Austin’s butterfly

We have come to the end of the academic year. Reviews multiply. Academic knowledge has use value and exchange value. The first is more than controversial, the second is relentless. If you can prove you received it, it will be exchanged for a promissory note. For some families and some students, the important thing is not to learn but to pass.

At the end of a lecture I gave a few days ago at the Master of Emotional Education organized by Fundación Liderazgo Chile, one of the attendees intervened to express his opinion on what my intervention meant to him. (The conference was titled one of my recent books: “Assess With Heart”). He emphasized what he had learned and finally made an interesting contribution that I will talk about in a moment.

I explained, among many other things, that assessment should be educational, not only because it refers to educational issues, but also because it educates those who do it and those who receive it. An assessment that empowers male and female students and makes them heroes of the process. An assessment that is free from authoritarianism, cruelty and sadism, and considers each person as unique. An assessment that helps understanding, dialogue, development, growth. In short, it is a heartfelt assessment.

During the conference, I told the story “The Daughter of the Oes” that I published in my book “The House of a Thousand Mirrors and Other Stories for Primary Education” a few years ago. A Chilean teacher asks the principal to try to fix a student whose notebook is messy and dirty. He doesn’t know what to do with it. The principal goes to the classroom, asks the girl for her notebook, turns the pages silently until her tail comes to a page where she sees the perfect letter “o” at the top. He asks the girl who did this and says she did it proudly. She congratulates him on his excellent handwriting and leaves. They say that a girl is waiting for him at the door in the afternoon and although they say that he is in a meeting, they do not want to go home without seeing him. The headmistress goes out and sees her morning daughter at the door with her notebook in hand.

  • Did you want to see me Didn’t you want to go home without talking to me? What is so important that you want to tell me?

  • “I want you to see this,” the girl says, showing her the notebook full of O’s.

If the director sees the notebook and tells the girl that the presentation of her work has impaired her eyesight, that the teacher is helpless against her, that it is a complete disaster and that she cannot go on like this without a note. Had it been a good punishment, he would have gone home sad, discouraged, and confident. But that director, with the spirit of an educator, sees where he can encourage him, how he can help him, how he can motivate him.

Thanks to Manuel Navarrete, if I’m not mistaken, by the name of the person involved, who reminds me of another story I knew and forgot years ago and now want to share with my readers. This is the “Austin Butterfly”.

The story was captured in a video where a teacher told and demonstrated to seven-year-old sophomores about a butterfly project that first-year students, including Austin, had to draw in class.

Austin is a six-year-old American boy attending first grade in a town called Boise, Idaho. In class, they are working on butterflies with their friends and they need to do a project about them. The project consists of drawing a butterfly from a model of a photograph from a scientific point of view. In particular, the butterfly that Austin had to draw responds to the “tiger butterfly” species, because its wings have stripes similar to the skin of a predator.

On his first try, Austin can’t get his drawing exactly right and is far from getting close to the photo. His teacher admits he’s not bad, but still can’t get close to the butterfly in the photo. Still, the answer is:good start austin”. To develop this, Austin will use the criticism and contributions of his classmates. His teammates tell him what he needs to improve for the second butterfly model.

Austin develops his second butterfly model based on suggestions from his peers. The teacher comments and appreciates that Austin listens to his classmates’ contributions and puts them into practice. But although the drawing is better than the first one, it is still not perfect, not perfected.

Austin must make a third model of the butterfly. And his third drawing still has aspects that could be improved, as his colleagues noted. They are the ones who are trying to get Austin to develop the butterfly drawing in the most detailed way possible.

The fourth drawing is a really pleasant surprise for classmates. Now that Austin has made a drawing that really looks like a photograph after listening to his classmates, he’s ready to draw it.

The last drawing is really great and the butterfly resemblance is very successful. In the end, Austin got an extraordinary drawing, one that bordered on perfection, because, as his teacher pointed out, he was able to approach it from a scientific point of view, from a scientist’s point of view.

There are several interesting issues in this story. Even though Austin’s first assignment is clearly flawed, the teacher tells him, “Great start, Austin,” and expresses appreciation for the student’s effort and interest. But it doesn’t end there. Suggests a way for you to go beyond what you did in the first drawing. Far from discouraging, it puts him on the path to healing.

The second lesson is how the teacher got the help Austin needed. His companions and companions tell him how he can evolve: the size of the wings, the length of the antennae…

And Austin tries again. It gets better, but the butterfly drawing is still far from the model. The teacher asks the students what is missing in Austin’s drawing to make it better. The boys and girls observe each other and tell them what to fix. Now they tell him to draw the lines that appear on the two wings.

The healing spirit that pervades Austin is fueled by the trust his teachers and classmates place in him. She tries again and again and it gets better at work.

Up to five repetitions of the child. The last one is about color. After each attempt, he is congratulated by his teacher and helped by his classmates. They openly tell him: now you can paint. When they see the final result, they applaud with admiration. They helped their partners achieve success. They experienced the joy of seeing their colleagues succeed in doing the job well with the desire to excel.

Achieving purpose demonstrates another positive attitude, which is to think that what is achieved is good, as in Austin. I say this because perfectionism makes us believe that a fully satisfying job can never be achieved. I met teachers who said that ten is for God, nine is for teachers, and students can be graded from there. They can never be perfect.

It is necessary to combine congratulations for well-done with an incentive to improve. A stimulus that could come from the student himself, his teacher, or in this case, the student’s classmates. Effort goes through the whole process until the desired success is achieved. Think and understand together so that each can thrive. Evaluation is a process of dialogue, understanding and improvement.

Source: Informacion

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