Sometimes we just talk.

Shadow portrait of children dancing on wall

I am a geek.
I am a parent, via the dad route.
I am an educator.

I get excited about learning new things, and about the ways in which people learn new things and remember old ones.

I enjoy re-reading Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and the theories surrounding.

I’m coming to a point here: the prologue to the point is that:

A) Different people process information, retain information, and learn new things in different ways. And that’s okay.

B) The last 5-10 years, there’s been a big push for Project Based Learning (PBL). I’m a fan. Makes sense. Organise teaching around the idea that students can learn best by actively exploring real-world problems , and along the way they’ll pick up a lot of necessary skills and knowledge as they collaborate and work toward creatively finding solutions to complete the project. Makes sense.

But, but…

As I’ve noted before, I’m also a big fan of Socrates, the old Greek fellow who walked around, talked with people, and asked a lot of questions.

Walking, talking, asking

Why walk when you can run?
Why talk when you should listen?
Why question when you should answer?

Sometimes the first two get a bad rap. There is some irony that in my desire to keep an open, flexible, nimble, adaptive mind to ideas and new ways of doing things, that I keep returning - as many have - to the ideas of the Ancients. The ways in which Socrates and certain Greeks, during certain periods, learned a great deal by thinking, by dialoguing, and by questioning.

Of course listening is the yang to talking’s yin. A dialogue is made of the two. In balance, in proportion.

I understand how kids - and anyone - can get bored to listening to somebody drone on and on. That’s not dialog. That’s not active. That’s not engagement. That’s not conversation or dynamic learning. That is not, most of the time, going to lead to more effective learning.

But the simple act of engaging in talking and listening is sooooooo important.

Sometimes we just talk

We spoke about the creation of the Earth.

We spoke of Stalin’s purges and Soviet famines of the 20th century.

We spoke of Irish independence and the four nations making up the United Kingdom.

We talked of Monet and his friendship with Georges Clemenceau.

My 11-year old : “Didn’t he mostly paint lilies and lilypads toward the end of his life?”
Me : “Hmm, maybe so! We should check that out.” We went on to talk about the ideas of Impressionism and the role photography played in their investigations of and interest in light.

I casually quizzed them on the primary eras of music and a handful of major composers within each.