Peter Greene went to visit his grandchild in Seattle. He learned some important lessons.

http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-best-laid-plans-of-grown-ups.html?m=1

“It’s a well-flogged truism that children will throw away the toy and play with the box, that they will reject the finest plastic construction that the toy industry can muster in order to play with ordinary household objects. I suppose that somebody could have forced my grandson to drop the stick and play “properly” but why, unless they were intent on imposing adult will and plans on a child. “I planned on you playing on that jungle gym over there. Now put down that stick and go have fun, dammit, or else.”

“The bottom line is that children have instincts and interests and involvement of their own. Adults can go nuts trying to direct that, and they can twist children’s brains up by hammering them withy messages about what they are “supposed” to do.”

There are some lessons here for John King, state commissioners, and every school superintendent.

But will they listen?

That is not the end of the story!

Peter revealed a few days after this post that he and his wife got important news: she is pregnant and expecting twins! This led him into some speculation about the doors that confront you as you go through life. The ones you close, the ones you open, the ones you walk through.

And nobody can fully know who you are and nobody knows what doors you will stand in front of and nobody, really nobody at all, knows which doors will open for you or what will be on the other side, all of which means that anybody who says, “We’ve mapped a precise plan for you with the exact equipment you’ll need, no more, no less”– that person is selling something, and not a very good something at that.

In the meantime, I have just a few years to start thinking about education once again as a parent, considering not just the questions of how to provide education in my classroom or how to advocate for policies in my district and state and country, but also how will I help these particular tiny humans (both of them!) navigate through the world of education.

This is exciting as all get out, and my wife, who is also my best friend in the world, is a great person to enter into this adventure with. She can walk through doors like nobody’s business. Door opens; she says yes. Great lesson that. In the meantime, everyone is healthy and happy and ready to start shopping for second-hand baby stuff (if anyone has just been waiting to hire me as a consultant/speaker, now is probably a good time– also, consider giving my book as a Christmas gift to 100 people or so).

This is an adventure– the best kind of adventure. It has prompted me to think about education on the lower end of the age scale, and it has reminded me that the classroom ought to be an adventure (though not, as one twitter wit suggested, a game of Jumanji that we can’t win). It ought to be about preparing to walk through more doors, about being ready, about being willing and able and ready to grapple with the challenges and victories and defeats and about a million things more important than making sure that you generate the right sort of data on a bubble test.Let’s do this. I mean, let’s not go through the motions– let’s really do this.

So, let’s all thank Peter for his wisdom and for his sharp insights, and for the miracle of birth, and wish him and Mrs. Greene the very best as they set out on this new adventure: Twins!

Congratulations, Peter! And Mrs. Greene!

A new life beckons. Two of them, actually.