Pruning

My wife is a wonderful gardener. From March through November our suburban yard is filled with a variety of colors, shapes and textures that would make an Impressionist jealous. I’m not much help around growing things but I pitch in. Since I’m taller, and since she asks me, I prune the trees. This week it was the ornamental plum tree just behind our house.

I must admit straight away that I don’t like to prune trees. It is a grungy job; resin and sawdust fly loose and stick to the most inconvenient places. You have to get out the ladder and an assortment of tools, and I always seem to remember an important one after I’ve climbed to the top of the ladder and am hanging on for dear life to a branch that I am certain knows I’m about to shuffle it from this mortal coil. It’s not a joyful activity for me.

Why do I prune the trees? It’s necessary for the tree’s health and growth. You see, when tree branches touch, they rub off their protective bark, allowing disease and insects to enter. And when tree branches grow wildly, other branches underneath are cut off from sunlight and die, leaving the tree vulnerable to disease and insects; lightning, too. By selectively removing branches, I help the tree spread taller and wider, access more sunlight and flexibly respond to wind and rain. And, I have the opportunity to shape a living sculpture!

Pruning is necessary for all kinds of growth. Sculptors remove excess stone to find the image within. Painters eliminate colors that cloud the message to apply those which clarify it. Writers hone their craft by eliminating words that do not help tell the story to make way for words that do. Pruning means life, not death.

Students must learn how to prune, too. It’s not a task that is natural, and there are quite a few steps to master (for example, when creating poetry or prose a writer needs to know about spelling, grammar, brevity, clarity, and style). With good teaching, most students master the majority of them, but learning pruning skills is a challenge for someone with Dyslexia, or organizational or perceptual problems.

Students, like trees, don't ask for help with pruning. But because pruning is a skill set we all need to master in order to be productive and happy, I devise ways to show the benefits of learning how to prune. One of the effective ways to do this, especially with students who have difficulty learning in a traditional classroom, is via projects which connect art and digital media. Most of my students enter the art room with a history of failure in prior schools. They are not lazy. They want to succeed, even if it is difficult. They struggle on using the same methods, even though those methods usually have not been productive. They believe that success is possible if they just try harder. My role is to offer students different, more effective pathways.

First, I diagnose which efforts have been ineffective, and help the student perceive them as such. Next, I help the student remove the ineffectual strategies from "active duty". Then we identify alternative methods of working which utilize the native intelligences of the student. Later, we check these methods to see which is most effective. Finally, we review the process and move to internalize the effective strategies so they are available in the future. Nothing earth shattering, nothing special, right? Wrong!

Remember the plum tree? It was alive before I pruned it, but it sure got better after. Like trees that grow too many branches, students benefit from pruning away ineffective strategies in favor of different, more effective methods. Sound interesting?...give it a shot. Teach them how; then watch them grow!