The source of a parent’s pride in their child can come from surprising places filled with tiny actions that speak to a deeper sense of self-confidence. A deep breath taken to calm themselves down, an outfit that almost matches put on alone and with enthusiasm, a song sung in their soft, melodic voice or a simple look given that tells you there are a million reasons to be proud. You never know when the next moment will occur that gives you pause and allows you to bask in your child’s accomplishments, but you know it will be delightful.
My most recent experience like this was with my three year old at our dinner table. We play a game or do an activity most nights after eating; on this night our activity was a number mosaic in which you attach the appropriate color to the appropriate number to create an underwater world. I pointed to 14 and asked my daughter if she knew this number as we had recently started working on double digits. After a thoughtful pause, she stated simply, “I don’t know.” And herein lies one of my proudest moments to date as a parent.
As an educator I’m not naïve enough to believe that this isn’t one of many innocences of youth that I will have to strive to preserve. For a three year old, the ability to say they don’t know something comes from a place of confidence and security that hasn’t yet been shaken by relentless testing or lackluster teachers.
As students get older, being vulnerable enough to admit you don’t know or understand something is one of the greatest, yet most difficult-to-retain attributes a student can have when used authentically. It becomes more difficult each year as they wade through a sea of students in a school system that may not fully know how to cater to their learning style.
Certain students feel this neglect in a very real way and become dismissive, and in this instance, use the phrase “I don’t know,” as a cop-out. It limits our ability as teachers to know what they really do understand, but at the same time shows such a tangible sense of pain for these children. They may as well say, “leave me alone, the system has failed me and I don’t know if I can overcome that.” And they can’t, not without a great deal of help and some highly compassionate educators in their lives. But, they also need to learn how to use that same phrase to benefit them.
When students throw out any belief that to not know something is to be stupid or confused or not where they should be academically, then they can make progress. It’s actually quite the opposite of stupidity, when you say you don’t know. Saying you don't know, opens yourself up to a world of education and you can begin reaping those benefits and cultivating your strengths.
It is never my goal to tell a student they don’t know something, but valuable time is lost in teaching when there is a guise of understanding that I have to cut through like the most delicate of surgical procedures to get to the truth of what is truly understood.
The students that make the most progress in my classroom are those who have heeded this advice and have started to truly thrive. As a parent, ranked right behind “I love you,” these are the three most wonderful words I could ever hear my daughter say.
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