The “Share Bag” entered our home and proved how un-Reggio these two parents really are. For those of you who have not yet experienced the Share Bag, it is a backpack that the kid takes home, he finds something good (that is not a toy) to put into it and then shares three clues with the class in an attempt to get them to guess what is hidden in the bag.
I felt a certain pressure as I contemplated how to help our son choose what to put in the bag, and Jeannie added to it when she began critiquing my ideas, “It’s got to be something that you can make sensible clues about!”
Now our son has a myriad of craft projects from boats to pulley systems to his self-created books, any of which I thought might make a great share bag item, but he said no to every one of my suggestions. So, I then did what most stumbling parents do, I went through the same list of items, but with greater exasperation. This, for some strange reason, had the same unproductive result.
He then decided that he wanted to put paper airplanes in the bag. Which sounded OK until he informed me that he wanted me to make the all the airplanes. Since I had already assumed I was going to have to create the clues, it was frustrating to discover that I would have to also build the mystery object. This project was quickly becoming my project, going totally against the purpose of this endeavor in the first place. Our son had lost the meaning of the share bag and this is going to turn out to be a rather lame exercise, I grumbled to myself.
I went ahead and made one airplane. I tried to show our son how to do it, thinking I could still involve him in this effort, but he seemed preoccupied. As I made the next three planes, I discovered that his preoccupation was in wanting to fly the first airplane.
Just when I felt most frustrated, he went to the art table, got a piece of paper and proceeded to ask me how to spell “clue”. He put a number “1” next to “Clue” and then asked me to spell a succession of words to form his first clue. He then did the same for the second clue. He then asked me about a few options for the third clue. They were all good clues, they made progressive sense, they were in the right order and they slowly would lead his class to the right answer. I was stunned. My astonishment was based in the fact that I had completely underestimated his ability to create his own sensible clues. I had underestimated my son. And when he ventured off to decorate all the planes with stickers and hand-drawn wheels and then started creating his own plane using paper and scissors, I realized that it was me who had lost the meaning of the share bag, not him. Not him at all.
One point among many appears to us fundamental and basic: the image of the child. The cornerstone of our experience, based on practice, theory, and research, is the image of the child as rich in resources, strong and competent. The emphasis is placed on seeing the children as unique individuals…They have potential, plasiticity, openness, the desire to grow, curiosity, a sense of wonder, and the desire to relate to other people and to communicate. Carlina Rinaldi as quoted in The Hundred Languages of Children
Way to hang in there! It would have been easier to get frustrated and deal with the share bag another day. You went with your son’s ideas, even though you didn’t think they were headed in the ‘right’ direction.
I also learned a similar share bag lesson with my older daughter–to let go of what I think she should bring versus what she wanted to bring. Needless to say, it’s a much less frustrating and more enjoyable process this time around with my second daughter.
Who knew that being a parent to my 3 children, has taught and continues to teach me so much about myself!