Sean Deakins is an 8th Grader in the Aurora Waldorf School in Anchorage, Alaska. I wondered how a young man sees his own learning. At 13, his experience is filled with intense learning. McLuhan said, “We don’t know who discovered water, but we know it wasn’t the fish.” I was curious to see if, like a fish, Sean was unable to see the ‘water’ he was swimming in.
Sean’s very first answer said that he was ahead of me. When I asked if he were able to keep his knowledge fresh, what would he see that would tell him so. He replied, “I’m not sure about that. There are so many things that I could see. If I was able to do so, I may not see anything because I would think it is normal.”
When asked about lessons he had learned well, Sean was quick to answer as he described his earlier love of knights and castles. “I read books – lots of books, I asked my parents to tell me about Europe, I built dioramas of battles, I spent time on the computer, and I used my own imagination.” I loved that last point. How often we forget that learning is about integrating it all through our imagination. And just look at the passion that drove him beyond anything from school or anything that would be directed by an adult. He wanted to learn about knights and castles.
Sean was also aware of learning by just looking. “When I was 5, I went to Pacific City [Oregon] and discovered spiders who lived in the sea. I was searching in one of the pools on the beach and saw a shell, and when I picked it up, it had 8 legs! I still go to the ocean and just look – under rocks, pieces of coral, whatever.”
This was a very different conversation about keeping fresh knowledge flowing into your life. Here was a person who was in the midst of a torrent of fresh knowledge pouring in practically every moment. His perceptions and stories might appear trivial until you look beneath and see that the learning was happening as if on steroids.
Claudia L’Amoreaux, one of the people featured in Riding the Current, once told me that children are learning machines. “You can’t stop them from learning,” she said. I remember when Sean encountered Second Life the first time. (Second Life is a virtual world on the Internet where you visit with your own avatar.) After two hours, he had figured out more things to do there than I had in weeks of exposure. She was right. Children are learning machines.
4 Comments
So enjoy reading you interview. Buckminster Fuller also recognized the power of imagination in children. I wish you would have described the Waldorf experience that Sean has had. I suspect that his behavior spoke to this…”just looking”. Trago
I am often amazed at the wisdom and old-soul knowledge that children of all ages exhibit during any given stage of their development, especially in their quizzical curiosity and effortless ability to invent magnificent scenarios through boundless imagination and enthusiastic storytelling. I am equally amazed by the fact that most adults suppress that very child within so that the world becomes a screen of grays and black and white instead of the kaleidoscope of colors that comprised their pallets of days gone by. Perhaps this view from a 13-year-old depicts the distinction between how many black and white pages are turned in our adult life documentaries versus how many rocks are overtuned in our youthful fairytales. As for me, I’m with the kid – in Second Life he acted as if he were on vacation while his Claudia was still trying to “figure out the rules.” In life, there are many black letter rules. In living life, however, perhaps we as adults should just turn over more rocks.
Thoughtful blog! I look forward to visiting regularly. I always did enjoy a good story…
Charley, thanks for connecting — or should I say reconnecting. Your comment about Claudia suggests that my writing may not have been clear. Claudia is anything but ‘figuring out the rules.’ She goes through life in full color. If I left you with that impression, it was from my writing not Claudia’s reality.
Oh my! I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that your writing is not clear — quite the contrary! I enjoy your writing and want to order a copy of Riding the Current! You paint such a vivid picture in this article, and I’m sure that Claudia is living life in full color.
I was, perhaps ineptly, trying to bring my own comment to full circle with the beach theme in that your wrote that “Claudia after weeks of exposure” [in Second Life] had not ‘figured out’ as much as “Sean had figured out more things to do there in only two hours” … It was her interpretation of the situation that brought to light the “black and white” of adult mindset vs. a child’s colorful approach to ‘figuring things out’ by instinct, curiosity, and ‘just because.’
My intention was not to offend; rather I was touched by your story and applaud your success! Having a son from the Sega-Nintendo-SuperNintendo (and beyond) era, and trying to keep up with a kid who was always ‘turning over rocks,’ I understand the workings of a youthful mind and appreciate my own ‘black and white’ logic when attempting to navigate a video game. He, too, had figured out more in two days of playing Super Mario Bros than I had in two months. That prompts the many questions on adult learning and information retention that your forum so adeptly addresses. As an adult, my son was unable to think so colorfully at the end. And to that end, I wonder how old he was when he gave up his watercolor dreaming and began to think in black and white, like me, like so many of us who are bombarded with information overflow.