Confession: I talk to myself all the time.

Not just the banal, absent-minded things I might announce to the world, like “time for a snack,” or the occasional curse word when I hurt myself. I’m talking about full-on, dictating whole paragraphs into the voice recorder on my phone. Often, I do this while walking down the street, hoping that others will assume I’m doing the more acceptable thing of talking to a fellow human.

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As part of our program for The Little Middle School and The Rulerless School, we’re making use of an online learning platform for certain topics.

For each lesson of this program, there is an explanation, written in the format of a graphic novel. There is also a short video.

Some students read the explanation and watch the video, and then they are able to successfully complete the lesson. Others go directly to the lesson. Unsurprisingly, they get stuck.

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Years ago, my sister tricked her kids into eating broccoli by passionately pleading, “Please don’t eat my trees!”

They gleefully stuffed vegetables into their mouths while she wailed, “Noooo! Where will all the birds live?”

At a family dinner recently, I tried this on another nephew, age three, who was reluctant to continue his meal when there were so many other interesting things to do. I’m pleased to report that it worked instantly and repeatedly. He got that look on his face like, “Oh, we’re playing a game here,” and joined me in the improv comedy, eating all the food on his plate.

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The “real world” rhetoric among teachers is relentless.

It’s not all teachers — in fact, there’s an increasing number of teachers who have a more nuanced view. But the prevailing story goes like this:

“If I don’t take points off for late work/give zeros for missing homework/point out every error, how will my student make it in the real world, where bosses aren’t forgiving and deadlines are strict? I have to teach them to follow through on their responsibilities.”

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“I want him to want to do the work for himself.”

I smiled wistfully when my student’s father said this.

“He’s eight,” I replied. “He wants to do the work to please you.”

And that is okay. That is as it should be. We would be in real trouble if the children of the world stopped caring about pleasing the adults they love. We need them to hang on as long as possible (which is until about age thirteen, when they find themselves increasingly interested in pleasing their peers).

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