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<\/p>\nExcept for my students, I probably learned more from Sadie than anyone else on a daily basis. Sadie was a 10 year old basset hound and she passed away unexpectedly late last month.<\/p>\n
She looked like this:<\/p>\n
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I had clocked it one afternoon in June: it took Sadie and I 52 minutes to go around the block. This isn’t some irregularly long block and it would have been substantially longer if I\u2019d allowed her to indulge in a particularly odoriferous patch of dirt or to continue to bark socially at the black lab up the street. I\u2019ve yet to meet a dog (or a person for that matter) that can be as simultaneously lovable and infuriatingly stubborn as Sadie. And while the seemingly never ending walks have ended, I wanted to share just a few of the many things Sadie taught me about education, the way we learn, and the process of schooling.<\/p>\n
First of all, the obvious: like her walking, learning is going to happen at its own pace. It doesn\u2019t matter if the latest episode of the Voice is starting in ten minutes. It doesn\u2019t matter if my slurpee is rapidly melting or if perishable groceries should be stored in the refrigerator. Sadie\u2019s walking cannot be hurried. For her, walking is learning. It reinforces the information that she’d been processing before and offers new knowledge to integrate into her sense of being. Each new scent, each suspicious passerby, each canine (or even better feline or squirrel) is new information and a moment for the world to expand for Sadie. And this, at least as I understand it, is kind of what it’s like in our classrooms. On a good day, we can change the world for students; we can make apparent the magical, undiscovered viewpoints, concepts, literacies and skills that help them unlock new pathways for traversing and understanding the world.\u00a0 And, on a good day, they too can change our lives.<\/p>\n
Related to these mediations on walking, Sadie taught me that sometimes learning can\u2019t wait. I\u2019ve been on conference calls with, for example, superiors when I was working with the Department of Education when Sadie would announce with finality that it was time to go out and take what the world has to offer. Her bellowing barks would occasionally elicit laughter from people on these phone calls, if I was speaking or had not muted my phone line, which was embarrassing to say the least. If recent school conflict, in-class tension, or current events are driving the interest and motivation more than my pre-planned lessons, it becomes clear that my students are requiring an imperative shift in instruction for the time being. Like Sadie, student learning needs sometimes present themselves at times when they are unexpected.<\/p>\n
Likewise, I’ve left, in the past, social gatherings early and made roundabout detours to others in order to let Sadie out into the world for her walks. Part of teaching is learning to negotiate the demands of an entire learning community.<\/p>\n
Sadie\u2019s an adaptive walker. When we first began strolling together, I could gently yank on her leash and she would move according to where I would guide her. However, shortly after Sadie realized that as the alpha individual in our meandering learning space, she would dictate how a lesson would unfold and the time it took to cover specific, grassy content. For example, Sadie knew that when I pulled on her leash in one direction she could quickly throw her weight in the other direction to counter my efforts and change our trajectory. Sadie learned a physics lesson about force and acceleration through engagement. I learned a lesson about the necessity to adjust my pace of teaching by being attentive to the needs and individual journeys of the students I work with.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, I realized that I couldn’t speed up the process of engagement or learning for Sadie. Shortening the length of her walk would actually be pretty disastrous; considering I don’t have a backyard, the necessity for Sadie to get the most out of her walk and the walk to literally get the most out of Sadie is pretty clear.<\/p>\n