We’ve each written individual reflections this week, thinking around the theme of habits. Relatedly, I have been reading through Opening Minds, the new book by Peter Johnston, as well as skimming a complementary stack of books dealing with the ways students can choose not to let us teach them. Johnston describes a body of research that explores the ways teacher language helps or hinders student development of self-perceptions that include a dynamic frame. A student with a dynamic frame knows that just because he or she doesn’t feel like a “good” writer today, it doesn’t mean that he or she can’t work on becoming better at writing in order to, eventually, be a “good” writer. Students with static-frames tend to think that they are born as “bad” writers and will always be “bad” at writing. Couple Johnston’s new work with Herbert Kohl’s work, “I Won’t Learn From You (1994),” throw in the learning patterns of four sons ages 4-16, and one creates a tempest of the mind!

One of my sixteen-year-olds never really learned to swim until he was fourteen. He was always resourceful enough in the water to enjoy himself and keep me from worrying, but at fourteen I decided to sign him up for swim team during the summer. I knew he would learn actual strokes and technique, not to mention how to dive, a skill towards which he had adopted a decidedly static frame.

His sudden enrollment in swimming was met with vocal resistance. He had swimming practice daily, and daily I heard protests ranging from loud complaints–It is unfair for you to sign me up to swim early every day of the summer without even asking me!–to articulate arguments–Really? Is this the kind of mother you want to be? One who dismisses her son’s feelings and opinions?

I did what any mother would do. I resorted to coercion–If you don’t stick with swim team you can’t go to the pool alone this summer. You will only be able to go to the pool when I go with you.

The neighborhood pool is around the corner from our house and going there unsupervised to hang out with friends during the summer is the hallmark of independence. One could take a small notebook to the pool and record, Jane-Goodall-like, awkward, animated, nervous human pubescence as it unfolded on the pooldeck jungle.

Duncan acquiesced, despite the fact that he was grouped with the six- to eight-year-old “guppies” because his skill set was so far below the rest of the swimmers his age and size. As parents do every five minutes, I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but safety prevailed and I needed to know that he knew how to handle himself in the water.

Oddly, one morning he did not resist going to the pool. He got himself out of bed and to the pool without any argument. When he was late returning from practice, I created a reason to go to the pool and touch base with the coach. Was he playing pool hookey? I braced myself for an impending confrontation.

Arriving at the pool, I looked in from afar. I was startled to see him in the shallow end with a host of other “guppies,” each offering him advice on his form. The coach couldn’t resist, and wandered over to offer her advice. The lifeguard had opinions, as well as the parent of a child swimming nearby. Duncan welcomed all advice. He didn’t respond with defensiveness. He didn’t shut down. He tried to follow each direction and then checked in for more feedback–Was that better? Of course, it was.

Duncan swam all year that year. He is built like a swimmer, which coupled with a sense of agency and a perception of himself as a dynamic learner, readied him to work as a lifeguard the next summer. Now sixteen, he is on the swim team during the school year and works as a lifeguard during the summer.

This summer our son, Natie, is nine. I signed him up for swim team without asking him. It seemed a reasonable idea given the way things worked out with his older brother. Once again I was met with constant vocal resistance. Once again I was regaled with concrete evidence that I was not measuring up as a mother. After he hid when I was trying to round him up for swim team, I threw in the beach towel. I told him he could quit or not, that he could do what he wanted either way. I could give his lessons to a friend’s child. I washed my hands of the whole thing and, without outward anger, told him he was in charge of himself. Two days later  we received this note, which I read against the backdrop of his self-directed violin practice:

Dear Mom Dad,

I humbly apoligize for not getting in the car when you told me to and hiding. As a child, you can’t quite expect me to do everything right. I’ll admit that I wasn’t coopertive during that scene. by the way I am kind of starting to like swim team, and I don’t want you to get rid of my lessons. it’s also the same thing with violin. The problem is that I can’t find a time to practice. Manby (?) we can set up a plan.

Yours sincerly,
Natie Burkins

There is little we can do to “make” students learn. Peter Johnston has some advice about helping children change their self-perceptions from static frames to dynamic frames. What percentage of student learning challenges could be met if students were leaning into what we were trying to teach them rather than away from it? And how much of their posture is in response to ours? Helping students reframe their self-perceptions as learners holds great promise for students about to dive into complex text.