“You think too deeply”

“You think too deeply” This was a phrase I heard often as a teen/young adult accompanied by  “You make things too difficult for yourself”.

School tasks were spent looking for deeper meaning than the obvious.  Surely this can’t be the answer?  Isn’t it too obvious?  And so I spent most of my school life thinking I must be pretty dumb if I keep missing the ‘obvious’ answer.

Of course, what I now recognise in my young self, was the desire for deeper meaning and the connections with the bigger picture.   My question to myself was perhaps “What’s the big idea?”  “Why are we doing this?”

This was an aha moment for me as I began my third year of a Bachelor of Education at La Trobe University, Bendigo.  This year, the connections were obvious but offered deeper understandings not mere surface learning.  Connections with the type of teaching strategies the lecturers employed, the learning theories they implemented.  The differing practicum experiences offered.

A group of eight students from my 3rd year cohort (myself included) have been involved in an experiential learning program called “The Prime Project” in lieu of a three-week practicum block.  This program is implemented in a small rural school within Central Victoria, Australia.  The P-6 school has 41 students ranging in ages and abilities.  Our role, working collaboratively, is to design a program with the overarching theme of teaching “Time” for mathematics.  Once a week, we will team teach the students for a period of 90 minutes.  How we choose to design the unit, what we will teach and how is left for us to decide.  Our lecturer is also our mentor, someone to talk to if we are experiencing difficulty or needing a little guidance or someone to celebrate our successes.

This program, although challenging at various times, is also proving so rewarding.  I believe it is providing us with great insight into the learners within our environments and the factors that come into play that may invariably impact on their outcomes.  These insights although not new to me, however, have revealed challenges that were unexpected, in particular collaborative work.

As a mature age student, I come with a range of varying experiences, including successfully working within a team environment.  However, what these teams have looked like in the past are people with similar backgrounds and working environments.  ‘Prime’ has been a lesson in resilience, in finding a common ground with those you work with, understanding that even as mature age learners, we all come with varying levels of experiences and self-doubt.  That we are not perfect nor do we have the same starting points.

It is a lesson in experience or as George Otero (2010) describes as “the teachable moment”, a realisation that there are many paths to deeper learning.   It is a lesson in what it feels like for the children in our classrooms each day, of what they encounter and what can be road blocks to their learning.  It is a lesson in humility.  It will be one of the greatest lessons we can teach the students in our care – along with learning is challenging – for once our students arrive at this same understanding of each other’s differences, then we can truly form a cohesive unit that supports each other in our learning journey.

School can be a ‘tough gig for a kid’ when you’re trying to work out who you are, where you belong, how you fit.  This is not isolated to school but includes the home environment, sporting teams, friendship group outside of school.  The dynamics of relationships can be confusing.  We would do well to remember this very point.