It was my senior year of undergrad at the University of Minnesota. My roommate Carrie and I walked to class; we were living off campus then, so we always parked in Dinkytown for free and walked into campus for our elementary education classes.
We hurried quickly, running late as always, jumping over piles of late-fall leaves and discarded Minneapolis litter. Yet when we spotted it, we both stopped mid-hurry. On the sidewalk lay the small hand of a creature- grotesquely severed mid-wrist. It appeared to have the skin of a tiny human hand, with a sleeve of dark fur beginning at the base.
Knowing we were growing later by the second, we walked on, but excitedly discussed the bizzarity as we hypothesized the hand’s origin. And even though we teetered on the precipice of full time adulting, we giggled through the lecture that afternoon- obsessed with the sighting of the “the troll hand”.
After being released from class, Carrie and I hustled back the way we came on University Avenue. Shocked to find it still there, we did what any budding elementary educators would do and scooped it up using a discarded Dairy Queen cup. To the disgust of our third roommate Christine, we carried it inside the apartment back home trying to decide what creature it detached from and slightly convinced we may have intercepted some sort of government secret.
Wrapping it carefully in a bag and storing it in the freezer (which Christine really loved) we went to the computer. It was the early days of the ‘interwebs’ so we grabbed a cup of coffee and waited for AOL dial up to load. After a bit of searching, we finally settled that it must have come from an opossum; which according to ‘Ask Jeeves’ and Yahoo said often bore a hairy resemblance to a human hand, perhaps the lone survivor of a predatory animal’s attack.
A bit disappointed that our mysterious creature had a logical explanation, we resumed our normal week; studying and hanging out with our friends in Uptown. The troll hand lived in that Dairy Queen cup/bag in the freezer for a few more weeks before we acquiesced to Christine’s nudges and tossed it out. And although I only have a fuzzy polaroid picture, the story of the troll hand lived on- a fun divergence living on through tales of “college lore”.
I was reminded of this adventure when I saw a picture of an opossum the other day- my eyes immediately drawn to the creature’s hands for identification. I fondly recalled how my roommates and I had let ourselves get lost in this (slightly disgusting) research mystery. I believe very little could have distracted us from this, as we were in what eminent researchers call flow.
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” Think about the times in your life when time has flown by, and you were so connected with the task at hand that anything else could cease to exist for that moment.
As a striving parent and teacher, I am now on the lookout for all things flow. On the ride home from school yesterday, I commented to Auggie that he is very good at solving problems by inventing something to fix it. Consequently, when we got home, his attention was consumed for 20 minutes as he sketched out designs of inventions; rivaling Roblox for most focused six year old activity in this house. It was flow.
I’ve seen it in Charly, as she repeatedly hits a volleyball above the garage- determined to perfect her serve. And it see it as I write these very words… late to pick up my kids because the flow of writing has made me lose track of time; thinking of the next sentences before I’ve finished the one I’m on.
If we can harness that flow with our own kids and students in school- just think of all they will get done. Recently I read that even the most unengaged students are experts at something. I’m not suggesting we rewrite all of our math problems to involve Pokemon characters, but letting them pull in their passions could go a long way. Let excitement for a topic lend a hand (a troll hand) in learning…
**Grit by Angela Duckworth is another book that is referenced constantly in other books and articles. Great read for parents, teachers and for adults who don’t know what they want to be when they grow up! Makes me want to be a better person/teacher/parent/researcher/student advocate.
Teaching the Good Stuff 