Drawing What I See

I have been assigned the job of teaching how to build a helicopter that will fly for 8 minutes using a rubberband motor I found out at our first Science Olympiad meeting. It's easy, I have been told, just break it down into steps. My first step is to resurrect the mind of Leonardo Da Vinci, who first designed a helicopter way back in the Renaissance in his breaks from being the greatest artist in the world. Piece of cake! Just be Leonardo Da Vinci II.

Coming from my Destination Imagination background where parents and coaches are not allowed to do a thing, not the idea, not the research, not the building..... I knew this would be a piece of cake.  Step Number 2, I would just pass the assignment on to Asherel.

However, the manager of SO tells me this will not fly ( a little helicopter humor to keep the mobs returning to this site.) She says while she certainly expects the kids to build the devices, the teachers are expected to teach. They are expected to do the research, break it down, and actually know more than the children in their care.

I have managed to go 25 years through three homeschooled kids, and have almost never had to teach something, so I am a little worried. Well, lest you think me derelict in my duties as the educator, I did teach all of them how to use a library card. What more do you need? Yes, computers, but they taught me how to use those.

But no, while kindly said, the SO manager made it clear that I would be imparting knowledge, which implies that first I must become knowledgeable myself.  I sat in the gazebo at the park where Asherel was learning how to play ultimate frisbee and chatted with some other moms. Part of me seemed totally on board with all this, but most of me was wondering if I had enough brain cells left to find out how to make a helicopter fly. And frankly, part of me was rebelling. Asherel is much smarter than me. All my kids are. Most of the world is if we want to be totally honest. So I am plotting how I can appear to be teaching, but really just doing what I have always believed is the true goal of educators- guiding the kids to learn how to figure it out on their own. What are they gonna do? Fire me? I'm a volunteer.

One of the moms noticed that my iPod picture looked surprisingly like the view out the gazebo where we sat.'"Oh, you are just drawing what you see right now!?" she exclaimed.
That is it. I try to draw what I see. And I spend a lot of time looking. It works for finding God's messages in every blade of grass, and I am pretty sure it works for children with feeble guides trying to build helicopters powered only by rubberbands and prayer.

Isaiah 66:2
 ² Has not my hand made all these things,
       and so they came into being?"
       declares the LORD.
       "This is the one I esteem:
       he who is humble and contrite in spirit,
       and trembles at my word.

Mark 10:27
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."