Little Handles

Gigi Schroeder-Yu, arts education consultant, is a highly valued colleague of the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE). She has taught the organization a great deal about effective arts education inquiry and documentation methods. She is also the mother of a rather astonishingly charming toddler. I visited them in their home in Decatur, Illinois over the Christmas break, and got to see young Sammy in action over several days’ time. Gigi and I decided to take him to the excellent nature center in the area, which sports terrific dioramas of Illinois wildlife (I’m a sucker for a good diorama), a large picture window for observing hungry birds pecking at birdfeeders (complete with a sound system for ease-dropping on their warbling, chirruping, and twittering), and a large aquarium stocked with fully grown specimens of various native turtle species. I thought that Sammy would be dazzled by these large, charismatic, aquatic creatures. But he couldn’t have cared less. He was mesmerized by the wooden cabinet that the aquarium sat upon, and most specifically, by the little handles on the cabinet’s drawers. His pleasure was flipping these little handles up and down, chortling at the noise they made, while I continued my pathetic exhortations for him to notice the turtles.
Now, I can appreciate a little handle as well as anyone. To this day, one of my favorite commercials of all time remains the Chung King Chow Mein advertisement that appeared on television in the mid 60’s. The gimmick was that the meal was packaged in cartons just like the ones familiar to us from Chinese take-out joints, complete with little wire handles. The little handles were featured in the refrain of the accompanying jingle. This refrain gave the jingle its zip.
I also remember flipping the handles on my parents’ living-room chest of drawers during my own childhood. I can still recall my satisfaction upon hearing those metallic clicks caused by my own small hands.
But I am an adult now, and dammit, I wanted Sammy to be interested in what I thought he should be interested in, rather than in what he actually was interested in.
This was not the fist time I had heard tell of a child’s interests trumping an adult’s ideas of a child’s interests. Years ago another valued colleague, Charles Twichell (former CAPE administrative director and now Senior Program Officer for Prince Charitable Trusts) took his then young son to Disney World. Near the entrance to the grounds sat a stone with native lizards basking on it in the sun. Charles was enthusiastic about sharing the elaborate rides and exhibits with his son, but Evan was singularly unimpressed - until they were leaving, and they encountered another family entering the theme park. Evan ran excitedly up to them, proclaiming, “Whatever you do, don’t miss Lizard Rock.”
Gigi and Sammy and I returned to their home, and I tried to interest Sammy in videos I had taken of him rolling a brayer around the house (he is fascinated by rolling objects with handles), but he was more interested in the handle to my rolling computer case than he was in my videos of him on my computer.
So what did I learn over the Christmas break in time for my New Year’s resolutions? Mostly that I need to get a better grasp on letting learners lead their own learning.
Guess I’ll need to get myself some little handles.

Arnold Aprill
Founding and Creative Director
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
www.capeweb.org