Grandma's Cane and Other Profundities

On the wall of my office hangs my grandmother's cane. She used to babysit me when I was a little child and she would hit a ball to me with her cane and I would hit it back. The reason a young boy was willing to quietly pursue this activity for hours on end was not due to any overdose of cold medicine, but rather because my grandmother told me stories the whole time. She told me Bible stories and Ukrainian folk stories and morality tales and anything she could think of during those wonderful afternoons.

Now what does that have to do with teaching today's kids? Everything. The purpose of "teaching" is really to pass on our accumulated wisdom and to enable our children to use that wisdom to think for themselves and make wise decisions in their lives. That requires more than passing on information or skill sets, and it is what is most lacking in the majority of educational programs today. My grandmother did not pass on to me any chemical formulas, any calculus equations, any graphs, charts or literary analysis. She passed on to me something deeper: a sense of purpose, an understanding of the integration of all knowledge and a desire to always seek context and meaning. She also taught me to ask "Why?"

There is simply too much information available for our children to possibly memorize or even review it all. What we must teach them today is to look for the context, to find the pattern, to always seek their purpose and to continually ask "Why?" And we cannot exclude a discussion of faith from the equation. It is the only area of inquiry that can truly satisfy questions of purpose, context and meaning.

That is how learning can be an exciting journey for student and teacher and it is why I switched careers to be involved with education. It is why I look at Grandma's cane every day with gratitude and awe for what she was able to pass down.