This week, Elise has been struggling with some homework. Reading comprehension, everyone’s favorite.
This assignment is a little different. Instead of reading, which she loves, she’s listening to someone else read the story while staring at pages of the book online. An audio book/kindle kind of mash-up, if you will.
I got her set up at my desk (she thinks it’s cool, meanwhile I can’t wait to get out of that chair at the end of the day), she fires up her laptop, and….sits. And stares. And fidgets, and bites her nails, and picks off the erasers from pencils. At first I’d gently remind her to focus in my best patient and loving mom voice.
Twenty minutes in, my tone has changed since we are both frustrated- her at this assignment and me for her not staring at a screen with words. Why can’t she just sit there? My God. She doesn’t have to even do anything.
I realized no one could do what I’m asking her to do. The average adult attention span when listening is 8-10 minutes. At the end of the day for a nine year old, I can’t even imagine that we’d be thinking in terms of minutes. Maybe like .0003 seconds?
Then came….THE QUIZ. I read her the questions out loud. She looked at me.
“What’s the answer?” she said.
“No clue, I didn’t read the book,” I replied.
“I didn’t read it either.”
She had a point. She didn’t read it.
So, I read every multiple choice answer to every question out loud. She (we?) settled on most answers by process of elimination. She (we?) checked her work. She clicked submit, and….got an 85%. Perfect! Over the threshold. One try, compared to another night this week where it took 5 tries and lots of tears.
Talking to my mom, the wizardly professor of all things Early Childhood Education, I realized why this was a struggle for Elise.
It was a passive activity, not active. She wasn’t holding a book, feeling the pages as she got deeper into the story. She wasn’t curled up on her bed in silence, and her thoughts about the plot were probably drowned out by the narrator (who had the most boring speaking voice). The few office supplies on my desk must’ve looked awfully appealing. I’d be clicking pens and pulling at Post-Its too.
We aren’t supposed to go through life passively. One of my favorite sayings is those who coast only go downhill. Messages come to us left and right, all day, to move forward.
Hit the ball! Go volunteer! Put your plate in the sink! Run for two more minutes! Make yourself a drink and a snack and get the Etch-A-Sketch for the ten minute car ride because, as soon as the seatbelts click, you’re suddenly hungry and thirsty and bored (and I’m not about to pass my cup without a lid to anyone in the back seat)!
Society is not set up for us to sit back. No one can keep up if they’re not looking in front of them. Don’t we encourage people to anticipate what’s next? It’s foreshadowing in the flesh.
Elise’s reading comprehension skills are just fine. Her listening comprehension skills under these circumstances need work. However, I’d much rather her reach for the golden ring on the carousel of life instead of snipping scissors through imaginary paper, as she sits in a chair and thinks about everything but listening to the womp womp WOMP voice (which must sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher to her).
She’s got plenty of years ahead to get ready for thirty minute lectures. I’d rather her go swing on the swingset, line up her Barbies in some convoluted but apparently extremely specific order, or draw something from her wildly creative imagination.
We all need a purpose behind what we are doing. It may not be realized until we are done, and the subconscious propeller encouraging us forward appears as a tangible reality. Without a purpose, we just hear the womp womp voices of life.
Don’t ever coast, Elise. You’ll only go downhill.