Theory of Digging Holes
We’ve watched them now for months. Session after session, drawn to nothing more than a 4 ft by 4 ft hole in the middle of an urban lot. Dirt, weeds, and shovels. At this point, we just stand back and watch. Never in our wildest imagination did we believe so many lessons could be gleaned from such an insignificant task. What we have learned, as adults, the moderators, the experts, the authorities, is that we do not know it all. And for all our efforts, a lesson will never succeed if the kids aren’t on board.
We started this co-op in August of 2023. Looking back now, the reasons were probably very bland and non-descript. My kids were homeschooled. We needed friends. There wasn’t really a community for us. So, as the adage goes, “build it and they will come.” So I got to work letting each session play out the way I always felt learning should: through exploration and play, allowing the children to lead and me just infusing info anytime they’d give me more than 36 seconds of their time. And the more they ignored me, the more I stood back and watched. That’s where the magic began to unfold.
A significant part of my life and modern culture has led us to believe we are, as adults, the authority. In schools, the teacher has the information, the students need the teacher to present and reinforce the material and the students then have “learned” something. Except, does it have to be that way? Watching these kids, week after week, dig this hole, I’ve watched more lessons unfold and more learning happening without a single lesson plan. More engagement and effort than a child would give to a video game or tv show. This hole has laid foundational groundwork for science, math, engineering, art, motor skills, conflict resolution, problem solving, cause and effect, safety, and more.
This is the fun game for me, as self-proclaimed guide and moderator, for this co-op. How many proverbial boxes can I check off of the standards that would be covered if we cared much for curriculums and benchmarks? The answer: more than you can imagine with some creativity and effort. If we were in a classroom, we might call this project-based learning. But we’re outside, with kids from kindergarten to high school, so we just call it life. How often do we need to dig a hole deep enough for our first graders to be neck deep in? Probably not too often. But how often do we have to work together towards a common goal with Tom scraping dirt from sides faster than Susan can clear the bottom? What happens in real life when we have one goal and too many chiefs? Unclear goals or poor communication? The wrong tools? Too many people working on the exact same problem? Many of you may have experienced this in your work place. Have you learned how to work through these types of problems over time? What if you had had more experience with this type of learning throughout your whole life? This time provides each child an opportunity to reinforce teamwork, work ethic, passion, investment, creativity, communication. So called soft skills that are invaluable in a workplace. Also really hard to teach to adults.
This hole brings these kids together, session after session. What the heck makes them do it, we don’t know. Trust us, we tried to get them to dig useful holes when we planted trees last year, no dice. Do equally strenuous manual labor elsewhere in the garden? Nope. There is a passion and zeal and honestly, universal desire, to see this hole dug. To what end, we still don’t exactly know. But we will continue to use the hole as a platform for learning. Not just for the kids but for the adults as well.
