict on with gusto rather than my unspoken curse word of choice.  I looked down and grabbed a pinecone from the forest's floor.  As if Pavlovian trained the children slowly paced back to meet me in the middle for some "peace pinecone" process.

We had all that we needed - four little phrases that we gleaned from Marshall Rosenberg coupled with "a fidget" provided by the towering elder trees encircling our treaty territory.   With fingers and eyes engaged on a damp douglas fir cone E.P. began:
"When you..."
"I felt..."
"I need..."
"In the future, would you be willing.."

After both children were heard and affirmed we all got back on the same trail, together.
The small wonder we were all walking away with was - kindness.

The game changer epiphany I mentioned having last week was this: What if my only lesson plan is to teach kindness all day, everyday?  Can we make "kindness" the core-curriculum of our school? Will all else just naturally unfold from that center?

Clearly I wasn't totally sold on my epiphany as my internal thoughts exposed on our way home. After the productive peace treaty I walked behind the pack in relative quietude and heard what was really going on inside of myself.  "We didn't journal anything.  How is E.P. getting math these days? Why can't he just roll with things, why is their so much conflict resolution."  My eyes were like my inner mood, downturned, and that is how I saw it.  "What is THAT!"

Western Coral Root

The children had spotted one up ahead at the same moment.  We had found what would certainly prove to be our small wonder snapshot for the day.  We guessed it was some sort of orchid.  We marveled that just three days prior there had been no sign of these fleeting beauties on this trail.  We all had the familiar holding-your-breath moment of awe as if exhaling would make the vision dissolve like fairy glamour.  We had what we came in search of and in such a richer way than I had envisioned.  Our hour in the woods had definitely urged us way beyond our individual selves.  I wasn't just in awe of the flower.  I was in awe of us working in cooperation and learning with kindness at the core.  No one had to possess it.  No one felt driven to destroy it.  It was bigger than us even though it was so much smaller.

At this point in our homeschool journey, it is undeniable to me that educating a child with ADHD requires that the teacher be a trailblazer in education. Somedays, as evidenced by my inner chatter, I am scared of just what this unexpected job is asking of me.  "Is he reading enough?  Are we doing enough math?  Should we be DOING more each day."  Daily, I fall victim to these communal worries of a culture focused on competition and domination.  Even in the midst of our "peace pinecone" process my thoughts were betraying me with doubt, "This is too tedious.  Behavior dominates everything with us!  I can't believe this is what we have to do...there is SO much else to learn..."  

From my own education and experience of our common culture I was taught that kindness is not "enough".  I see it represented in my most painful inner thoughts during our homeschool days, "Maybe I should just ignore these conflicts, maybe I am giving it too much attention..."  This is truly amazing when viewed through the historical lens that I myself was a victim of neglect and abuse in the second grade - the very year that E.P. and I are currently navigating in his own education. This neglect and abuse happened inside the classroom of a public school.  It changed the entire trajectory of my life.  Even with that personal history I STILL wonder if I should just let the moments of meanness, the everyday conflicts slide...and get onto more important things to learn...like algebra. Maybe because I was unseen as a student it is a well worn path in me to defer to allowing the most important things to go unnoticed.  E.P.'s needs are making me finally blaze a different trail for the both of us.

I choose to believe that as E.P. was speaking of his hurt feelings in a healthful way,  we were all experiencing the kind of witnessing that can not only change a life, but can change an entire culture, and just might be able to change the world someday.  I carry with me one teaching credential that was the hardest earned for me and therefore the most influential in my education approach - for better and for worse I have a masters in neglect.  I am lettered in the danger of allowing things, and more importantly people, to go unnoticed.  A walk in the woods of the pacific northwest on a late spring day in May can provide you with the physical reminder of the slippery slope that allowing things to go "unnoticed" can become. It was almost too literal when E.P., in his fit of rage with his friend, slipped on the mossy undergrowth and fell on his bottom.   Unkindness brought him to the forest floor and he picked up his pinecone.

As an educator I am deciding that kindness is more than enough.  One peace treaty at a time we will stick to a curriculum that holds kindness as the core. I trust that our measure of success will come on days like today in which we earn the coral-root flower as a trophy of our hour's efforts.

On Going Unnoticed
by Robert Frost

As vain to raise a voice as a sigh

In the tumult of free leaves on high.

What are you in the shadow of trees

Engaged up there with the light and breeze?

Less than the coral-root you know

That is content with the daylight low,

And has no leaves at all of its own;

Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.

You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,

And look up small from the forest's feet.

The only leaf it drops goes wide,

Your name not written on either side.

You linger your little hour and are gone,

And still the wood sweep leafily on,

Not even missing the coral-root flower

You took as a trophy of the hour.