What we can learn from Children

I have often laugh at some of the things children say. From my past experiences with children they have been known to share some of the most embarrassing details of their parents personal lives, yet other than that they also can offer some great insight into life. Kids see things so clearly, it is not clouded by the many issues, past experience and concernes that as adults seem to get in the way. We need to realize that we can learn from children.

By listening to children we can learn about them as well as their many ideas. A child's innocents, enthusiasm and lack of bias can offer us adults a fountain of knowledge. When I am around children I am reminded that tomorrow is another day and nothing is out of reach. It boggles my mind when the kids I babysit have a huge fight and then five minutes later they are playing together, I wish I could forgive and forget that quickly. I have also learned to take on a problem or solve something differently. I can not tell you how many times I have seen children do something in a way that never even crossed my mind. Even something as simple as putting on a dress up outfit backward because the 'back' has more diamonds on it is something I would never do, the tag goes in the back, yet somehow it looks better backwards. As an adult I have a pre-conceived notion of how to do things, on the other hand children don't, they create a way. It reminds me to perhaps travel outside the box, look at things from another angle. The lessons go on and on.

In Raph Fletcher's book, The Walking Trees, Ralph sees a girl drawing raindbows and discusses how she is going to write a story about these raindbows she loves. Through the disucssion we learn that the rainbows she is reffering to are made with oil and water. At first, after reading the passage I did not understand that she meant the ones made on the road when cars leak oil. Because of my preconcived notion that rainbows are in the sky I couldn't even comprehend the idea. This is the perfect example of how a child appreciates and looks at things differently. What I immediatly concider bad because it indicates a leaking car, she percives as beautiful. So as I go out into the world of teaching I hope that not only can I teach children, but also that I may learn from them each step of the way.