Moving Past "Cute"

I spend a lot of my professional life trying to be in dialogue with those around me, as I have learned over the years that I have much to learn from those I encounter in my work. So it is with a bit of chagrin that I begin this reflection. If I'm being perfectly candid, I feel the need to rant a bit.

I was recently documenting some work my students had done when a colleague walked by and commented, "Oh, how cute!" I understand that this comment was surely meant with only the best of intentions, but come on! Is there no better word we can use to describe the work the children are doing on a daily basis? Is there no other way to describe the learning that is clearly taking place? Can we not dig a little deeper and recognize the ways in which children display their understanding of the world around them?

I was using snapshots I'd collected for the entire semester to showcase just a fraction of the amazing things the students in my class engage in regularly. The cute comment struck me as just one of many ways we underestimate children. It bothers me that every single thing associated with children is labeled as cute. Yes, kids are adorable. That's part of what endears them to us. But they are so much more than that. If we want to foster a strong image of children as capable, competent, autonomous individuals we need to move past only seeing them at the surface level. We need to take time to appreciate the work children do and value their contributions to the classroom communities in which they spend so much of their lives.

If we want to truly honor the hard work that children do on a daily basis - work that is thoughtful, purposeful, and meaningful in their lives - we need to get past "cute" and acknowledge the commitment that goes into each experience and creative offering they bring into being. Puppies are cute. Teddy bears are cute. This work is so much more.

Children value what we think of them and how we respond to their contributions to the world. What are we really telling them when we focus solely on the surface? Looking at the photographs here, many words jump to mind immediately, and not one of them is "cute": imaginative, creative, interesting, careful, patient, inventive, surprising, intentional, meaningful. Children brought forth these offerings through the process of sense-making. We owe it to them to put a little more effort and a lot less flippancy into how we speak to them about that sense-making. We owe it to them to offer support in ways that lets them know we appreciate their efforts and want to learn with and from them. We can't do that if all we see when we look here is something "cute."