Creative Connection, Authentic Reflection
by Kate Quarfordt
I remember the moment early on in my teaching career when I finally understood the overwhelming complexity of what I was up against. I had just written a paper for grad school about Lev Vygotsky and the zone of proximal development (ZPD)—that synergistic sweet spot between what a learner can do on her own and what she becomes capable of when she's helped by a knowledgeable guide. It all sounded wonderful at midnight in the glow of the computer screen, but at 8:05 the next morning in a South Bronx classroom overflowing with 28 unwieldy 7th grade bodies representing a range of cultures, languages, and background knowledge, the truth hit me hard. In order to reach these kids, I realized, I was going to have to figure out exactly where that ever-shifting, always elusive ZPD was for every single student.
Even when my command of the classroom improved and I started getting a better handle on my students' wide spectrum of skills and abilities, I still found myself struggling to deal with the intense volatility of their emotions and the resistant, shut-down places they'd go when I asked about their feelings. This put me face-to-face with one of the greatest challenges of teaching young people: If the best learning happens when students feel most visible and acknowledged, what do we do about the fact that most adolescents seem hardwired to prevent adults from finding out what's really going on inside them? How do we reach students where they are if they don't want to tell us where to meet them?
Over the years it's become increasingly clear to me that, for the students I've struggled most to reach, their resistance really boils down to a profound fear of vulnerability. My attempts as a young teacher to talk kids out of this fear almost never worked; none of my well-meaning assurances did much to convince students they could trust me. Finally, I stopped talking and started doing.
I began to get in the habit of asking my most challenging kids to help me with creative, authentic tasks after class—painting a wall, changing a bicycle tire, or preparing food. By shifting the focus away from the raw, vulnerable place these young people were trying to protect and by relocating the interaction to a shared space of creative cooperation, the hierarchies of age and role would begin to come into equilibrium, and more often than not, the floodgates would open.
Time and again, when we were just sharing space with each other outside of the structures of the classroom, I was reminded that adolescents (and, I would argue, most of the rest of us) need opportunities to pause and check in with what's really happening with our emotions. This realization gradually evolved into another one of the cornerstones of my teaching practice: building time into the classroom routine for reflection.
When we ask kids what they're thinking and they say they don't know, I don't think they're being wisecrackers; I think they lack practice in stopping to pay attention to what they really think and feel. With regular, guided opportunities to investigate their inner life in a simple, straightforward way, students are one step closer to being able to articulate the emotional needs they're bringing into the classroom.
Seven years into what has evolved into a deeply rewarding teaching career, I can't say that I've got it all figured out. But I do know that connecting with students in creative, authentic ways and making time to pause for authentic reflection has made the search for those 28 magical ZPDs in any given classroom a lot easier for all of us.
Kate Quarfordt is founder and director of the musical theater program at Bronx Preparatory Charter School in New York City and a member of ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child.
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