The Myth of the Empty Vessel

Cameron is the son of a wonderful former kindergarten and first grade teacher from my years of math leadership in Charlotte. He has been counting and “playing” games with me for years now. I love how relaxed he is about learning and how comfortable he is with letting me know he is in the process of thinking about something or frustrated. 

I was preparing to do some work with a group of teachers around early numeracy ideas and Cameron was pre-school age at the time. I decided to use an image referenced in a math research article to test out some of the theories that were being explored. The conversation went as follows:

C: I can count to 20!

Can you tell me how many dots there are here? (Cameron begins to count aloud to 4 before pausing and looking up)

C: There is 3 and 2.

And how many if we count all the dots? (Cameron points and counts 1…2…3…4)

C: I don’t know that number yet.

That’s ok. What if I point and you count?

C: Ok. 1….2….3….4 (pauses)

What comes next?

C: 5. 

How many dots are there?

C: 5.

So you do know that number huh? 

C: Yes.

There is knowing, not knowing and then there is knowing you don’t know. Cameron’s reply was very interesting because he seemed to believe he didn’t know, because he had not “learned” something yet. He perceived the task as something different from the counting exercises we had done in the past. At preschool age, this little dude had picked up the idea that unless someone imparted something on him, he could not know. Nothing could be further from the truth! 

I love this encounter and I love Cameron. He reminds me (even today) that educators have the power to empower students to trust the fact that they come to us KNOWING things. We are not the holders of all knowledge and they are not empty vessels. The job of teaching is much more interesting to me, when I view it as an opportunity to invite students to trust that they already have ideas. To suggest that a student might have something to offer my instruction that I can build onto, is the real magic of teaching.

Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane. I hope you feel inspired to inspire even the tiniest learners to trust their brains! They know more than we think they do!

Until next time…

Kaneka