When we go through public school, we are sometimes forced to conform to certain norms. For me, that sometimes meant getting punished for creativity. I won’t say I was a perfect student, even if it were a perfect system. I was easily distracted and had a hard time focusing, but I still wanted to do well.
I have a very distinct memory of my 6th grade math class. I was always considered “smart” enough to be on the advanced track due to how well I performed on tests like the PSSA’s. Well, to say the least, that ended after 6th grade. Now I won’t say my teacher was a jerk. But he was old-fashioned and didn’t take very kindly to anyone not paying attention.
One morning, I handed in my homework. It was complete, probably not all correct, but I did the assignment. Scribbled across the top of the page and all along the margins, however, was evidence of my short attention span. Doodles, and lots of them.
Well, like I said, I handed that paper in. But it wasn’t long before I got it back with a note written on it telling me to bring it back home for my parents to sign, then redo it without the doodles and resubmit it. I was about 12 years old.
6th grade was a bit of a culture shock for that part of me. I brought stuffed animals to school pretty much all the way up through 5th grade. But suddenly, while everyone was playing Call of Duty, I was still playing on my Nintendo systems. I slowly lost my group of friends that I had grown up with due to this shift in interests that I never seemed to catch on to, but I quickly developed a new group of friends who shared my creativity.
Through the middle school and high school days, even those friends, while still some of my closest, didn’t really seem to have the same look at life that I did. They were all at the top of their classes, while meanwhile I was struggling in the average courses. “Struggling” only in the sense that my grades weren’t always good. But I wasn’t struggling to stay happy.
To this day, most of this remains true. I’ll still take Donkey Kong Country over Call of Duty any day of the week. I still let my mind trail off as I bomb math exams. But I’m content being a B-average student, because to me, my grades say nothing about who I am. My actions do, and my actions are motivated by dreaming without fear.
Now, as part of what I do at Outdoor School, I get the chance to teach 5th graders for a week at a time each semester. I know that 5th grade was such a pivotal point for me mentally, but I’m lucky to be stubborn enough to not care what people thought and feel like I have to conform to what the education system wants me to do on paper. Not every kid is gonna be stubborn like that.
I use a hamster puppet to help in my lessons. But when I’m at Outdoor School, it’s not a puppet. He’s another counselor, just like me. Sometimes even my fellow counselors question why I’m so dedicated to this puppet, even after hours when there are no campers around. What I say to them is simple. If I don’t believe he’s real, they won’t either.
Kids at that age need to be encouraged to trust their imagination, not taught to stifle it. I believe that I can show them that even a 22-year-old college student can trust it too.
