My family is fortunate enough to have a place on the west coast of Victoria to which I regularly retreat. Most weekends, I’ll head down – even just for a day- to walk along the cliff top and take in the wide skies and the vast oceans. This is my time for replenishment. I try to breathe deeply (literally and figuratively), to notice the world around me (last weekend I spent a deliciously long time watching a pair of Gang Gang cockatoos making short work of seedpods in a tree on my walk) and often to write in the kind of uninterrupted silence that leaving the city allows.
In my part of the Australia, winter can seem to go on forever. Even as summer approaches, I often arrive to a freezing cold house, so the first thing I need to do is to make a fire. I used to be terrible at this. In my impatience to get warm, I would hastily throw paper, twigs and logs into the fire all at once– piling it up with fuel in anticipation of an impressive blaze only to find it either would not light at all or would give me a few minutes of heat before fizzling out altogether. To be honest, if my husband was with me, I would inevitably ask him to rescue it which he always would…for a while there I decided I simply was “not good at making fires’ – how’s THAT for closed mindset!
Over the past few weeks, my husband has been away so my trips to the coast have been solo ones. And it has been unseasonably cold. I have had to learn to make the fire if I wanted to write in comfort. In truth, I have been told many times what to do…. but never really listened. Impatient and cold, I just wanted it done.
I can now say, with some pride (and also some embarrassment that it has taken this long) that I am a successful fire maker (most of the time). It was pretty easy really. What did I need to do? I needed to slow down and start small. Gather the thin, dry sticks, break them up and loosely intersperse with paper. I needed to create a structure with plenty of air and stop smothering the fireplace so quickly. I make a kind of pyramid - plenty of space but with the twigs and paper connecting so they light each other. I used to close the door of the fire quickly, but I now know I need to leave it open…it needs so much more air than I realised. And I need to be patient and watch. At times, even in the early stages, the fire begins to wane, and I have learned to gently blow on it, nudging the heat to return. And then, when the fire seems to have truly gotten underway (always takes more time than I think it will), I can start to place a few bigger pieces in to the midst of it. I do it carefully – always allowing space between the logs, and waiting to see…is it too much? Too soon? As the day progresses, the heat of the fire intensifies. It means I can put more logs on and know the fire will sustain itself. I step back. I don’t need to watch so carefully, the fire is feeding itself for the most part. Patience, space, gradual building, time, structure, observation, trust…why weren’t these things more intuitive to me? They are, after all, the elements of building a strong inquiry culture. Fire building as a metaphor for teaching had not occurred to me until this morning when I came across this remarkable poem:
What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible
We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.
Judy Brown
retrieved from https://www.judysorumbrown.com/blog/breathing-space
Occasionally, people will send me ‘unit plans’ for inquiries they are yet to embark on (a kind of contradiction itself). Most often these plans are chock full of proposed learning experiences – things that teachers have decided they will ask the children to do/listen to/read or watch. Activities are scoped out sometimes for weeks - and there are lots of them These units are like the fires I used to try to make. Impressive at first, Impatient, full of potential fuel but no space for oxygen. No space for possibility, uncertainty and wonder. Is it any wonder we find children less than enthusiastic about these over-planned journeys? Is it any wonder they don’t have questions? Is it any wonder we find the fire dies down quickly and these units seem to either drag on or fizzle out.
Like a fire, an inquiry journey fares so much better when we leave lots of space for the oxygen of the unexpected and for learner theories and questions to help light the investigation. Rather than ‘loading’ the fire up at the beginning, we need to wait. Get a spark going, observe, gently provide possibilities and allow the inquiry to take hold of learner’s minds and hearts. This takes time. Once the heart is engaged, the fire begins to take hold. We keep watching, keep stoking – enjoying the intensity, the passion, as it begins to sustain itself. I used to approach my fire making with a sense of urgency. I was completely outcomes driven. The faster and harder I attempted to build, the less successful I became. Cliched as it sounds, I have learned to be present in the process and truly enjoy the art of the making itself. I know understand my husband’s almost meditative joy in the process - the careful placement, the watching, the waiting, the trust, the gentle building. And of course – “the outcome” is so much stronger than it ever was.
The fuel is important but only in relation to the spaces in between.
How much space do you allow when you are designing for inquiry?
Have you learned to go slowly? To wait and watch?
Does your structure allow for the unexpected?
Do you enjoy the process?
Just wondering….