“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I got old and forgot what it’s like to be a fourth-grader.”
“Oh. What animal are you on Crossy Road?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. Show me.”
And “Show Me” was the theme for the day I spent in Thatcher Hall learning to be a fourth-grader again. My good-spirited and patient host, Bradley Smith, led me through an entire day in which I was just another kid in class and did everything my fellow students did. Along the way, I picked up some tips for being a 10-year-old that turned out to be just as useful for a 40-year-old.
Expertise comes in many forms and should be shared.
Turns out Crossy Road was a version of Frogger for the iPad, except you earn new animals to play as and there is dancing and aliens. In the 30 minutes before school started, I developed my skills with the help of a dozen students all willing to share their most secret tips for not getting squashed. With a few swipes, someone launched a camera that allowed me to see and record my facial responses to my platypus being smashed by a truck. “Now do it without yelling, Eady.” Eady was our compromise for how to address me. “You’re playing as a chicken. Don’t be one for real.” Then I shared a video I’d made using Action Movie FX to blow up my own children (come on, every parent has the urge at times). Inspired, a group of girls blew up a table full of boys in the back of the room.
Embrace and accept those around you.
When assembly brought an end to the morning fun, I was surrounded by students who were now asking me for tips and my high score. I was already feeling what the rest of the day would reinforce: I was in the most accepting group I had been with in a long time. Maybe it helped that my Frogger skills came back quickly or that I reassured them I hadn’t been planted to secretly assign demerits. As we settled into assembly, though, and I sat trying to blend in, even with my purple oxford uniform in good repair, it was pretty obvious that I was not just the tall, new kid. But they had begun to see me as just another person and soon enough were whispering jokes to me while I told them not to get me into trouble. After all, the Board of Trustees was up front announcing a new playground for them! By the time I scored the first goal in floor hockey during P.E., I was one of the gang.
Be flexible and fair with rules (and life in general).
I’ll admit that my goal didn’t sit easy with everyone. It was followed by a brief time out in which Coach Atha presented a brief lecture on life and fairness. But the adjustment was quick. The other team placed the tallest kid in the class to defend me and I never scored again. However, that did get me recruited for the football team during break and there I really saw flexibility and fairness in play. Players moved in and out of the game, and even between teams following every play. The line of scrimmage disappeared because it slowed down the game. I had forgotten about “do-overs,” which were invoked five seconds into every disagreement, once again to speed up the game. I was moved from side-to-side and then to “all-time-offense” so many times that they finally just assigned someone to tell me where to run next. Quarterbacks actively threw to different receivers to keep things balanced, and visibly struggled when finally throwing to the tall kid that no one could block. Later in the day, we played the classic courtyard game wall ball. When I said I had never played, the response was, “Don’t bother explaining it to him...just watch and learn.” The two main rules were to have fun and do it quickly.
Be excited about and enjoy everything you do.
Fourth-graders prefer to run. When Bradley led me from breakfast to his classroom, we did not walk and ponder the upcoming day. We took off and ran across campus (I had also taken too much time eating breakfast which was cutting into our morning social time). We ran outside to break and we ran inside when it was over. The boys ran to Huffman during P.E. while I power walked with the girls, although I then had to run a lap in the gym with those boys who had done something wrong on the run over. They ran because, yes, they are full of energy but they were also legitimately excited about what was coming next. They enjoyed everything. When a tornado drill cut our floor hockey game short, they did not complain for long before being excited about spending 10 minutes elbow-to-elbow in the boys' locker room. This wasn’t an inconvenience. It was an opportunity to spend time together in a new and exciting way. They talked all morning about Mrs. Anthony reading them a book that afternoon (apparently there was a chance she would cry), about Mrs. Evans' difficult Spanish quiz, and Mrs. Miller’s scary science test. Excitement and pleasure sometimes gets mixed up with nervousness, anxiety, and fear, but how great to feel that range of emotion in a safe environment. The payoff for risk is particularly satisfying when the possibility of failure is present.
Accept discomfort and ask for help.
When I found out I had two tests that day, I got nervous. When I found out the first one was in a class for a language that I had never taken before and the second was over a book I had never read, I started coming up with excuses I could tell my parents. But then I put my fourth-grade mindset back on, assessed the situation, told myself it was okay if I didn’t know all the answers, and started asking for help. Although it’s tricky to keep fourth-graders focused on a topic for very long, walking to and from P.E., I had my classmates drill me on Spanish vocabulary like me gusta jugar al fútbol. During lunch, I garnered all I could about Jiya’s plight in Pearl Buck’s "The Big Wave." I knew I was in trouble, but I was also taking steps to mitigate my anxiety, and hopefully my grade.
Be special, share it, and do it with style.
My fear regarding the tests did not make me unique. Nor did being the tallest kid in the class. Special for a fourth-grader has more to do with capability and everyone had a special talent. One student showed me exactly how to make the best drink concoction in the dining hall. Another knew the favorite sport of everyone in the class. My favorite happened during my single bathroom break of the day. I was finished washing my hands and was asked if I wanted to know the best way to get paper towels out of the dispenser. I offered, “Put your hand over that sensor?” No. I was told that was too slow and didn’t dispense enough paper. With a slow, Jedi-like movement, he waved his hands back and forth across the sensor causing the dispenser to emit a long, continuous stream of paper that hit the floor before we realized we had enough to dry every hand in the room. I tried to do it myself and he tried to help, but I couldn’t pull it off. He just grinned.
School is different and the same.
I really had a great day. Bradley made sure I knew everything I needed to survive. The students truly embraced me as one of their own. When I was doing something wrong, they kindly but unabashedly explained my misstep. I almost felt nervous getting my food at lunch thinking of where I would sit before I was invited by everyone to sit next to them. A familiar panic of forgetting my pencil for math class hit me until I remembered everything was on my iPad. I made new mistakes, such as eating dessert like a fourth-grader which causes a 40-year-old to sugar crash into his bean bag during reading time. I am better at spelling now, completing my week’s work in 15 minutes while my neighbor exclaimed, “That took me three days to do!” I read news stories and answered questions, but it was on a screen instead of paper. And throughout the tight schedule, the work, the technology, and whatever else we worry about getting in the way, I still needed my teachers and my friends were the most important part of the day. Before I headed home, one of my new friends asked, “Are you going to be a fourth-grader again tomorrow?” I told him I was going to try.
Now here’s a summary of the “educational” lessons I learned from the day:
From Crossy Road: Students like immediate feedback and to make progress at their own pace.
From wall ball: Doing is the best way to learn.
From football: Sometimes you need a do-over to create positive outcomes.
From the Spanish quiz: You know more than you think you do (I made a 100!)
Note: Stefan Eady is one of 18 administrators, teachers and staff members participating in Darlington's shadowing exercise to get a firsthand look at what the Darlington experience is really like for students of all ages.
