A friend told me of young girl in trouble at school. She wouldn’t sit still to do her work, and whenever a teacher’s back was turned she would move about the classroom, sliding, hopping, and turning about. Even when forced to stay at her desk, she would stand rather than sit, tapping or shuffling her feet and weaving her body.
Warnings were issued and complaints were made. Eventually the girl was sent to a child therapist for diagnosis and hopefully correction. The girl and her distressed parents arrived at the therapist’s office, whereupon the therapist asked the girl to wait in his office while he talked with her parents out in the hallway.
Actually, outside in the hallway, the therapist observed the girl through a window in his door as she moved about his office, noticing and occasionally touching books and items but mostly waving her arms while sliding her feet about and occasionally twirling her body around. After a few minutes’ observation, the therapist turned to the parents and said:
“Your daughter doesn’t have a problem. She’s a dancer.”
I’m reminded of the ending of John Locke’s Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693), where he urges parents and teachers to fit education to the individual child rather than squeeze the child into a pre-set educational box.
“though this be far from being a complete treatise on this subject, or such as that every one may find what will just fit his child in it; yet it may give some small light to those, whose concern for their dear little ones makes them so irregularly bold, that they dare venture to consult their own reason, in the education of their children, rather than wholly to rely upon old custom.”
Related: My eight-lecture course on Philosophy of Education. Trailer and Syllabus here. John Locke and the rise of modern liberal education are covered in Lecture 4.
