The God-Frisbee - a Lesson in Effort and Mindfulness

One of the Grade Five boys called it a "God-Frisbee." It was lighter, thinner, and larger than the solid blue Frisbees from the gym's equipment room. It also had a large hole in the centre. With one flick of the wrist it lifted into the air and traveled huge distances, simulating the effortless flight of superheroes and gods.

The class was practicing their Frisbee throws and catches in the playing-field behind the school. A group of pre-schoolers had just arrived on the playground when the "God-Frisbee" came soaring in their direction. I prayed that there would be no collision with a little person's body. Luckily, the heavenly object came whirring to a landing on the bark mulch beneath the equipment. From there, it was retrieved for the next throw.

A few minutes later, however, the God-Frisbee was up to mischief again. An errant throw had landed it in the upper branches of a cottonwood tree at the edge of the school property. What to do? Get the janitor to bring a ladder? Climb the tree? Knock it down with another Frisbee? With more purpose and energy than ever, the children began tossing their blue Frisbees at the God-Frisbee. I suggested a shoe might be a better missile. Off came Sam's shoes. He launched them at the Frisbee, losing his soles along the way. "Sam! You lost your sole!"

A few minutes later, one shoe and two Frisbees were stuck in the tree. Was it time to give up? One boy climbed the tree and stood for a moment on the branch where the God-Frisbee now hung. He jiggled the branch and looked prepared to walk out farther on the limb when I decided to invoke my adult authority and told him to climb down, much to his relief.

The pelting continued. The blue Frisbee fell. The shoe fell. At last, the God-Frisbee came down. Hooray!

Later in the afternoon, I was back in the classroom with this group of Grade Fives for Mindfulness Lesson Number Two. I hoped to get them thinking about the value of learning to direct the attention. I used the example of a sport: "If we want to get better at running or swimming, or whatever sport we like to do, then there has to be a combination of effort, persistence, and attention. By paying attention to what we're doing, we learn to notice what's working and what isn't. Instead of simply repeating the same movements, we use our attention to experiment and make adjustments. That's mindfulness at work."

I asked the children to guess how many times Thomas Edison had experimented before coming up with a light bulb that worked.
"More than fifty," said one boy.
"Actually, probably several thousand."

Then we sat still for a minute, attending to the movement of the breath, or at least trying to.