Novelty and Mystery
"Do you have a moment to check something out in the boiler room?" our custodian asked me the other day. We walked down the hallway, opened the door, and found a cross-cut of a tree trunk on the cement floor.
It was as wide as a small table. The bark had been stripped off. Growth rings spread out from the center, too many to count from a mere glance.
"Who do you think put this in here?" he asked me, curious more than anything. I shrugged and then wondered aloud, "Maybe a teacher wants to put this in their classroom, something to capture the kids' interest?" The custodian thought that might be possible. He then lifted the cross-cut to reveal another one almost just like the first beneath it. Whoever put these in here, they definitely captured our attention, I thought.
In schools, it's unlikely anyone will suggest putting a cross-section of a tree in a classroom. There is no expectation for novelty or mystery. Maybe there should be?
In his classic book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out the importance of creating the conditions for engagement (p. 74).
In our studies, we found that every flow activity, whether competition, chance, or any other dimension of experience, had this in common: It provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality.
How might we capture our students' (or teachers') attention this year? Here are a few ideas:
Instead of setting up the classroom library before the students arrive, put the books in random stacks and see what the kids suggest about how to organize them.
Bring in old technology, such as a loom, and refrain from any explanation, verbal or visual. Let the kids ask questions and see where their inquiries lead you.
Engage the senses when reading. For example, our librarian put a copy of The Polar Express in the freezer and took it out right before reading it aloud to 1st graders.
We eventually discovered the origins of the cross-cut: it came from a felled tree a couple of years ago in our oak savanna on the south end of the grounds. A teacher wanted the section to show the students in her class but has since run out of space.
"What should we do, then?" someone asked. "What if we put it back in the oak savanna, and stand it up as learning station along the savanna trail?" I asked. Someone else suggested locating one at the front of newly-cleared learning space/pit.
"Yes!" a teacher responded. "But let's have the kids come up with the name for that space." I agreed; we shouldn't be having all of the fun.