To set the stage I must first give you back story and a visual aid.
It was a hot summer evening in early August, circa 1968, not to be confused with the "summer of 69," my parents were at the Tri-County Fair Horse Show. My brothers and I were left in the very capable trust of my Mother's parents, momma (mom maw) and daddad (dad dad), I was 4 and JM, 5 since February, which means Zack was about 17 months and no Seth for about 2 more years. The house was much whiter then and the closed up sliding glass door had not yet been installed where a window was. the patio area was filled with flag (field) stone, "big flat rocks," and we were all outside. Daddad was tossing a ball onto the roof and JM and I were trying to catch it when it rolled slowly off, never knowing fully which direction to run and catch the ball until it first appeared clearing the gutter. Keep this gutter in mind for later. The roof on the house was a metal roof and as such it was equipped with snow cleats. I didn't know what snow cleats were or what they were supposed to do in an official capacity, but what I did know was they would catch the ball as it was rolling off the roof and redirect it to the left or right before it cleared the gutter. These snow cleats also had the ability to almost completely stop the momentum of the ball and prevent it from rolling off the roof. Evidently that is exactly what snow cleats are suppose to do, stop the snow from sliding off the roof. JM and I were really enjoying our game with daddad and I'm sure to some degree wearing him completely out while Momma was trying to occupy Zack. As I recall she was sitting in a metal rocker type porch chair holding and rocking Zack in fine grandma fashion. Which of course meant she was singing a song (lullaby... NOT) and thumping, yes thumping Zack in mouth with her finger as she sang, somehow thinking this would be comforting to him. This singing and rocking was of no concern to JM and me as we were feverishly chasing the ball and begging for more when the unthinkable happened. The ball gently caught by the snow cleat held to almost an eternity, then slowly easing from the cleat's grasp, but lacked the momentum to clear the gutter, remember the gutter in the visual aid? Now the ball was trapped in the gutter and what seemed to be the certain end to all our fun, but wait maybe we have another ball, JM go check the toy box... no no that was the only ball. What to do what to do?? I know what to do I'll just climb up and get the ball (insert another visual aid here) take a close look at the downspout and gutter. I could climb a pipe, I mean who couldn't climb a pipe.
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I started climbing up the downspout until I reached the gutter at which point I shifted to the finger hang from the gutter hand over hand out to the ball, pulling myself up to look in the gutter to locate the ball and figure out just how far down the gutter I had to go to retrieve the ball from the gutter climb down and resume our wonderful ball chasing fun. I did all these things without being noticed by anybody, especially the adults and if memory serves me correctly daddad was still preoccupied with resting #1 and #2 lamenting about how sad it was that we didn't have a ball to play with any longer,
(it is fair to say I was not yet familiar with sarcasm). upon reaching the ball and reaching up into the gutter holding on with one hand and a chin, I grabbed the ball threw it out of the gutter and exclaimed, I got it!!! and from that moment on boy did I get it!!! Momma turned around and screamed which scared me to death, Zack too I'm sure, and then she said the most powerful words that crippled me for life... she said, "you can't do that!" And from that moment on I couldn't. I had just done what was seemingly impossible for a not yet 5 year old and was hanging from the gutter, which I had no idea wasn't nailed up good enough to hold me, and yet there I was, having shimmied up the downspout and hand over hand out the gutter, retrieved the ball, and now crippled with fear; something I had not yet known. What to do... what to do?? Paul, (daddad) go get a chair out of the kitchen, in daddad went and out he came with a chair that was still two feet shy of reaching my short little legs. daddad on the chair reaching for me; a cook bursts through the restaurant kitchen door screaming for "Miss Jenny, to come quick." Miss Jenny then called for her son Roger, "to come quick and get the ladder. Roger went back in the kitchen to get the keys to the shed. Miss Jenny said, "Roger get the ladder quick before that little "Snell boy" falls. To shed he went and came back with a step ladder, daddad set the ladder and climbed up to "rescue" me. I don't know why I didn't just climb down and avoid all the chaos. I don't know why I froze and just hung there on the gutter. Later, dad and daddad determined my hang time to be at least ten minutes or maybe even closer fifteen. I didn't know what 10 or 15 minutes was because I was still using the "Now and NOT Now" clock and sometimes "not now" was a really long time. speaking of time, (about mid-way across the gutter is where I found the ball) and it only took a few moments to climb and get the ball, and more than forty years later I still can't climb down. I don't mind using ladders and can climb up almost anywhere, but I can't and won't trust myself to climb down. The power of words can and do impact us a lifetime, my grandmother's fear of me getting hurt, translated into filling me with the fear of climbing down. We loved to climb trees as kids, but I never climbed very high in trees unless I could jump out, which is something I had to do, because I couldn't climb down. When we were jumping off the local river bridge all the others kids climbed down to the ledge and then jumped, but not me I couldn't climb down so I jumped from the top of the bridge, a full eight feet or more higher than the ledge. They all thought I was really brave for jumping off the top, but I was actually just more afraid of climbing down to the lower ledge. How does that happen? and Why are those fears so hard to overcome? Even after you gain the ability for logical thought, and greater body control can you just not overcome something so simple. I think this is a question psychologist and sociologist have been trying to answer for a very long time. This has not become a sort of quest for me as well, I have been studying Piaget, Vygotsky, Freud, Adler, Skinner, Maslow, Rogers, and others and their theories about what all the mind can do and does. This melding of reality and perception is a great perplexing mystery. I know from a logical point of view i can work through my fear, yet when confronted with an actual scenario my body betrays my brain. The sympathetic and para-sympathetic systems automatically turn systems on and off, while releasing adrenaline and endorphins. This causes my heart to beat faster, palms to sweat, breathing to become more rapid, blood pressure to elevate, and other clues that my brain perceives as distress and when your are in distress you react in a way that you have been conditioned. If your conditioning has a fear component then it dominates the reaction, regardless of logic. This is why I am constantly asking this question these days... How did you come to know and believe the things you do? Vygotsky and his ZPD is all about opportunity and what scaffolders do with that opportunity that determine a great deal of the outcome. I know this to be true, but want a greater understanding of just why it is true. I feel that if I had a greater understanding of what best to do then all scaffolders could do more and have a greater impact on student learning. Through understanding and applying what I can learn from my own experiences I hope to unlock more of the epistemology mystery. there is more about this story that I will relate to in future posts.
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| The Gutter |
