Learning Along With & From Our Students

Fisher Price Blue Bird Music Box

When I was a baby, I had a Fisher Price Blue Bird Music Box hanging on my crib. I would pull the red string on it, and it would play a little song to help me fall asleep. Being a bit nostalgic, I searched online to find one of these so I could use with Gia, my little toddler. They don't make these anymore, so it was hard to find one, but I finally did thanks to the internet and Etsy! It was used and in good shape, and now it's hanging on Gia's crib. The only little flaw it had was that when I pulled the string, the song would play only part of the song. No big deal, though. It was still so cute, and I was so happy to have it for Gia.

Something really cool happened this past weekend having to do with the Blue Bird. What happened was my almost two-year-old daughter taught me something for the first time! Now, I know I’ve learned things like life lessons from having my daughter, but this was different. She literally taught me something totally new about something I thought I already knew all about. When Gia woke up that morning, I did what I normally do. I walked to her room, opened her bedroom door, and saw her little face light up with a smile when she saw me. Before picking her up out of her crib, we started playing with the Blue Bird. I pulled the string once, and it played only part of the song, like normal. Then, Gia started playing with it and I was just watching her. She started pulling the string, and instead of pulling it just once, she started pulling it about five or six times in a row. Initially I thought, "Woah; please don’t break it" but, I didn't stop her though. I just let her do it. Then she stopped pulling and the song started playing. But, instead of stopping part way through, the song kept playing. The song played the whole way through! My eyes opened wide and I was smiling SO BIG! I was so happy! Because she pulled the string a bunch of times, it made the entire song play. My happiness came not so much because the song played through, but more-so because I was so proud that my little girl taught me something I didn't know before.

After Gia taught me this new little thing, it made me think of so much afterwards....

• It made me think that accidents can turn out to be successes.

• It made me think that I might have missed the lesson if I had stopped her from pulling the string over and over so many times (which was my first instinct, but I stopped myself).

• It made me think that children have so many abilities that we need to allow them to discover and amaze us with.  

• It made me think that if we put children in the "drivers seat" more often, I think we would be so surprised at what they could teach us.

• It made me think of teaching and that we can be ok with learning along with our students especially in this culture of technology which is essentially "their world". We can be ok when learning goes past what we may know and be confident enough to embrace the students who may know more about something than us, and not hold them back. There is so much to learn and understand and we can choose to go along this amazing path together with our students.

• And, it inspired me to write this blog post. :)