Climbing Both Sides of the Fence

I was taught that if you sit on both sides of the fence on issues, then you will get splinters on both sides of your rear end.  My son and I were traveling on the Dan Ryan about a month ago to move some things to my oldest daughter's apartment in the city. We had a few hours (nice inbound traffic jam around Cellular Field) to talk about topics ranging from the national debt to why the Browns can never seem to convert a third and one.  This night, our conversation turned to immigration.  He understood that we have some Scottish roots on my side and some German roots on my wife's side.  Somewhere across time, our ancestors made that voyage across the big pond to Ellis Island.  Hundreds of thousands made a similar voyage across the Atlantic.  Today, the majority of immigrants come across our southern border.  We talked about the magnitude of the job that border patrol officials have with hundreds and hundreds of miles of fence line to cover. I have read of estimates in the millions of people who have come across our southern border.  That’s a lot of fence hopping. That got me thinking. How many climb the fence the other way? How many Americans hop the fence heading south?   Did you ever think about that?  I would bet you wouldn't have to take your shoes off to total it up. No, this isn’t heading toward a personal view of immigration policy or how much better the United States is than Mexico.   No, this is about climbing both sides of the fence and how little of it there is.  There is a lot of climbing one way to reach a destination, but not so much climbing in the other direction.  Hopefully, I can tie this together for you and you will understand that you have to climb both sides of the fence.

In education, you have to climb both sides of the fence if you want to reach kids.  Think of fences as those barriers to kids learning. Some are fences that kids put up because they don’t want to let many; if any, in. That’s an aspect I will save for another time.  Kids learn in multiple ways.  Some are much better with the visual side of things while other insist that they “auditory learners”.  Both are perceived as “fences” to the other.  There are kids who are perceived as “tactile/kinesthetic” learners.  Seeing and hearing are thought of as fences in their way.  The more we continue to believe that kids can only learn in only one way, the stronger we build those fences. That isn’t differentiation.  That is why I am advocating that you should climb at least both sides of the fence.  The truth of the matter is that visual, dramatic, and verbal instruction all enhance learning.  The fence here is three-fold so you will have to hop over a few times.  Visual instruction has a higher effect size that the other two so my advice would be to stay on that side of the fence for a little longer.  Some fences are designed to be decorative, but most are there for a reason – they are barriers to prevent others from getting somewhere.  As a teacher, you need to climb both sides of the fence as many times as necessary to reach your destination – that would be kids who are growing in their education.  We need to provide them with opportunities to think it through, to be challenged at higher levels.  There will be fences in the way.  Go over them.  Climb both sides of the fence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Browns play at home vs. the Ratbirds from Baltimore this Sunday on the shores of Lake Erie.  Can we go two in a row and three out of four?  I’ve read the book and seen the movie for decades.