I was just finishing an article for Opal School's newsletter about the wonder of learning. I looked up from my work to see Max and his dad fully engaged in the collaborative creation of a new comic strip series. Character development. Plot lines. Dialogue. The need to spell Vanquish just right. The illustrations. The incredible detail.
I am so glad Max didn't have any homework tonight.
So here's a book I wrote about so long ago... in the hands of two 10 year old boys hell bent on making a mess, lots of noise, and using up all my kitchen staples. And hoping so wholeheartedly that they'll really need those goggles they worked so hard to find.
Oh, the possibilities...
And what might happen next?
What happens when children do dangerous things and live to tell about them? Is it possible they find out how brave they can be?
This is what the Opal School playground looks like:
After interviewing all the children in the school, researching playground safety and regulations, seeking inspiration from books and other resources, working with a landscape architect, and dreaming a whole lot, here are some ideas the 5th graders came up with and built to scale:
This magnificent design and the story of it's creation will be presented to the Opal School Summer Symposium-goers next Saturday.
The Opal 2 (children ages 7 - 9 years) classroom has been working on a project in collaboration with the City of Portland's office of sustainability and planning. They have designed a neighborhood for the future of Portland that would be sustainable and caring. In fact, because of their work with Opal School students, the crafters of the Portland Plan (the City's road map for what might be possible in the next 25 years) revised their language to include the word, "caring". Opal students wonder, "How could the adults have forgotten that?"
The neighborhood looks a bit like this:
You can see more on the Portland Plan website.
This past Monday morning, Mayor Sam Adams himself arrived to cut the ribbon, officially opening the Neighborhood "exhibit" to share with the school community.
The students and adults in Opal 2 noticed a shift as the Mayor spent time with the students. The visit began as an inquisitive, friendly show and tell and moved towards an encounter with deepening interest and curiosity on the part of the adults from the Mayor's office and the Mayor himself. The Mayor recognized the profound level of thinking the children had done together and he began to really listen. The children said that their nervous tummies quickly became more comfortable with the Mayor's easy going and kind manner. He told them to call him "Sam" and they feel pretty special now to be on a first name basis with the Mayor! The visit ended with lots of laughter, joy, autographs and knowledge that the Mayor and the students had both been touched and changed by what they had experienced and shared together.
In the end, Mayor Adams commented to another adult, "Wow. These kids are really smart." That is a confusion typical of adults who don't regularly have the opportunity to interact with children who are used to being asked to think and share and think again within a community of learners. No, Mayor Adams. These kids aren't especially or uniquely "smart". All kids are smart. But rarely are they asked to be.
You can visit the Neighborhood exhibit by registering for and attending the Opal School Summer Symposium, or by coming to play at the Portland Children's Museum's "Kids Build" exhibit this summer.
Imagine my delight, on the day after writing that last post, to pick up the new issue of Brain, Child magazine and to find this article as its feature. I have a whole lot to say about it... and look forward to the time (I know I'll find the time!) I'll need to do it justice... but in the meantime... here's a little photo response:
No, children do not need to go into nature to develop or nurture their sense of wonder.
But it helps.
The second graders at a local public elementary school were asked today to use found objects to create their visions for places in communities that would invite and inspire people to get to know one another.
This was the last of the series of 3 sessions I first wrote about in this post.
Here are some thoughts they had while they were working:
We should gather at this place and bring friends. We'll ask them questions like, "Will they respect you?" (Amber, age 8)
In this place, people will help each other. (Jacob, age 8)
Everyone gets to have fun and not worry about other stuff they have to do. (Elijah, age 7)
If both people like it, they'll talk about it and maybe find out that they should be best friends. (Leslie, age 8)
It was an honor to be part of a project that invited such beautiful children to share their beautiful ideas.
Here are some images from Opal 1 (children ages 5 - 7) last Friday during project workshop. All the children were asked to use materials to imagine stories of and possibilities for remarkable friendships. They are currently engaged in a study of "self" and the "we that I am". They are curious about what makes them who they are as individuals, and the many ways connections happen between individuals. Why am I who I am and not who you are? How do we influence each other?
If you'd like to visit Opal School in session, join us for our annual Visitation Days, February 25th and 26th. There are a few spots left!
Here's a story that offers a kind of alternative to the packaged curriculum I wrote about in yesterday's post:
While waiting for their classroom to gather for morning meeting one day, the 3 and 4 year olds of Opal Museum School began connecting the markers in their writing area together to create a tall tower. Their interest and discoveries were discussed at the gathering and, with the support of their teachers, the children wondered together about what other materials in the classroom might connect to create something long or tall. The children instantly thought about the Unifix cubes that connect to each other easily, and continued their work after the meeting by connecting this new material to form a long line across the classroom floor.
Sam excitedly told Ethan, “When we are done with these, we can use another material. We might be able to get all the way to the bench!"
When the Unifix cubes were all used up, the children found other materials like tiny toy cats, pennies, rocks and Kapla blocks to continue their path. "Oh! Sam exclaimed, "It's an endless road!"
Tyler walked up and marveled at the endless road. “I wonder how
long it is,” he asked his friends around him. Overhearing this, the
teachers supported the children to wonder how they might find out. “We can use string," said Tyler.
The teacher asked, "But how long should it be?"
"Um, the size of him," Tyler pointed to Henry. They cut the string the same length of Henry and began measuring the road. "This string is as long as Henry and as tall as Henry. That's what we are using." When they finished, they found that the "endless road" was 15 Henry's long.
Teachers who observe and listen to the interests of the particular children they're working with, are competently informed about the latest applicable research in the neurosciences, and who know what kinds of concepts and skills children have a right to learn at any given age, are in no need of expensive, teacher-proofed curriculum in boxes. Buy Kapla blocks, unifix cubes and toy cats instead. Or better yet, go to the beach and collect some nice smooth rocks.
And then give your teachers a raise.
We've had a fabulous new idea over at the Portland Children's Museum (which I can say because I had absolutely nothing to do with dreaming it up). Arts in Focus is a longstanding program of the museum that delivers drop in arts experiences to public school classrooms. This year, for the first time, as a brand new Arts in Focus program is being developed, it is being piloted in Opal School classrooms and revised in collaboration with Opal School teachers. And in my role as teacher researcher for the Center for Children's Learning, I get to manage how it goes.
And this is exciting because although the staff that creates these programs are smart and full of great creative energy and love for the work, they are not teachers. And although the Opal School teachers are highly skilled, innovative and progressive teacher researchers, they are not at all familiar with the issues that come up when you arrive in a public school classroom that is not your own and try and offer a special arts experience. Finally, I think, we've found a little synergy. A little way to feed each other.
Arts in Focus had the bare bones idea. Opal School gave it a little flesh. Arts in Focus wanted to use the book Skin Again by bell hooks, to have children use black line pens and watercolor to create self portraits, to have them write highly structured bio poems, and to use recycled "junk" to create a community. Opal School added questions for the children: What do you think bell hooks meant when she wrote that your skin is "just a covering"? What can happen when we get to know what's on the inside of each other? Can you use these materials to create a community that would help everyone share their stories with one another? Opal School helped find a way to use the arts as languages to express the ideas generated by this inquiry. Opal School helped make space to hear the children.
Because when you make space for them, these are the kinds of things they say:
Elsa (age 8): Skin is just a way of looking at it. Some people are darker than another. It's just one way to identify who we are.
Elizabeth (age 7): If you want to be my friend you can't make assumptions about who I am.
Uma (age 7): You don't know how someone is made if you don't come inside and see. You don't always know who someone is.
Katie (age 8): You really have to go up to someone and say, "I want to be your friend."
Uma: You have to ask, "What's your story?"
I may not have been involved with dreaming up the big idea that's taking place here. But while listening to the children, and observing them write their poetry, I got awfully dreamy about the idea that the Portland Children's Museum might just be in the business of dropping in programs in public school classrooms that give children the time and space to give voice to their identities. To give children a chance to make themselves be known. To honor them, and to celebrate.
Here's one poem written by Piper, age 7
Piper
Funny, happy, good, sillly
Sibling of Max
Lover of movies, swimming, having friends over
Who feels cuddly, happy, creative
Who needs more color, to slow down, more happiness
Who gives light, happiness and helping
Who fears movies, people, darkness
Who would like to see loving, magic, Santa
Resident of Portland
Piper
Tomorrow we'll have our first Opal School visitation day this year. It is focused on a structure we call Story Workshop-- which began as a little idea I had a few years ago in response to the question-- What are the connections between literacy and the arts, and a desire to go find them.
It seems that every time I share our research and our stories about Story Workshop at Opal School, I return to a little something I heard Jerome Bruner say when I was in Reggio Emilia on a study tour way back in 2002. "Children learn the syntax of their language to tell stories."
2 year old Stella's stories are coming out like this these days: "Aaaah time. Aaaah Maine. Aaaah fish. Aaaah bread. Aaaah tummy." (Once upon a time, I went to Maine. I saw a fish. I ate some bread. It went in my tummy.)
Not much syntax, but a whole lot of story. And sheer delight when she's got a willing listener.
