Paper Chains
After a recent visit to the Winter Market in Toronto, seeing the decorations I expected I’d begin to feel myself embracing the spirit of the season. Not yet. It’s still too early for me to embrace those December feelings of excitement and anticipation. Too early to hear the music that always moves me in a way no other pieces of music can. Too early for carols and hymns of praise and gratitude. Too early even for my beloved “Feliz Navidad” that I can play on a loop to the dismay of anyone nearby, that I’ll dance down an aisle to in any store that has it playing over the speakers.
The walk through that market filled with holiday colour and sparkle triggered a memory. Of my sons when they were young children and the lesson one of them learned, that turned into a learning experience for me as well. Of a teacher who blessed their earliest start in education and learning through the kindergarten years.
Linda (she was Mrs. B. to them) had a way with children that encouraged them to try even when they thought they couldn’t. Her approach to learning, and to life, was that often, the blocks you face are the ones you place in front of yourself.
My oldest is the typical first born. The one who has high expectations of himself and who would stress over an assignment or a project, spending more time planning than actually doing. Procrastination has been the companion of his life, and I take my share of responsibility for his inheritance of that trait. Never one to use the allotted time for a project, an essay or a paper, I’d leave it to the very last minute and still produce something that was graded with high marks. Something I always told myself about doing my best work under pressure. This son is just like his mother in that regard. We can visualize the finished project, but it looms so large in front of us, forming a barrier to getting to where we need to be. So, daunting us, we turn our attention elsewhere and leave that barrier to another day, until there is only the day or the night before that deadline.
We both learned a valuable life lesson in his junior kindergarten year and it’s one that from time to time we’ve reflected on, reminding each other how to face that barrier, to be able to dismantle it.
Around this time in November, one of Linda’s curriculum projects had the students creating paper chains. They were to make two of these chains – one to drape on the tree at home and one to use at home as an advent calendar, one chain broken off each day to count down to Christmas Eve. Each chain required 24 strips of paper, and they would be glued together to form the chain. A very easy little project for 4- and 5-year-olds to manage (I should mention here that children are different – my younger son had no issues with this project when he was in that class). When I arrived to collect my son from school that morning, Linda took me aside to explain what had happened during their craft activity (which was less about crafting and more about dexterity and problem solving as it turned out).
Sat at his little table was my son with 48 small strips of paper facing him. He was completely overwhelmed by the task he was to complete because all he could see was the finished product. He wasn’t seeing the small steps necessary to achieve that final goal. He sat, staring at the desk without making a single chain. Linda sat with him and when she asked him why he was so hesitant my son replied, “I’ll never get it done.” Reassuring him that he would indeed get it done, she picked up the first strip, and she glued to the two ends together. Then she asked him to do one, looping his through the hoop she had just created and he did. Linda repeated the process with him a few more times until she saw that my son was able to continue by himself. As she moved on to another student, she reminded him that it was just one loop at a time, one step at a time, one piece at a time. She told him that you don’t just go from A to Z, you have to follow all of the letters from start to finish.
As we walked home that morning, my son and I talked about how we both learned something that day. Do we still follow that rule? I’d say not always given how this son managed assignments later in his school life. But it does come to the forefront at times of great challenge when it is really necessary. It kept me going through cancer treatment, knowing that as tedious and difficult as it was, everything had to happen in order, one step at a time.
That first teacher left a deeply lasting impression on that young boy for more reasons than just how to approach daunting tasks but that one lesson has had the most impact. He’s a teacher now himself, reminding his students how to do things one step at a time.