A Scaffold

 

Yesterday a (large!) group of ladies from my church gathered to pray for me and my family.  It was a sweet, sweet time.  It amazes me how God uses His people to allow us to tangibly feel His love.  More on that later.

I was most struck, though, as I looked around the room, at the wide age range of women there.  Women older than my mom.  Women my mom's age.  Women 10 years older than me.  Women 5 years older than me.  Women my age.  Women a little younger than me.  I realized then how blessed I am by the diverse relationships in my life.

My favorite educational theorist (yes, that makes me a nerd...I never claimed otherwise...) is a man named Lev Vygotsky.  Of anything I studied in school, his ideas most influenced how I wrote curriculum, organized my classroom, and taught.  Two of his hallmark ideas are "scaffolding" and "the zone of proximal development". 

The zone of proximal development consists of all the tasks a student can't quite do yet.  Vygotsky theorized that if students never step outside of the "zone" of skills they have already mastered, they will never grow and master new skills.  Furthermore, he posited, if they only spend time with other children who are in the same zone or with adults who are far beyond them developmentally, it will be hard to push them into that zone of proximal development.  Instead, they need to see other children who are just ahead of them developmentally.

For example:  My daughter's fork and spoon skills are still lacking.  But if I just keep letting her feed herself with her fingers, she'll never learn to use a fork and spoon.  I may have to push her to practice, allow her to get frustrated, allow her to fail, mop my floor a lot, use Shout spray a lot, and eventually she'll get better.  Additionally, if she had a slightly older sibling who used a fork and spoon moderately well, she might be more proficient at this point.  Mommy is SO much better at fine motor skills that it's a little overwhelming to think of trying to match her.  But 3-year-olds?  Their abilities with silverware are within reach!

Which leads us to Vygotsky's idea of scaffolding.  You know what scaffolding is, right?  Those temporary wooden or metal structures used to allow workers to reach heights on a building they would not otherwise be able to reach so that they can build, clean, repair, and more, one level at a time.  It's like a ladder, but much more sturdy.  Vygotsky wrote that we often set high educational goals for children and then somehow expect them to leap from the ground to the roof of a skyscraper, metaphorically speaking.  A good teacher builds scaffolding for her students...recognizing all the tools and skills they will need to reach that high goal and then teaching them in an appropriate order, one step at a time.

***Soap box*** In my opinion, a lack of understanding of scaffolding is at the heart of much of the push toward "critical thinking" in educational reform.  Policy-makers and administrators want students to be critical thinkers but don't seem willing to entertain the idea that there are many, many small steps that must be taken on the path to critical thinking and that students won't spend 100% of their time in school at the top of Vygotsky's skyscraper.  By dismissing the scaffolding, the lower-level learning that must take place in order to be able to critically think, they frustrate teachers and students alike.  ***End of soap box***

Now that you've consumed your educational theory for the day, let me explain what this has to do with the women at my church.  I realized, I have a scaffold. God has placed amazing older (not old, just oldER...) women in my life, women I long to be like.  But sometimes I question if I will EVER be like them.  Their wisdom, grace, life experience, and godliness are at the top of that skyscraper.  They've been married for decades, raised children, taught others, and dealt with people issues and life issues that would overwhelm me.  But it's nice to look at the top and dream!  It's nice to know where I should be headed.  The amazing thing is, these women aren't just my mom's friends.  They have purposefully engaged themselves in my life, serving with me, asking me to serve with them, teaching me, taking me out to lunch, writing me notes, listening to me, counseling me, praying for me, and so much more.  And that was even before Arthur was a blip on an ultrasound!  Imagine what they are doing for me now.

Then there are amazing women who are just a little older than me.  The ones in my "zone of proximal development".  They have been married a little longer, are half-way through raising kids, and just finished learning a lot of the things that I am trying to learn right now.  If I get a little too depressed comparing myself now to where I should be 20 or 30 years from now, I can look to them.  They give me a half-way step, show me where I should be 5 or 10 years from now.  They have practical advice for my life still fresh on their minds because they were just there.  I've taught their kids in Sunday School and they've let me watch their parenting process.  When I was the working woman and they had a house full of babies, they let me come over and play.  They freely share the good, the bad, and the ugly.  When I wonder how to keep a marriage loving even in the middle of life, I watch them.  When I need to see how to allow life's circumstances to shape me, I can look at how they've changed in the last 10 years. 

Then there are my dear friends who are in the zone with me.  The ones with toddlers gripping their hands and with cheerios all over the floors of their cars.  The ones I call when I HAVE to get out of the house and see an adult and who totally understand if I don't have any makeup on.  The ones who will talk about pregnancy and poop and fevers and dishes and all that other exciting...haha...stuff that consumes my mind.  The ones who will share the wisdom they learned from their moms and other wise, older women.  The ones who say "Well, this is what we've tried..."

I got all weepy yesterday as I looked at the women who have walked through life with my mother and mother-in-law for 20 years, hoping and praying that my same-age friends and I will have the same testimony of love and friendship 20 years from now.  That we can get together and pray for our children.  That we can be the older women a new group of young women want to be like. That we can continue to be there for each other for however long God allows us to be together.  Having people who are right beside me makes life so much better!

It's easy (and good) to surround ourselves with friends who are exactly in our stage of life.  But we'd be stuck in our current "zone" if we didn't build relationships with women of all ages!  We need a scaffold to help us learn life, just like students need a scaffold to help them learn any large skill.  My life is so incredibly blessed by a scaffold of friends, women who are of every age and every stage of life.  I need the wisdom and example of the older ladies.  I need the reminder and hope of the ladies who are just ahead of me.  And I need the sympathy of the ladies who are right with me.  Being literally surrounded by all of them yesterday made me realize what an amazing community I have, and caused me to cry out in thanks to God, who has brought each one of these dear women into my life, each for a specific reason.

Maybe someday I won't be at the bottom of the scaffold ;)