Here’s what I believe: children deserve educators who have nurtured their sense of awe and wonder. And, as educators, making time and space for curiosity about the unknown or unfathomably beautiful and mysterious is the air that breathes life back into our practice.
What if instead of arriving to our classrooms each day to ‘teach what we know’, we show up with this question: I wonder what I will learn today and how it will change me? These are two very different approaches to our practice. Showing up to ‘teach’ presumes we know everything that’s required to educate children about life, and we find ways to inject that knowledge into children’s minds. Whereas, showing up to wonder and learn, positions us to: expect the unexpected, widen our scope of ‘noticing’, and allow this day to transform us for the better. Being a ‘learner’ does not mean we have no skills or wisdom to offer; it simply means we recognize we will never arrive at a place of total mastery—and that realization is a gift to us and to the children we serve.
I think this re-framing of “not-knowing” is especially critical in the areas of our practice we feel most competent and sure of ourselves. As a past educator, I often felt I had a strong skillset for interacting with children. The problem with this is that I also felt I had very little to learn when it came to my interchanges with children. It was a door that remained closed and interactions unchanged. This left so much undiscovered territory in terms of ways I could have been evolving to enrich and shift my conversations with children.
This is why awe and wonder—in its many forms—is so critical. It is a constant reminder of all we have left to uncover and re-opens us to the world (and our practice) in important ways.
So, what is awe? According to awe-researcher Dr. Dacher Keltner, “awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand”. (1) And, a sense of awe can be found almost anywhere: in hearing a personal story of overcoming the atrocities of Auschwitz, a piece of music that transports you back to a significant moment in time, or even when standing at the base of a majestic pine tree. In the classroom, I can recall moments of awe: when watching a child quietly helped a friend put on their new, stiff shoes, when noticing a child gaze at a nuthatch on the windowsill for the first time, or in witnessing the rhythmic way a child sloshes paint on a page with their bare hands while making a new tone of earthy green. As educators, we live everyday with the best teachers of how to access awe AND the most inspiring examples of awe-personified: children.
In the example of the child swirling paint on a page, if I position myself as the all-knowing educator—what happens? It’s likely I see the child mixing the paint and look for opportunities to promptly teach them something: “I see that blue and red and yellow make a brownish-green”…and the child continues to slosh-on without pausing or looking up. If instead, I position myself as the ‘learner’, ‘noticer’, or ‘wonderer’, I am much more likely to slow down and notice: the ways her fingers gather up the paint as they slide across the page, the way she lifts her hands to her eyes and inspects the blobs of shiny paint on her fingers, and how when she squeezes her fingers and then fans them out—she observes the way a web of paint forms between them. This beautiful display of learning triggers a sense of awe, and then begs me to ask: I wonder how the paint feels on her fingers, I wonder if this is more about the feel of the paint than the colours she is combining…you get the idea. This deepened sense of awe and wonder causes me to pause a little longer, zoom in a little closer, dissolve a little more of myself, and see the child and the experience more clearly. I’m in awe. I’m curious. I’m open. I’m learning. I’m changed.
When we are the all-knowing educator, sure—we can check off the box of having the conversation about colour mixing with the child and assume they’ve learned something important. Or, as the learner, we can travel to the deepest parts of what is unfolding and respond in ways that truly meet up with the moment—while learning and growing alongside children. One approach is a destination, the other a journey.
~This post was inspired by the Mary Oliver poem entitled: The Invitation
Enjoy it here:
The Invitation
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
References:
Keltner, D. (2023). Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Penguin Press.
Photo credits: Chris Burgett, Arthur Osipyan, & Dragos Gontariu (thank you!)
