Listen to thisI’m sitting at the computer (years ago, I would have said the typewriter) faced with another deadline – this time for this editorial – and I am wondering what to say; how to make it meaningful; how to catch your attention and keep you interested for the next five minutes or so. So, I start like this and trust that whatever comes out will be somehow relevant to the task at hand.
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Yesterday I went for a drive. When I came to the busy corner nearby I pulled up slowly to a stop and looked around. There was a truck barreling down from my left and on my right was a small Civic that got there at about the same time as me. I thought about how fast or slow my car could accelerate in the snow, about whether it mattered who got to the intersection first, and how much hassle it would be to have to file an insurance claim, standing in the cold waiting for the police to come. What can I say? Thoughts run through our heads uninvited.
I waited to see if the Civic would leap out in front. I had been in similar situations before and had been caught off guard when I thought it was my turn, but so did the guy at the other stop sign, and I had narrowly missed being in an accident. I remember the thumping of my heart as I wheeled my car aside, and the way that I thought about how I just didn’t want to get hurt.
As I watched to see if the truck was going to slow down, I noticed the ice on the road and thought about how it might just slide on through the intersection even if it did try to stop. I had an image of being plowed into the next block if it couldn’t stop. A scene from a bad movie played through my mind. I remembered a car accident my dad had when I was young and what my Uncle Jimmy said about 'better late than dead”. I weighed the factors and decided to take the cautious route. I let the Civic go and waited for the truck to come to a full stop before I eased in to the intersection. The guy behind me blew his horn impatiently and I muttered a few choice words under my breath.
I hope I take the same time for consideration the next time I intervene with a youth. A careless action there can be just as destructive.
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I walk into a program for troubled adolescents. One of the staff greets me at the door, invites me in, asks me how I’m doing and offers me tea. I feel welcome in this place. A young person wanders in from school right on my heels. The staff tells him to take off his shoes and go clean up his room. The boy walks down the stairs with heavy feet.
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I watch the staff and the young girl standing in the kitchen making cookies. After the cookies are in the oven and they are waiting for them to brown, the staff starts to clean up. She looks at the young girl and asks her to monitor the cleanup. As the staff putters about, the girl points out that she has missed the flour on the corner of the counter. The staff thanks her and continues. When she is done, she asks the girl to check the job and a few things are pointed out to her about how she could have done better. When the cleanup is finished, the staff and the girl sit down at the kitchen table waiting the last few minutes for the cookies.
Later as I eat one, I ask the staff why she had cleaned up and had the girl monitor her. “I’m trying to teach her how to clean up after herself," she replied. “The first step is making sure she knows what’s expected."
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The busy corner, the welcome, the cookies. When you've got a framework, you've got a framework. And like it or not, we all operate from the frameworks we carry around with us. How to make decisions, what we attend to, how learning happens, what children need, what we should be doing in a given situation, or even, what’s important. These are all influenced by the frameworks we carry around with us.
People tell me I think too much about this work, about all the elements of context which surround every decision we make. I respond that I think we don’t think enough. Doing is good. It is the essence of our field. Doing while thinking, I argue, is even better.
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By the way, here’s a framework I like: you start wherever you are, and go wherever you can. Wherever you end up, is where you chose to go.
This is CYC-Online. It’s a place to tell stories. Short stories that convey something you think is interesting, or relevant or just downright entertaining. Tell us one of yours.
Thom
