As a kid I would sit for hours looking on the sides of boxes of legos and tinkertoys, attempting to recreate the mega machines they were displaying. From the time they are born, kids are  built to be machines of determination. In the history of man, there has never been a toddler who decided they were just not going to walk. They immediately take to trying physical tasks that appear to be a natural sequence of events. Rolling, crawling, stumbling, walking. Time after time of failing and hurting themselves, they haven’t yet developed the capacity to think that something is impossible. When that mental ability sets in it becomes such a huge obstacle in the lives of those who can think abstractly.

    My students have been turning out plays and movies all year. Writing scripts like they are being paid for it. I begin to think like them and the mere immensity of completing the project weighs me down too much to finish, but kids rarely see the whole picture or view the whole vision as an overwhelming accomplishment. In fact, I dare to say that kids do not know the word overwhelming until someone tells them they cannot finish what they started because it’s “too hard” or “you’ll get hurt.”

It’s important to teach kids that good work takes time and that specific feedback is path to growing at skills. Kids shouldn’t feel like learning how to be better at a task is a punishment or a criticism, but rather, what all feed back should be, a guide to improving learning. Maybe we wouldn’t squash their determination if we taught them how to accomplish tasks in collaborative, manageable steps. 

Perhaps we can become inspired by these excitable minds  and continue to try until we reach our goals understanding all the while that achievement of any nature is a just series of steps.

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     One of the strange things adults teach kids is what it means to “waste time.”For instance, those video games are a waste of time or skateboarding is a waste of time. Kids have no concept to put value on the actions they take because everything in the moment is of equal importance as it is in the next moment. It’s not until about 2nd grade when parents and teachers really begin to emphasize, and when the point hits home, that you need to decide what is more important and there in, teach children to put a value on playing with friends or drawing a picture.

      Most of the adults I know who are excellent at their professions are people who spent outrageous amounts of hours honing a craft that everyone else that was a waste of time. This kind of unabashed passion to finish and find out is something that should be encouraged and modeled.  Instead of saying “waste of time,” remind kids to work hard to be good at something.  Reminding them that something can truly be anything.  Remind them to always have 1 good idea and find something you enjoy enough to creatively do it every day.

A good portion of my day is teaching kids to reopen their imagination, increase self confidence, admit the things they care about, and feel comfortable to ask when they need help. The goal is cultivating an encouraging environment that teaches children to leave self doubt behind in order to achieve quality products that contain organization and a sincere amount thought and revision.