Picking Apples

Shuna Holmes, Assistant Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, wrote a blog entitled, “Women are like Apples.”  Okay, I bit (no pun intended).  Here’s what she wrote –“Women are like apples on a tree.  The best ones are at the top of the tree.  The men don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt.”  Not in my case!  I climbed the tree and was blessed to get the best apple.  I found her comments pretty deep because you all know that I like that kind of  analogical and metaphorical writing because I do the same each week.  Even outside of Ms. Holmes’ meaning, there is something here about apple picking.  People go to apple orchards in the fall months to pick apples.  Did you ever see even one of those people climb the apple tree to get the best fruit?  After all, that’s where the best fruit is.  The vast majority of people are content to just pick from the lowest branches and are satisfied with so-so apples.  They stay away from the apples on the ground unless they want to smash them in a cider press for the liquid and leaving the remnants for the critters.  But the really good apples, those near the top – they’re just not worth the climb for most.

Students are much like this.  Many are just content to stay where it is comfortable and eat off the lower branches of understanding.  That’s where the easy stuff is in academic terms.  Those are the branches that hold knowledge and comprehension levels of understanding.  Not much effort needs to be exerted and what the heck, they can still eat.  Some will stand on their tip-toes and pick off the branches that hold application levels of understanding.  The fruit is a little tastier there, but nothing to write home about.  We won’t teach kids to be critical thinkers if we never get them up in the tree trying to pick from branches that hold apples of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels.  Maybe they can use a ladder, maybe they’ll have to climb. It doesn’t matter. We have to get them up in the tree.  That’s where the best apples are.