by Chris Condon
Thinking back to childhood, I can recall one day lying on my back in the front yard’s soft grass and watching as, high overhead, the clouds morphed and transformed themselves like magic. They would first appear as soaring castles, then become mountains of snow tumbling softly down into distant valleys, then disappear into nothingness. Best of all, I could float along with them, as if on a sailboat, feeling joyful and playful all at the same time – in a word, wondrous.
Much later in my life, when employed as a full-time teacher, I often found myself seeking ways to somehow bring that sense of wonder into my classroom. Kids need motivation to learn, and what better way to entice them than to experience a sense of wonder? But how could I capture those wondrous clouds in a jar, so to say, to share with them?
Now school textbooks, which appropriately emphasize the mastery of core skills, don’t generally identify “wonder” as a lesson objective. However, on occasion, I would run across activities that mentioned educating the “whole” child, often showing an illustration of a head filled with swirling colors and dazzling pictures. Such activities would recognize that, as children learn, they certainly do accumulate facts, but they also dream of where their lives are going (even if only out to recess), what they feeling, and how they are sensing these imaginary worlds in their minds. These experiences are integral to the learning process, too.
Indeed, it’s important to consider: Why do any of us learn?
Whether we are a child, an adult, or a retiree – when we are using our minds to think and reason, we are actually doing so while afloat in a world of feelings, daydreams, and aspirations. In fact, this is exactly how our brains are structured – its neo-cortex of logical rationality rests atop its deeper layers of memories, emotions, sensations. Learners don’t acquire knowledge on a foundation of cement; rather, they float on dreams though seas of memory, emotion, and aspiration. As we learn, we aspire, reaching for something higher in the sky.
All of us are sailing through clouds of dreams.
