In September of 2007, Jon, Jacqui and Drew Becker (and their two cats Willie and Ubie) left the familial comforts of New York and relocated to Richmond, Virginia. There, Jon works as an assistant professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU); Jacqui works part-time in the VCU Counseling Center and maintains a small, private psychotherapy practice. Jon also blogs at Educational Insanity. Read more about Jon on the Dads page…

Last week, Drew (now 3, going on 33) took a renewed interest in a set of animal finger puppets he’s had since birth. My brilliant wife Jacqui decided to use the puppets as an opportunity to introduce Drew to the idea of preschool (he’ll be starting preschool in the Fall). So, one puppet (the butterfly he named “Boopy”) was designated the teacher; the others were the students. When it came time for me to join in, Drew asked me to be the teacher. No problem. So, in my best butterfly voice, I said, “OK, now is time for free play. All students can go do whatever they’d like. The sandbox. The arts & crafts table. The blocks.” Drew gave me the evil eye (which is actually quite cute, I must say) and said profoundly, “NO. The teacher has to tell them what to do!” [NOTE: As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that those early classes he did with Jacqui at Gymboree may be to blame; he was always the only kid in those classes who followed the teacher's directions step-by-step].

This interaction concerned me. NOT because it made me believe that humans are inherently predisposed to direct instruction, but because Jacqui and I made a very conscious decision to send Drew to a preschool that espouses AND enacts the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. That means that there will be lots of “free play” and (hopefully) not much teacher-directed learning. I’m an educator and Jacqui’s a psychologist and we both very much believe in learning-by-doing and learning by constructing meaning and learning in relationship to others and, and, and… Does his reaction to me indicate that he’s expecting structure? Didn’t he get the memo?

I’m also reminded of an article I read on ESPN.com around Fathers Day. LZ Granderson wrote a great article about his 11 year-old son’s desire to give up playing sports to learn photography. Granderson’s a sportswriter and a huge sports fan, so this decision by his son was hard to accept. Well, I’m not a sportswriter, but I am a huge sports fan. And before we had a child, I had all kinds of thoughts and dreams about playing sports with my child. I was going to coach little league baseball and softball. I couldn’t wait.

To this point, Drew has shown very little interest in playing with balls or watching sports with daddy. He also just had his 3-year checkup at the doctor. His height has been consistent…consistently at the 3rd percentile. Our doctor in NY said, “someone has to be at the 3rd percentile!” But, he has to love sports. I have to coach him in little league. Didn’t he get the memo?

I’m quite mindful of Christian’s earlier post here and our tendency to make too much out of brief singular moments in the life of our first child. But, I do have to remind myself from time to time that Drew’s life is an open book. I cannot write the chapters ahead of time. I need to do what I expect at least his preschool teachers to do and let him make his own meaning of the world.

Then again, Christian, if he wants to become a Red Sox fan, I’ll have to do something about that. I mean, didn’t he get the memo?