#30 - Gotta Sweep! Or the key thing that all learners have to do.

My wife Silvya and I both work in school Systems; with my wife working in a charter in the area that I live in. She works the after school program for this school and is in charge of all the activities. So she experiences and witnesses a lot of interesting and engaging activities that the students participate in. On this particular day it was art day at the after school school program. She came home and said that she had a story to tell to tell me and the dialogue went something like this:

Calvin: Okay, so what happened?

Silvya: So I walked over to this student’s desk and he had a bunch of drawings on his table. 

Calvin: Oh really? What was he drawing? 

Silvya: Well this student is on the spectrum, and he had a bunch of drawings of different people. 

*Silvya shows me her phone with a bunch of pictures.*

*The first picture looked like a girl jumping rope.*

Silvya: He told me this, “This is jump rope girl, it’s playtime!”. (In a squeaky voice).

*She showed me the second picture.*

*This picture looked like a guy that was mostly had a black outline.*

Silvya: For this one he said: “and This is Null.”. And then he said nothing about him.

Calvin and Silvya laughs*

Silvya: After that, he showed this one. *Shows Big Person with Macho Arms.* He said that, “This one, he’s a bully!”

Calvin: You can really tell because he made him look like one of those macho boxer toys. You know the red and blue ones from back in the day? And was drawn next to a vending machine, possibly wanting to knock it over for a free soda.

Silvya: Yes! And this last one he just drew a broom. *She shows me the cartoony green broom with a puff of dust behind.* For this one, he said, “It’s a Broom, It’s gotta sweep!”

Calvin and Silvya laughs even more. 

Calvin: That was such a great story! Wow kids have such imaginations these days! 

And from there on, “Gotta Sweep”, became more or less a saying that we said. It almost sounded like something a football team would say. Like a coach would be asked if they were going to win some games this season, and the coach would respond with, “Gotta Sweep!”.

So why do I tell this story and what does it have to do with anything?

Well on the one hand, it doesn’t have to do with anything. But once you start thinking about the Broom and what it has to do. This is a question that we ask ourselves almost every day of our lives. 

What do I have to do today?

What do I need to do to get a good job?

What do I need to do to have a good life?

What do I need to be a good person?

What do I need to do to have great relationships with the people around me?

See the idea? Us as humans have a lot of different functions than just “sweep”. Of course, that ironically is one of them. We are always just changing modes and trying to figure out what mode we are currently in at the moment.

So let’s dig deeper. In regards to learning, knowledge, and education. What does a learner do?

A learner - understands concepts. 

That’s it! That is all they have to do. If a person is really good at understanding concepts, one concept at a time. One can understand anything!!!

Taking this realization forward, I knew I was onto something and that people struggling to learn things: whether it was school for exams, tests, quizzes, to work for acquiring skills/knowledge/expertise, to other areas of their life including spirituality/ethics/self/ all were trying to conduct in the mode of “learning”. Yet, they just didn’t know what the primary thing that learners do!!!!

Anyways, that is my story! Hope you enjoyed it! Gotta Sweep!