Wonder love

How to Teach Reading and Writing (and a little math and science, too)

Stella loves to lay in the hammock. I'd say it is her favorite summer pastime this year. I spent about an hour laying in it with her one morning this week, and I taught her to read and write. Here's how:

1. As we were swinging gently back and forth, I looked up into the tree and saw that a spider had made a web and the sun was catching it just so we could see every line. Having finished reading Charlotte's Web the night before, I asked Stella if she imagined that Charlotte's webs looked that way? Could she see the orb lines and the radial lines? 
2. I reached for the drawing paper and pens that were available in our little outdoor studio space and invited Stella to draw the web she saw. This is a difficult task, but she gave it a try. 
3. When she finished, she wanted to write, "From Stella" on the bottom of the paper. She asked me how to write "From". So I told her the letters and she wrote them down.
4. Then she wanted to write "I love you". So we started with "I". She wanted more letters so I explained to her that was the whole word. 
5. She asked if she could write a heart and I said yes but that wouldn't be the word. She would need letters to make the word "love". So she asked for the letters.
6. This time, I made the sound /l/ because I knew it was a sound she had in her name. I told her it was the sound in Ste -- ll --and she blurted out happily, "l"! And then she was tired out, so she decided to stop the writing.
7. We laid back in the hammock for a little more snuggling and swinging. A squirrel hopped along the top of the fence but got startled when it saw us and ran away.
8. We checked on the web again and Stella noticed a tiny moth flying around it. She wondered if it would get caught and the spider would eat it. We considered the patience it takes to be a spider. 
9. I looked up on the tree and noticed a bit of sap running from a knot hole. I remembered that Stella had asked about making syrup very recently, and took a moment to make the connection for her.
10. She hopped up and cleaned the raspberry bushes of berries, then hopped back in.
11. We noticed that the spider's web had broken. And we took a little more time to consider the patience and feelings of spiders. Stella spent a few moments trying to talk to the spider in spider language, which I, like Fern's mother, could not understand.
12. Stella decided to add the spider to her drawing. She asked me how many legs it had and I told her. Stella's spider got 8 legs counted carefully -- on each side of the spider's body.
13. We noticed a second spider building a web behind the first, and we were reminded of Charlotte's babies.

Okay, so Stella doesn't yet read and write independently. But an hour spent like this, in the context of good books and materials at hand and making conversation in the wide world -- an hour spent snuggling and connecting and considering the feelings of spiders and squirrels -- an hour spent noticing and wondering and making meaningful marks on the page -- this is how she will learn. Experience offers her a chance to find her place in the family of things. She, like all human beings, wants a way to participate.

And it is oh, so much more fun than flashcards.

No homework

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. 

Doing Dangerous Things

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? 

A little dreaming

This is what the Opal School playground looks like:

And though they never complain, I always have thought that if you were to ask them, the children just might have some ideas for improvements. No surprise then, that when the Portland Children's Museum gave the hint this spring that it might like to have a gift (an annual gift from the 5th grade graduates to the institution that gave them such a special elementary education) of a design for a new playground, the children jumped at the chance!

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. 

     

Caring

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. 

 

Questions from Mayor Adams included: How was it to work together to make these pieces and decisions? What did you learn from having to collaborate and use consensus? How do you know when the neighborhood is working the way you want it to? What do you expect your city to be like in 25 years?

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.

Staying in

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.

Collaboration

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.

 

A peek into Opal 1

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!

Alternative

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.

Dreaming

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