I remember, me and my wife, taking our young nephews up to the mountains one summer. We went up to over 11,000 feet. You can imagine my excitement when I saw snow in the shadows of the trees and hills. WOW! I found a place to pull the car over where there was some good size patches of snow. We got out and these boys had no idea what to do with snow. They were, southern Californians, and never really seen or been in snow. They had no clue. They didn’t even know how to get properly excited about it. I had to show them how to run and slide on the snow. How to pick up snow and make a quick snowball, throw it at someone and run and slide to get away. They were lumps on a log, trying not to get their clothes dirty or get cold. It took a bit, but they finally got it and were having fun.
They didn’t know how to be with snow or experience it. Does it really have to be taught? … trained? Does having fun has to be taught and trained? That seemed weird to me. Either it was fun or it wasn’t. Did kids really have to be trained and taught how to have fun?
I used to take my kids and some of their friends on hiking adventures. We started on some small easy adventures when they were young and gradually did more daring and crazy adventures. We had this one adventure that started out just following a creek. Water is fun! Well of course somebody has to get wet and slip a bit. As time goes on we are walking in the creek looking for fish, rocks or any splashing thing. The water is cold mountain water, but It’s warm and fun and we clean up and go back to camp. Then next year again, a little more bold. They are submerging themselves going after fish and other treasures or just chasing each other and loving the adventure. The last year in the area, it was raining and it was cold and windy. By now this is not some short little adventure in water, but we were addicted to the fun and experience of it. My wife, said no, they will get sick and we have their friends. But this part of the adventure had been sold like Disneyland. They got out of the warm and comfy car and headed out. First one, than the other, had plunged into the icy adventure and soon there was nothing but fun, wind, rain and rapidly running creek. This was the best adventure ever! Their friends had never done this before and they acting like old hands. Amidst the frigid water and cold air the littlest one got the shivers and we had to force him out and put him in blankets.
I didn’t create this adventure. The kids were the cooks and kept adding more and more exciting events and challenges. They were able to share (teach and train) different friends on how to do it, experience it, and be on this adventure. I had to go and was taught and trained as the chaperone. My wife was taught and trained to have towels, dry clothes and blankets and a warm car at the end of the ride.
It isn’t just what you do, it’s how you do it and experience it. I’ve always thought origami was neat, but it seemed so complicated and boring. The journey or adventure to folding the objects has to be part of the experience. I could only see it as boring. There has to be more, as you make a perfect fold or some push or pull that will bring some part of the figure to life.
Adventures can be dangerous. There are things that you don’t know and are different and strange. Are they too dangerous? What should a person do? Social adventures, I can talk about. Don’t do them. They are one of the most dangerous adventure you can take. Stranger-danger!!! Run and scream for help. Hide, if there is no one to save you.
Give me mountains, math, construction, … and a number of other areas and I just love them, but social adventures are way too dangerous for me. I avoid them like the plague. I’ve never been trained or taught on what to do or how to experience them. I’m like the little boys that had never been in snow. I’m just like them, a lump on a log in social events.
I’ve been taught and trained to just do, no feeling.. I was even taught to stop all this experience and feel stuff. Most of my training is just the barenaked steps of what to do. Why or how to experience them is not important. Just do them, that’s your job. A lot of the how-to-do it books just tell you how to do it. The little youtube videos you get more. You get a little bit of the experience added to the how to do it. The main training is to get the result, results, results. It’s not the experience of doing it. Just learn the steps and get the results. Pay attention: do this and not this and 20 boring steps later you have an origami item.
When mom makes her famous dish or cookies, she does the steps, but as she does the step she experiences love or satisfaction as she gets this step and that step just right for her loved ones to enjoy. She checks, she adjusts, she has locked in these key steps with the experience of love. She loves making these dishes or cookies as she experiences love, caring and satisfaction while she is doing it. These experiences lock in the special aspect or step. It’s not just the steps, it’s the experience that locks in the critical aspect or how, and produces the grand result. Cookies or dishes made with Love and you can taste the difference.
It’s often been said you can learn something 10 times faster if you can get someone to show you how to do it! It’s the thoughts, the feelings, the subtle triggers and reactions that hold the steps together so precisely and wonderfully. It’s all so artificial and made up, but it's what we humans, creatures of habit do.
The cook is tasting the soup for that perfect flavor. He taste and adjusts, adds a carrot or a spice, tastes and …… “Perfect!” and lets out a loud lingering sigh of satisfaction. What is he looking for? What is he thinking? What is he sensing and searching for? What are the ways to get that? What about this or that? … as he excitedly and confidently searches. He knows he will get this! …… and his adventure is rewarded.
It is the art, the adventure that baffle so many people. Why can’t you just show me what to do to get the result. Teachers, know that is their job. Be clean, be sterile and get the steps and get the result. There is no adventure, no artificial “real” meaning when history is taught. Get the date, the people and what happened. Memorize and be ready for the quiz on Monday. The students ask “Why?” My little boys in the snow asked “Why?” would you want to slide on the snow and get your clothes dirty? There is no experience in it! There is no adventure. We weren’t taught the adventure and have no idea what it is.
The adventure is to be made up, it’s artificial. Now, math is dry, very dry, until you add the juice! What juice? …. the addventure juice. It isn’t natural. It doesn’t come with math. It has to be added?
English, grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, now that is some boring stuff. “Why?” scream the students that don’t feel the sucking moog of a run on sentence, or the brightness of couplets criptly professing a love. I’m a stickfigure English person, but I’m starting to get the juice. So English teachers help me out here. What is the juice and how might you share it?
Cold mountain water and cold windy day and they went for it like Disneyland. Never a “Why?” as they raced to the creek. The juice was strong and the creek was to be had! They didn’t right a book, they shared it directly. The how to do it was easy, with the experiences exploding as they took their friends by the hand on an adventure of a lifetime. I started them on this adding of juice, but they had taken it from me and made it amazing.
Could student be taught how to add juice? Might they be given the space and time to take it on and make it theirs? The how to is probably quite boring, doing most things is. It’s learning to make it up and add juice, that brings life and adventure to it all. Juice is not added overnight. It’s not a how to do it thing. It’s that silly art thing. But it can be shared and grown into something quite wonderful. We are humans, creatures of habit. We repeatedly do things that are rewarding. Our job is to find our path to success and make it rewarding. It’s our job to add the juice. I’m sure yours will be different from mine. We humans, creatures of habit, need to learn to add this rewarding juice to have control and guide our lives to our dreams. Our dreams, just a silly result set up to allow us to have an amazing adventure or journey getting there.
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