“You create your life, and you can recreate it, too.” — Ken Robinson, Educator
I received a world class higher education, but it was the third grade that prepared me for life.
Unhindered by the pressures of good grades and college admissions, my eagerness to discover and experiment never seemed as pure and uninhibited than in the third grade. My teacher was a free-spirited hippy teacher named Ms. Kenna. Her flowy skirts and wispy gray hair that blithely swept her shoulders seemed to sway the buoyant mood of the class.
With Ms. Kenna, school did not feel like school. The classroom was an indoor playground, where we were given free reign to self direct how we wanted to interact and master the topic she taught us. I don’t remember the topics, but at the age of nine, the feeling of deciding our own agenda was powerful. Whenever Ms. Kenna announced ‘free time,’ my friends who were scattered at the tables around the room would spike a glance at each other, excited to convene to invent our activity of the day.
I remember most fondly the plays that we put on. Instead of traditional book reports, Ms. Kenna allowed us to choose how we wanted to report or present on a book. You could draw a scene from the book or you could write a poem about your favorite character. The options were limited only by your imagination.
I loved the process of taking in information and recreating it. I remember directing many plays, casting my friends as characters from the books we read, and practicing reading out the script I had crafted for them. I became a prolific writer that year. It was in Ms. Kenna’s class where I wrote and illustrated my first book — about a bear who had nightmares.
Third grade was when I learned how to learn, which set me up to process information on my own in my adult life.
That year, I also won my school’s story telling competition — reciting Tikki Tikki Tembo, a recreation of a Chinese folktale (although its origin is disputed). I was obsessed with the story and so urgently wanted everyone to know about the poor boy with the unfortunate long name who fell down the well. I took the book to bed with me every night and committed every word to heart as if the boy’s survival depended on me spreading the news of his plight. Not knowing what stage fright was then, I elfishly chimed the tale in its entirety to my class, and then to my grade to go on to represent the entire school. I came in third in New York City’s Story Telling contest for my grade level.
Thinking back, perhaps Ms. Kenna gave us too much freedom. I remember at some points we decided whether we wanted to learn Math or English. The privilege to figure out how to teach ourselves teetered on exhausting at times. At moments, class felt dysfunctional but we all reveled in the agency that was awarded to us.
When the bell rang for lunch, we scurried to line up in ‘size order’ in the hallway before walking down the stairs together to the cafeteria. We were a squirmy bunch — laughing, poking, and zig zagging down the hallway that echoed our mirth.
We would pass the sixth grade class of Ms. Damon, the most feared and austere teacher in school, where students sat up like pencils, worked somberly at their tidy desks, and only walked in straight lines in the hallway. Even in the playground, her students seemed to locomote linearly in permanence as if Ms. Damon would descend at any moment to discipline them. We felt sorry for her students and prayed we didn’t get her in the 6th grade. It would have been a bewildering adjustment.
Although rambunctious, we had the restraint to not openly display our frisky jubilance. We would ambulate in exaggerated stiffness past the class, only to uncoil and break into giggles immediately after the last person in line crossed into the safe zone of the hallway.
After primary school, I forgot what it meant to enjoy learning. I entered the race to the top, where I skillfully took exams and memorized facts with precision; but not with the passionate purpose in which I recited the story of Tikki Tikki Tembo, but for fear of failing. I withdrew into myself thinking that the only way to succeed was to study. The idea of getting things wrong crept into my psyche.
The creativity education advocate Ken Robinson talked about this in his Ted Talk. He said that if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. In fact, he says that the education system as it is set up, is educating people out of their creative capacities.
I don’t remember when the shift in my learning happened. I used to ask questions in class and eagerly participated in discussions even when I was unsure. I was not afraid to make mistakes out loud. When I recited Tikki Tikki Tembo during the class competition, I totally flubbed at my first go, but Ms. Kenna asked me to stop, take a deep breath, and just go for it again with all my might. The story streamed out of my mouth, and I clinched the win.
Third grade was when I learned how to learn, which set me up to process information on my own in my adult life. Shortly after college, I found out that Ms. Kenna, who lived alone in an apartment in Manhattan was, as I remembered, stabbed to death by her landlord. The news made the local newspaper. It was shocking that an effervescent life that influenced a generation of children would end in such tragedy. A few of my classmates talked about attending her funeral. I don’t remember the reason, but I did not attend.
As I grew into my career, I found my energy being drained by the professional facade of Washington DC, where rules and regulations swallowed innovation and ambitions. I felt powerless, stifled, and, at times, unhappy. A few years ago, as I battled the ennui of professional life, I started an education non-profit in Ghana, called EDUCOA. Its mission is to promote lifelong learning in schools by integrating creative learning principles into the curriculum. Perhaps subconsciously, I was paying homage to Ms. Kenna. The educator, Ken Robinson, had said, “You create your life, and you can recreate it, too.” Thanks to Ms. Kenna, now I know how.
This piece is dedicated to my elementary school classmates who have become my life long stewards of dreams and of living life with vivacity.
