~ by Christine Gough

How often have these words slipped out between gritted teeth?  “What are you THINKING?!?”  Or maybe, “What ARE you thinking??” Better yet, “What are YOU thinking?!”  But this year, the phrase has taken a turn.   “What are you thinking?” has become an invitation, not a threat veiled as a question.  In the classroom, I have begun to use a strategy with my students of invitation to be metacognitive…to think about our thinking and go deeper with the texts we are reading.  We start our reflections with what we noticed, what we see, what we wonder about, what we are feeling.  We think about character’s actions and notice patterns and traits.  Students are connecting stories from their own lives to the narratives of the characters in the books we read.  Illustrations become a jumping off point for observations, to think deeper and to notice.

We remind each other daily that REAL READING is a mixture of the text paired with our thinking…text alone doesn’t have the heart that comes from thinking deeply about the words. As we read text, we stop and put up our thinking bubble, face in, ready to share our thoughts about the text.  We pause.  We think.  We share.  We notice.  We feel.  We see.  It has become a class norm and the class culture…an expectation that text is more than words and that our discussion together is spent in the business of taking time for deep thought and listening.

When I slip home, though, out of the classroom, it becomes exponentially harder to maintain this mindset.  “What are you thinking?” reverts back to a mom-yelled rhetorical statement, not a welcoming question.  Where does the mental strength, the time and the perseverance come from to pair this thinking with our parenting?  We are called to be question askers.  To be consistent at looking and noticing and truly seeing.  And more than that, to ask our children, with genuine hearts, what they are thinking and to listen.

What would happen if we all had giant thought bubbles to hold around our faces everyday?  Would people sit up, take notice and listen more readily?  How different would our homes, our relationships and our world be if we took time for real thinking?  Real listening?  That perfect intersection of vulnerability that gets to the heart of real communication.