I am becoming increasingly curious about the role of real world jobs for children. Having been a teacher for 4 years I am doing some reflection on this topic within the context of my own classroom. Jobs as simple and important as cleaning the floor or the windows.
Today I had the winter tires put on the car. When it was time to pick the car up Charlotte and ruby both came with me. When we got home and I began to unload the tires from the trunk they both asked questions about what I was doing. And hen they both asked if they could help. They were thrilled with the opportunity of rolling the tires up the driveway to the garage. Sure one of them fell on Charlotte's foot but she figured out what to do.
And this is why I am curious about the re of real work I. A child's life – because these are the scenarios when one must figure out what to do – often on ones own. I wonder if the reason we hear so much about a lack of creativity and drive and curiosity is because we have outsourced so much of our lives that we actually spend very little time trying to figure out how to accomplish what we perceive to be the most basic of tasks. We spend so little effort trying to figure out how to achieve something for ourselves – often choosing to pay to have it done by someone else. What are we giving up by making the decision to outsource these basic functions? What learning do we forego? What sense of being able to take actual care of ourselves and our belongings do we give up? It seems to me that we are giving up much of our autonomy and responsibility. And the how does this spill over into the rest of our mindset? If we are willin to give up the responsibility for cleaning our homes then does it become easier to give up the responsibility for caring for our environment? We have been indoctrinated to pass the buck so as to get something done for ourselves. But at what cost?
I am going to keep doing these jobs with my kids whenever I can. And when I get back to teaching I am going to make Doing chores a regular part of my classroom experience.
3 Ginger Snaps 