…being kidful

As he so often does, Monte Syrie smacked me with a blog post and a tweet this week. First the tweet:

How was my day?

For the first time in many months, I had a kid-filled room today.

My new expression of wonderful is kidful.

I had a kidful day, just kidful.

It's a kidful life, ours. 🙂

— Monte Syrie (@MonteSyrie) April 19, 2021

I wrote earlier about how joyful it felt to have full classrooms again. Sy has a much better command of the language, though. I like the word kidful. It really does work for what I believe the classroom should be about.

The other shot Sy launched at me this week was in his blog post yesterday. Sy spoke of being a gardener, of growing kids. Read the post – it’s worth it. Now, I’m no gardener as my wife, mother, and every neighbor who passes my house will attest. But there’s something to Sy’s assertion that in our classrooms, we “grow kids” and I’m pretty annoyed with myself for not thinking of that comparison earlier. More than twenty years ago, I wrote in my educational philosophy that if I met a former student after graduation I wouldn’t care if they couldn’t tell me the causes of World War I or the importance of the Battle of Gettysburg or some other random bit of historical information. I wanted them to be able to think critically, to ask questions, to discover their passions, and to find joy. I still do.

The problem is that twenty-plus years ago, I had no idea how to do that. I thought I did. I was wrong. I got caught up in the content, the smoke and mirrors, the sizzle. I think, in spite of myself, I was able to help some kids grow. Now, twenty-plus years later I think I’m better at this. I think I’m closer to being able to achieve what I wrote. I think, to paraphrase Sy, my gardening is more about kids. Because if I really am kidful, shouldn’t kids be the center of things in my classroom?

So much work still to be done…