Most of my teaching experience has been with adults. However, eight years ago, I was asked to teach a dance class of nine-year-olds.
What I immediately noticed about the kids was their willingness. They did not hesitate to attempt the new dances I taught them; they listened gladly to my comments about their dancing; they were eager to try out new things.
Not only did the nine-year-olds think dancing was fun, they sought out ways to make dancing funner. Giggles, long strides, yelps, high fives ---- if there wasn’t a person nearby to high five, then they would high five the wall. Lots of energy.
This month, I was asked to lead an architectural walking tour for a high school class of seventeen-year-olds.
Eight years had passed since I taught the nine-year-olds, so these high school kids were the same birth year as the kids in the dance class.
We started the walking tour at Union Station, and took a few minutes to walk a block-and-a-half to the Main Post Office. We stopped to look at the Post Office. The seventeen-year-olds started complaining. “How much farther do we have to walk?” “Is there any place to sit down?” “Can we do this tour in our cars?”
Eight years after wanting to make things funner, they wanted to make things easier.
I asked the kids on the walking tour for their opinions of various buildings. They gave me answers, but they were very guarded about it. Their observation skills were good, but the kids seemed to underestimate their ability.
After the tour was over, I took some time to look at the arc from exuberant nine-year-old to hesitant seventeen year-old.
I realized this was an arc that I followed. I went from a youth who sampled whatever I could of the world to a teenager who was concerned about what the world thought of him.
So, that gave me some sympathy for the seventeen-year-olds who seemed so guarded on my walking tour. But I could not find any sympathy for their lack of willingness to walk more than a couple of blocks.
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NOTE: for those people who think that it would be nice to be a teenager again, LCD Soundsystem has a 6-minute song for you. The lead singer of the group used to work as a bouncer for a Trenton, New Jersey, punk rock club:
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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath. Price = $11. You can purchase a copy at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com
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