I was working with a little one during Math time. She was upset. She felt like I was being unfair. Her two friends were working together on their math sheet and she had to sit at the back with me. I had explained to her that the only reason she was at the back with me was that when I was teaching the lesson, she was drawing and talking and so I honestly didn't know if she understood how to do the problems on the math sheet. She boo hooed, she kicked her feet, she put her head down, but eventually she put her head back up. I pointed to the clock on her sheet and asked her what time it read. She looked at it and wrote it correctly.
"Awesome job!" I said encouragingly. "Now," I pointed to the next one. "What time is it thirty minutes later?"
She wiggled, looked over her shoulders at her friends, picked at her pencil, put her head down again, then turned her head to face the sheet. She started at the twelve, counted by fives, and inaccurately told them time.
"You've got the right idea," I said. "I think you just started in the wrong spot, you have to start at the one."
"No I didn't!" she protested. "I started right here!" she said, as she jabbed her finger somewhere between the twelve and the one, counted by fives, and got the wrong answer, again.
"You're doing it totally right, you know your fives, you just need to start at the one, not at the twelve," I encouraged her again.
And then she gave up, complained about how her friends got to work together and she didn't, how unfair it all was.
I explained to her again that all I needed to know was that she knew how to do it- that once I could see her do it on her own, I would let her go work with her friends.
She huffily turned around, stuck her finger on the one, started counting, and got the right answer.
"Great!" I said. "Let's do the next one," and I pointed to the next clock.
We continued in this fashion, as the problems got increasingly more difficult and she got more anxious, but she eventually got there- showed her independent understanding of the concept, and so I let her work with her friends.
As I watched her walk away, I noticed how comfortable I was with this situation. I noticed how I had stayed with her through all of her hemming and hawing and that I had done this because I knew she was capable of it. I hadn't actually helped her or done it for her, I had stayed by her, while she struggled with it herself. I had been there to help her if she needed it but in staying with her, letting her struggle in her place of almost mastery, she had learned to do it herself. I felt like I had conveyed this message of confidence in her by doing this- whether she felt it or not.
My father is godfather to my mother's youngest brother's oldest child. He didn't actually meet her until she was in high school, when he was in town on a business trip. I talked to my aunt shortly after his visit- to see how their time was together.
"Well," she said. "I'm not sure how she felt about it, but he did try to help her with her homework."
"Uh oh," I said. "How did that go?" I asked.
"She didn't like it so much," my aunt explained. "All she wanted was the answer, but he wouldn't give it to her. He wanted her to figure it out herself- to show her how to do it without actually doing it for her. She wasn't all that pleased with that method."
"Tell her I totally sympathize," I said.
I had the exact same experience when I was growing up. When I would get to a part that I didn't understand on my homework, I would come down to the kitchen, show him the one I was working on, and ask him for help. All I really wanted was to get over that one problem- to get the answer and move on. But he would never give me the answer. Instead, he would sit me down and teach me the concept.
I hated him for this. He knew the answer, I knew that, but he wouldn't give it to me. I would play along at first, try to follow what he was teaching, but often, it didn't match my method (because mine was incorrect) and so I would get frustrated. I would show him my method again, try to make it right, feebly assert its accuracy. He would simply repeat his method, explain where my method was falling apart, and continue with his explanation. Depending on the night and the level of homework, I would either put my head down or storm out of the kitchen back up to my room. This never upset him and he never gave in- he never gave me the answer.
I hated it then, but as a teacher, I see it now.
He never let me fail. He didn't give up on me and give me the answer, that would have been belittling to me (and I wouldn't have learned the concept). He just kept with me, staying with me until I understood it. Now, this "staying with me" instead of giving me the answer, often meant me, storming back up to my room, and doing it incorrectly on my own. But as a teacher, as I sit patiently with my kids, allow them to do all their hemming and hawing without getting upset, patiently just sticking with them, until they get it, is what he was doing back then. He knew I could do it, was willing to sit there with me until I did, and, if I had the patience back then to stick with it, would have helped me to get it on my own.
I am grateful for this part of me that I got from him. This model of just sitting with you, not giving up while you hem and haw, being unaffected by all your hysterics, confidently staying there, actually gets you there, and hopefully gets you to see that you're the one who can do it.
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