Grammar of the Heart

(originally published on Boundless on January 7, 2012)

This week my students packaged up a book that was carried to the small village of Katholk, Southern Sudan where the children there would open it up to find letters and pictures from each of my 84 students describing everything from a typical school day to Thanksgiving to hairstyles to fire trucks to bathrooms.  Julie Elmore, our friend and correspondent from Sudef, the organization we are working with, also delivered paper, pencils, crayons, and markers.  The children will tell their own stories to her and for the first time ever, hold school supplies in their hands and draw pictures to return to us.  Once we have those, we will narrow down our own words, involve some of our own artwork and Julie’s photographs, and write a book that is the collaboration of children in a small town in NH and children in a small town in Southern Sudan.  We hope to find some generous publisher who will consider this book, and then donate any proceeds to the building of the health clinic and school in Katholk.  I think this is one of the most remarkable projects my students have ever taken on.  

But it was not my idea. 
It came from a conversation my students had after they were immersed in an integrated unit on Sudan last year.  They met Abraham Awolich, a Sudanese “Lost Boy” who now resides in Vermont, but travels to Sudan regularly after his 20 year absence to help his village build the resources needed to sustain themselves.

I often find that when we give children the space and freedom to think and explore, they can create amazing, deliberate, well-designed plans.  They can extend their hands out into the universe and grasp at stars that we thought were out of reach.
  
I ponder this this morning as I grade grammar tests.  The girl who precipitated the Sudan book idea got a C on her grammar test.  Not bad, but nothing that will light the world on fire, either.  It’s a C.  Average.  For 10 weeks we have been studying grammar.  Ten weeks.  No creativity, no exploration of ideas, no service learning, just grammar.  And she came out with a C. And I wonder which will impact her character and her future more:  knowing the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb or knowing how to make change?  Which was a better use of her time?  

Yet, knowing how to reach out to other cultures, how to change conditions that seem unjust, how to pursue passions, and how to inquire about that which they are interested in are not part of our curriculum.  They are part of a secret curriculum of the heart  that I think most teachers carry with them, but they are not tested and they lose importance in the name of accountability and expectation.

For the most part, I believe that if I teach my students to read and write about what they are invested in, they will perform fine on the “tests.”  But I teach a discipline where that can be fortunately true; the discipline of words allows for the integration of the spirit.  Not every teacher can boast this fortune.  So how do we meet the demand for excellence while respecting the need for individuality, dreams, and hopes?  How do we make school a place where students can strive to be their best and that their best is recognized and applauded as an individual pursuit?

We are rigid about what our students learn, and the current trend in education is to become more rigid in the face of testing, despite what the research, our experiences, and our intuition tell us.  The ten weeks this girl spent in grammar may have given her a base to rely on when she arrives to the expectations of high school knowledge; it certainly gives us a common language when we discuss her writing, but it in no way changed her character for the better.

And this should give us pause.