Let’s Get Lost

Couple of years ago I read a book called Photographs Not Taken, a collection of short essays by contemporary photographers describing a situation where they felt that they missed the opportunity for making a good photograph. Mildly interesting read as a whole, however the book included two memorable essays that were not about the prescribed topic but, on the contrary, about photographs that they regret having made. Their regret was based on the notion that, by photographing the moment, they either altered it with the act of photographing it, or lost their chance of living it.

This notion has sometimes crept up on me here in Mexico, the feeling that our simultaneous reflections on what we are doing here somewhat contaminate the purity and depth of our experience. That by writing about our days, editing the photographs as we go and presenting material to others somehow adds a self-consciousness to the process, resulting in us „performing“ our stay here. Couple of months ago I read Rebecca Solnit´s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, a contemplation on how our most valuable learning experiences result from confrontations with the unknown and how we managed to tackle unfamiliar situations. That by getting lost we are forced into improvising our way back and it is on these journeys that our most valuable learning takes place. For this last month I therefore want to park the computer and forget myself in what is left of this experience. Reflections should come later.

The Point?

Contemplating the workings of the education system this past year or so has been very educational for me. At 45 I am now able to reflect on my own school experience, spanning 20 years, from elementary and high school to college and university, as well as the experience of our two older children, now 18 and 20, and our two young sons who are just starting their journey through the grinder.

Our daughter attended preschool for one semester in New York and then spent one year, along with her brother, in elementary school in Toronto, while for the rest of their elementary school years they attended Austurbæjarskóli, a rather typical public school in Reykjavík. Flóki experienced first grade in the elementary school of Hjallastefnan in Reykjavík before we moved to Toronto again where him and his younger brother attended Clinton Elementary School. In addition, Þórdís has now been a teacher for 15 years, first in kindergarten, then for 4 years in high school and for the past decade as an English teacher at a college in Iceland. By observing her experience, and through our countless conversations over the years, a somewhat bigger picture of the education system has emerged. An experience that I now feel more comfortable commenting on and responding to in more direct ways, occasionally resulting in situations like the one we are now engaged in here in Mexico.

Through all my complaining I have tried to put my finger on what it really is that I want my children to learn, what qualities I think are important for them to acquire before heading out into the world, exploring on their own. I don´t have a definitive answer to this, and somewhat doubt the usefulness of definitive answers to concerns such as this, but here are some thoughts...

I wish for them to maintain their curiosity and to approach the world without prejudice, to question all systems of authority, not take anything for granted, to have the courage to welcome the unanticipated as opportunities to learn something new and to have the ability to critically engage with the unknown in ways that allows them to see things from different perspectives.

I think the school system fails miserably in nourishing these characteristics. I, as a parent, therefore need to do my best to nurture these attributes if I want my children to approach life in this way. If I succeed, then it won´t matter if my kids know the Pythagorean theorems or the population of Switzerland. They will learn what they need to learn.

As parents we should accept full responsibility for the education of our children, we need to decide what we want our children to learn and make sure that they get that education. We can´t hand over this responsibility to the school system, instead we should view it as one element in this process, to try to find ways to make use of it despite its limitations and take action where we think that it fails. Although it´s useful to point to the faults of the system - and we should all continue to change it for the better - we also need to be realistic and evaluate the likelihood of the change we want see. Our contribution to the education of our children can´t be limited to complaints about a faulty system, we need to take responsibility for our children´s learning and do what we feel needs to be done. We may come to the conclusion that taking our children out of school once in a while and expose them to different stimuli is the way to go, other parents might decide to homeschool. We can also be honest with our children about the limits of schools as learning environments so that they can critically engage with it and make whatever use of it that makes sense to them without

Boredom

When trying to put into words our experience here I sometimes - somewhat frustratingly - find my observations reduced to clichés. Something that I´ve heard a million times before but now, beyond merely accepting the idea of some cliché or another, I find myself gaining a deeper understanding through living it. One example is the importance of boredom in the creative process, a concept that I´ve always accepted but now observe regularly around me. Boredom should not be confused with its opposite; numbness from over-saturation of cheap entertainment, although the symptoms can be similar.

Þorri sometimes exhibits restlessness if there is not enough going on but, given the chance to figure it out himself, in the end he usually thinks of something interesting to do or discovers something new inside his head. A few days ago, after several restless circles around the table where I, Flóki and Þórdís were all working, not knowing what to do with himself he kept commenting on everyone else´s work and asking for advice on what to do. Not getting any help from us he soon went off and did his own thing. A bit later he returned, super excited, demonstrating his discovery; that he could extract a deep purple color from a small red flower growing in our garden. From this he logically proceeded to paint war-stripes on his cheeks with the flower, spending the next hour or two as an Aztec Indian.

Invaluable Teachers

Through my years in school I have been lucky enough to experience a handful of amazing teachers, individuals that have inspired me to learn on my own and guided my thinking towards that goal. Lately I have been looking at these experiences in order to find out what in the way these people taught was valuable to me and if these people have anything in common that may shed a light on what makes them special.

During my most recent encounter with the education system in Toronto I experienced a deeper disappointment with the academic process than I had ever thought possible. But I was also fortunate enough to get to know and work for an amazing professor. An individual who´s genuine ambition towards his students´ education meant constantly pushing them to think outside the box. Sometimes it meant pulling the rug of standard academic thinking from underneath them and that was occasionally discomforting for his pupils. But his motivation was a deep empathy for his students and a belief that real learning cannot take place without creative thinking and open exploration independent of the curriculum. While most professors in my experience approach teaching as a process to polish and sharpen their students´ preconceptions, cementing their habitual thinking and conformity, Ed encouraged you – sometimes forced you – to look beyond accepted wisdom, to question and re-evaluate your believes. He expected his students to be genuinely critical - as opposed to adopting some critical theory or another - and to question everything. To use the system/curriculum if and how it was useful to them and to throw out or disregard what is of no use.

Inspiring Legends

While living in Toronto Þorri and Flóki got more curious about rock music and for our last 3-4 months there they got particularly fascinated by two artists; David Bowie and Prince. The rather bizarre coincidence of their recent, and somewhat untimely, deaths has therefore been a source of much questioning from the boys. Having just formed a band with Vasilis where they compose their own music they wonder if musicians possibly live shorter lives than others?

These unfortunate events have not lessened the boys´ interest though, they continue to sing along to Changes and Purple Rain and study the outlandish fashion decisions of 70s Bowie and 80s Prince. Flóki has started designing his own clothes and, although fascinated by the 70s punk scene, he´s also asking for high heels and makeup. Þorri has already designed his own “Devil Guitar” that he wants to build as soon as we come back to Iceland, no doubt inspired by Prince´s multiple unique custom built guitars. To be allowed to re-live these original experiences through observing the wonder in your children is one of the great pleasures of parenthood.

No TV

One of the decisions we made when planning our trip was that this would be a period without television or computer entertainment so before arriving we asked our landlord to please remove the satellite TV, so proudly noted in the description of the house. It´s been pleasantly surprising that the younger boys have not made a single complaint about this throughout all our stay, quite happily inventing their own games with whatever they find in the garden or up the hill while also drawing, reading and playing cards in the house. Every night after dinner we have a get-together in the living room and take turns reading out loud, sometimes lighting the fire in the fireplace, although the temperatures lately have not exactly called for heating up the house.

When we return to our lives in Iceland I think we need to be conscious of exposing all of us to diverse cultural material, in order not to re-normalize American-dominated entertainment consumption.