“Students can learn to think, speak, calculate and write more easily through close contact with reality than through confinement and abstract ideas.”
John Taylor Gatto, 1999
As the demand for improved standardized test scores looms over our nation’s education system we, children and teachers, are becoming more isolated from society. Typically students and teachers spend more and more time in a classroom leaning over a textbook or worksheet “learning” about the world. This is followed by hours of homework each week and sometimes each day. When do children ever get a chance to explore and experience the world around them and beyond? When do teachers open the doors of their classrooms to invite people in or to take children outside to seek answers and direct understanding of the community that surrounds them?
At our very first staff meeting this year we began to identify our intention to expand our sense of community. We determined that community is not only those in our immediate school circle but also those near and far who affect our thinking, support our inquisitive nature and potentially add something to our life experience. There are many knowledgeable and interesting people whom we can tap to enrich our lives no matter what the subject might be. We decided to make a concerted effort to include more people in our circle either by visiting them or by inviting them into our space. We are taking our students off school grounds as often as possible and inviting experts and others in so we can learn at least as much if not more than our peers through direct experience. Over the last ten weeks groups of children have taken 10 field trips and welcomed at least 12 guests into our school. We are thrilled with the effect as both the children and teachers have been given the opportunity to expand our viewpoint and our skills.
Mushrooms
During a recent visit to A Child’s Place School Voyagers’ teachers learned that the students there were studying mushrooms they found in their environment just as the Voyagers’ students had been doing. We immediately saw the opportunity for collaboration. Students from each school began writing back and forth, sharing wonderings, drawings and information about our new found knowledge of mushrooms and fungus. Recently, the mushroom study group from A Child’s Place visited our school. Our students were able to show their guests our collection of dried mushrooms, guidebooks, drawings and a slide show of our photographs. All of the teachers hovered around with cameras poised to take video and stills of everything the children did and said. It was partly humorous but also validating to see another Reggio-inspired teacher doing the same work as us.
During the visit we invited the students to explore our woods to see mushrooms growing on site. The group took notes, drew diagrams and had interesting conversations about all their findings. Some of the mushrooms in our woods were types that the visiting students recognized on their school grounds. They realized that the same mushrooms grew in both places. We explained that the mushrooms growing in their yard might be part of the same fungus web of the mushrooms growing in our woods since the mycelium web can grow for hundreds of miles underground. This possible connection was powerful. The children were also able to see that they shared some of the same questions. Through careful listening the teachers were able to discern where the children were going. We clearly understood that our perspectives and those of the ACP students were influencing the thoughts and actions of each other and that our relationship would continue to be intermingled in the coming months.
This type of interaction with other schools validates the children’s work. Not only do we give their work worth in our community, but people in our extended community respect their focus and look to them for information. In addition, their continued studies have led them to discover experts around the world who are also studying mushrooms. Through this they gain a global perspective on the rich traditions surrounding mushrooms as food and as medicine and make additional connections.
Mural Artists Teach History and Culture
One of our most complicated field trips to date was a visit to Philadelphia where three classes with three separate purposes coordinated visits so as to eat lunch together, share their findings and return on the same school bus. During this visit several students and their teacher of History Through Decades took a self-guided walking tour of some of the 3,000 murals in the city.
The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program began in 1984 as an anti-graffiti project. It grew from the need to engage the city’s youth in the creation of purposeful art instead of random graffiti. The program has grown over the years and has become the model for other cities both nationally and internationally. The murals are painted on the side of buildings and are, on average, 35 feet tall. All of these add to the visual interest of the city while making the viewers think.
The murals that the students viewed were all within walking distance of The Reading Terminal Market. Students took turns reading a map and directing their fellow historians to the various mural locations. The complexity of the murals is appealing from a distance but up close the students were amazed by the design and content facts. From a technical standpoint what appeared to be brick was actually paint on a smooth concrete surface where contours and 3-dimensional aspects were created with paint. As historians they noted the depiction of social struggles, political unrest, a desire for peace and harmony and questions of human rights.
Upon returning to school, each student picked her favorite mural and discussed the details and her personal outlook and understanding of the work. As a class students interpreted the meaning of the paintings. With themes such as the role of the Arts, Knowledge and Gay Pride evident in their choices their reflections covered current and past topics of relevance and fit nicely into our class outline. In addition to these historic notes the children were presented with another way to speak out, to be thoughtful and to share with others what is important to them. Imagine the power of paint on a wall. Students were awestruck with the size and complexity of the murals and were captivate by the story each told. They possessed a greater interest in the artists and there meaningful work
Farming and Food
The Food class visited, Merrick Farm, a local organic farm. There they spoke directly with the farmer growing the produce and meat. They found out first hand that a lot of work and thought goes into producing healthy fresh food. The class extended their reach when visiting The Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. There they were then able to see fresh local foods being distributed. The Market has managed to sustain family businesses for generations. Upon returning students watched a video interviewing family members who have been involved in the market since its inception. It showed the dedication behind the production and preparation of the food being offered for sale. It was apparent to the class that being good stewards of the earth and making responsible food choices is a major part of what these people based their lives on. The children found this inspiring.
Caring For Pets
Learning from experts in their fields allows children to see the value in their studies. It bridges the gap from the classroom to the broader outside world. As the children in the Caring for Classroom Pets class began their quest for more information about the turtles we took a trip to the Manasquan Reservoir Environmental Center where we spoke to a naturalist. He provided them with a bounty of information regarding our turtles and how best to care for them. More importantly, the gentleman respected their course of study, their questions and their way of thinking. He was interested in their thinking and impressed with their thoughtful questions and analysis.
In Our School
There are also examples of meaningful community interaction on a weekly basis. Each week Cindy, a Colts Neck resident and passionate reader, shares her unique literary perspective as we each apply our own lens to the analysis of the text Of Mice and Men. She encourages each participant to engage in thoughtful dialogue. Tracy, a talented parent, comes in each week to teach sewing. She works on developing projects that grow from children’s interests and shares these with the students who learn from her commitment to them.
Our Movement Class has had the opportunity to work with Jeff a Black Belt master in Karate and Lydia a Yoga professional. Our Dance Class has also had visiting teachers. Doris, Carl and Wanda have taught the students the Fox Trot, Jitterbug and Charleston. In turn the children have invited them to join in a conga line and line dances. All these children are indeed developing new skills. However, more importantly, they are talking to people from other generations with varied perspectives given their life experience. They are learning about another time and another way of viewing the world around them. This kind of learning is rich and varied. It provides children opportunities to talk to adults in a context of mutual respect. Through the exchange of ideas our invited experts view first hand the children’s desire to learn and the children come to realize that their voice is important beyond their school environment. Children’s ideas are heard, pondered upon and discussed in all sincerity. Through all these interactions we can continue to provide opportunities to prove that our student’s words carry weight.
It is true that a student’s most immediate sense of community exists in the classroom. It is also important for our school to extend itself into the surrounding community. Finally, our global perspective allows us to look near and far for connections to and with human kind. This enables us to be social citizens, who care, love, trust, hope and create with others for the betterment of the whole.
Gatto, John Taylor (2001). A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling. Albany, CA: Berkeley Hills Books.
