No Greater Joy

Dear Friends -

The good news about my Avian Rebbe work is that it’s always a joy. Going to the parks. Seeing beautiful birds. Having quiet time to wonder & wander. Even scribbling these little missives! It’s all good. Sometimes, though, it’s even better. That’s what I want to explore this morning.

I was recently invited to teach. I’ve done this many times to civic groups, synagogues, churches. Piece of cake. But this session was to a classroom of K-6 Jewish day school kiddos. TOTALLY different deal. How do you keep 30 active minds(/bodies!) focused and engaged? How do you explore deep and interesting topics while making them accessible to an audience without the vocabulary? And the inevitable - how do you handle genuine questions that far outstrip your own knowledge???

It was so good. I came in sporting the full Avian Rebbe regalia. Hiking boots and hat, sure. But also binoculars and a big ‘ol camera around my neck. Every kid got a snapshot of the owl below. This was something they could hold. And keep. They had all the cues that something different was happening today.

We immediately jumped into question time. And when a chorus of 30 littles’ voices all yell back, “It’s an owl!!!!” it’s just impossible not to smile. We’re off to a good start. I asked them a bunch of questions. They asked me even more. They almost always knew the answers. I more-than-frequently did not. Did they learn something from me? Absolutely. But I’d be willing to bet that I learned more from them.

We talked about questions. It’s why I brought the owl. “OK, friends. What does an owl say?” “Who? Who? Who?” That’s right. And from there, we were off to the races. Is the owl really asking a question. Certainly not. But can we, in our experience of the owl, take it as a subtle reminder that we should ask more/better/richer questions? Absolutely.

I was most hopeful, and most concerned, about my goal to help the kids tease out the importance of questions. Particularly, I wanted to draw the distinction between “intelligence,” either raw smarts or knowing lots of stuff, and “wisdom,” the ability to appreciate context and the limitations of intelligence. When a kiddo is 5 years old and likely hasn’t even learned to spell these words, I didn’t have high expectations for my own ability to communicate them in a meaningful way. Fortunately I was rescued.

What we as a group discovered, the kids leading me, was that learning isn’t about what you know - already - it’s about what you can come to learn. And that’s fully a function of asking good questions. What I re-learned is that kids, the younger the better, are endless fountains of questions. They ask them genuinely. They ask them fearlessly. They ask them hungrily, fully wanting to learn more. When we say that there are no dumb questions, they actually believe that - and act on it.

I’ve not ever taught as the Avian Rebbe in a secular classroom. And what memories I have of my own such days are pretty hazy. I recall some, a few, teachers who heartily encouraged my own frequent questions. Many others, the majority, seemed to resent my intrusion into their pre-scripted narrative or thought I was trying to find holes in their knowledge. In retrospect, it’s terribly sad.

These kids had an entirely different environment. I certainly won’t say that it was only because they’re studying in a Jewish day school. Surely there are plenty of other schools that encourage the same approach. But it would be hard for me to imagine a Jewish educational institution that wasn’t built around questioning. Of course there’s some rote learning and memorization, but even the subject matter of those types of lessons, I’m thinking of the Seder or even Talmud, would be others’ questions and debates.

When I walked in, I was a little hesitant about pushing questions. Maybe it was subversive or intrusive to tell kids what to do, potentially misaligned with what their teachers tell them what to do. Nope. It became immediately clear that these classes were built around unfettered questioning. It was a delight - including when they asked me all kinds of questions to which my only honest answer was, “I don’t know, but let’s find out!” Maybe a little wisdom snuck into the mix.

What I didn’t tell the kids, what I will share here, is my awareness of how social structures and adult life beat questioning out of us. Whether it’s a business context, or parenting, or even just social interaction, we have a bizarre set of norms that mislabels a desire to know as a lack of knowledge. Who? Who? Who? does this? Way too many (grown-up) people. What would it be like to have a business planning team filled with people who have all the intelligence of adults coupled with the voracious questioning and genuine inquiry of 3rd graders? I imagine you’d run the table.

Decades from now, I sort of wonder if the kids will remember that strange man who showed them the owl photo and asked all those questions. Perhaps more importantly, I hope they internalize - deeply and fully - what we did and bring that same spirit to bear in all their learning. If they don’t remember who?, who?, who? it was that inspired them to do so, that’s just fine. I’ve got the memory of my day, and there’s no greater joy that I need.

Be Grounded. Fly High.

The Avian Rebbe