The Rookery

The Herons were at the ropes course, looking up at all of the events before we tried them out.  Some were excited; some were nervous.  Our leader, Emma, asked what we would need.  One child volunteered, "Courage!"  Emma pressed a little, "What do you mean?"  Another Heron, who I knew was worried, yelled, "Pizza!"  

Before I could step in with a re-direction, Emma went with it.  She laughed and said, "I am definitely going to en-pizza you when you are up there on the ropes course."

For a few beats, I was puzzled, "En-pizza?"  Then it hit me, "En-courage"  Somehow, in my forty-four years on the planet, I had never really thought about the word "encourage."  I'd said it hundreds, maybe thousands of times.  It was a large part of my job both as a teacher and parent and yet had never really registered that the word "courage" was in there.  OH!

Courage is being willing to try even when you're scared.  And learning, real learning, is about being uncomfortable and taking risks.  Often, there is an element of fear involved.  In real learning, failure isn't just a possibility, it's inevitable.

So our work is to en-courage.  We give courage.  We make brave.  We cheerlead, we console, we scaffold.  We remind our kids of past success (and sometimes remind them that past failures were temporary.)  We model and talk about trying and failing (all of the time.)

Before she went across the single wire, Emma shouted down, "I could really use a pizza delivery!"  The Herons cheered her across the wire and then cheered each other as they took risks and met the challenges they set for themselves.  En-pizza, indeed.