How Old are You?
Years ago my 3 year old niece, Sarah, was playing in our yard when Anne, a neighbor, stopped by. As I introduced them to each other, Anne tried to engage Sarah in conversation with the usual “Hi, Sarah, how old are you?” Sarah kept quiet, concentrating on what she was doing. Anne playfully asked “Are you … seven?” No answer. “Are you… ten?” No answer. “Are you… thirt…”. At that point, Sarah turned around and put a stop to the questioning: “I’m a PERSON!”
A 3-year old person.
Why do so many adults identify children’s age as their key identity? In adults’ eyes, age is often the first entry point to any other dimension (if they get beyond that) that makes children who they are. It’s as if the number of years the child has been alive is the only measure of what a child can do, talk about, or is interested in. We tend to perceive children through the lens of time, a measure that is most frequently used to determine what they have not done yet, what they still have to achieve, what they will grow up into being. In fact, this perception seems to be underlying the reason why elementary schools are the least likely to engage their students in service-learning: according to a 2008 report by the Corporation for National and Community Service 51% of elementary school principals think that their students are too young to engage in service-learning.
When adults meet, they look for common ground:
“Hi, Greg, what do you do?”
“I’m a librarian in Baltimore.”
“Oh, my sister lives north of Baltimore so I’m in that area quite frequently!”
The conversation builds up from there: best places for crabs, the library system, perhaps people they both know.
This is not usually the case in adult-child interactions. I find that, like my neighbor, many adults tend to frame the conversation from what Frances Chaput Waksler describes as “Bias No. 1: Children are unfinished, in process, not anywhere yet.” From that viewpoint, the adult needs to measure where is the child in the timeline of becoming an adult - a peer with whom to address commonalities-, so the interaction is restricted to what makes the child different, distant from the adult rather than on what they may have in common as individuals with different life experiences.
William Corsaro, a sociologist who studies children’s culture, compares the strategies adults and children use to enter into a conversation: “Picture yourself (an adult) at a party… What do you do? Go up to a group and say “Hi, What ya talking about? Can I talk too?” Probably not. You’re more likely to stand near a group, listen, figure out what they are talking about, and make a relevant contribution to the conversation.” In his observations of children’s playground behavior, Corsaro found that kids use this same strategy to initiate interactions with their peers. (Corsaro, We’re Friends, Right? Inside Kids’ Culture, 2003).
Had my neighbor taken the time to find what she had in common with Sarah right there and then, there may have been a conversation. And if the public perception of children was focused on what they can do with the skills, interests, and ideas they have right now, elementary schools would find that children are indeed ready for service-learning.
