Jeremy is a tiny boy. He has sandy blond hair, with blue eyes sized large in proportion to his pentagonal face.
There was nothing remarkable about him except his constant grin.
His artwork in Kindergarten was a struggle. When the class was learning the Human Figure, I taught the children about different colors closest to their own skin color. By laying the colored Art-Stix on their arms, they could see which color came closest. Jeremy picked an aqua green.
Most people don't know that in mixing colors for human skin, artists add green.
Despite it being odd for a Kindergartner to pick green for human skin color, Jeremy was not 'wrong' and I told him why. This explanation probably was more than he could understand but by the tone of my voice, he could probably tell his different choice was entirely "ok".
I came away from that class wondering: "is Jeremy an intuitive genius?" Watching him for the next two years, my gut feeling concluded that he was not. His work in Kindergarten and all through First Grade showed no repeat of genius. In fact, I can't recall any other work he did. That's what I consider unremarkable. Unremarkable work but great grin. He always put forth great effort, was a mild mannered person and was altogether a sweetheart and a pleasure to have in my class.
Second grade for Jeremy started two weeks ago. Due to hurricane days off and holidays, yesterday was the first day he came to my new program, "Science/Art".
Knowing the bulk of the students since they entered school in Kindergarten is a real bonus on getting work done the first day of my class. Introductions were not necessary and I know their work strengths by the time they are in Second Grade.
My Apple Snail shells proved a hit with this group too. On the tables ready for the physical examination of the Apple Snail shells were thermometers, flexible tape measures, weight balances, two types of magnifying glasses and hard rulers. The children brought body tools with them: eyes that see, ears that hear, noses for smelling, fingers and faces for touching. (No tasting please!) And for those who wished to write things down, the tables had pencils, crayons and large white papers.
After demonstrating the use of the tape measure and thermometer, I set the children free to explore. A room buzzing with noises of students busily working their curiosity up is the sound of science.
Walking around to hear what they are discovering is how I kept aware of their progress.
Coming to Jeremy's table, I stopped. This little pinch-of-salt-of-a-boy had no grin on. He looked very serious! I had to see what changed Jeremy's normal behavior.
He had placed his snail shell into the yellow balance cup and the balance cup dropped to the table. I watched him take a crayon and place it in the red balancer cup. Jeremy was actively measuring. Jeremy was thinking! He was thinking hard! The shell weight did not match his expectations so he formed his own problem to solve.
His young pentagonal face now wore the self-respect of a man in deep thought.
I helped him work the problem out.
The conversation went like this:
Teacher - "Jeremy...did you think the shell would drop the balance cup before you put it in?"
Jeremy - "no...I thought it was much lighter"
Teacher - "I see you putting a crayon in the red balancer cup..why are you doing that? "
Jeremy - "to balance it out."
Teacher, -" how many crayons (these are the big fat crayons) do you predict will balance it out?"
Jeremy- "eight", (He said that with assurance).
For the next few moments, Jeremy struggled to balance for the equilibrium. He discovered that the fat crayons were too heavy. So he tried broken fat crayon pieces. He was right on track but got stuck because he wouldn't consider purposely breaking crayons in my class to get that needed balance. That got him stuck. I suggested the smaller, thinner broken crayons. He fished through the cups of crayons on the table to find his balance equivalent. When he succeeded, we talked again:
Teacher -" How many crayons did you use?"
Jeremy -"Five pieces".
The photo of that selection is at the top and bottom. It was a particularly sensitive balance.
The point of this story is this: Jeremy didn't show much curiosity in Kindergarten. I honestly suspect that green skin choice was because he liked that color the best. The aqua green is the most popular color of the extended set of Art-Stix. I believe he sort of "went with the flow" than having an intuition peak. Through First Grade, he was exactly the same: he did his lessons to the best of his ability with no outstanding talents or problems. There's no negativity in this assessment; this is a perfectly excellent way to be.
I had no reason to suspect he changed in Second Grade. He was still small. If he grew over the summer, it was a smidgen. He hadn't lost any teeth in that lovely grand grin.
But there was a huge change! His "thinking lights" clicked on.
My question is: "what turned his lights on?" If his physiology didn't mature very much, I had to guess the stimulus came from elsewhere.
Was it the science tools that brought it out? This is a new stimulus in my class.
From what I've seen in the classes three weeks into this new hybrid program of Science/Art, I would say that Science tools incites tinkering....and tinkering incites thinking.
The "lights' went on for me too! I am improving the lessons all the time. Because of Jeremy, all the students coming after him will be supplied a second set of balancers. Because of him, I now know that his shell equals the weight of a half green/yellow, a quarter of a white, a slightly larger quarter of a dark red, a quarter of a sienna brown and one whole fat purple crayon. Measuring in colors...a unique exchange.
And now I know that Jeremy can think empirically. That's a light turned on.
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