idea

every child i've ever taught has been blocked. i say "what do you think" and they shrug and say "i don't know"

they think they have no ideas.



i just spent the afternoon talking about an imaginary animal with a bunch of 7 year olds.

one child kept saying "but they don't exist" and i was getting increasingly annoyed with her.

then another child said "yeah, but they can exist, they just move so fast that you can't see them"

then another child said "just because you can't find them doesn't prove they don't exist - they could be in one place and you could just be looking in the wrong places"

then another child said "the animal is just like god"

then i realised that the child who denied the animal's existence simply didn't believe in the animal and my irritation with her melted away.

then asked them what would happen if i rubbed the animal off the board and they said it would die.

one child said it wouldn't die because it would be alive inside her.

i asked what would happen if she died.

she said it would die with her.

i asked how they could prevent the animal dying.

another child said "we need to keep telling other people about the animal"

i told them that the animal was an idea.

and asked them what would happen to their ideas if they didn't tell them to anyone.

and nearly started crying in the middle of the classroom.

am i having a nervous breakdown?