A bit of the main garden with the playground hidden behind the mango trees |
I
got to spend the day with a healthy K for the first time in a while.
Last week she was sick and we mostly read stories together and napped.
Now that she is going to preschool three days a week, the majority of my
work on the farm has centered around developing the preschool
cooperative. Today, however, K and I spent a solid chunk of time
together and most of it was out and about on the farm doing various
chores and exploring the landscape. It occurred to me how unfair it is
that not all kids have the freedom to self-direct their play in the way
that K and I do, since the Reggio Approach is still so new to American
education. We are lucky that K’s mom is familiar with and supports the
approach’s idea of an emergent curriculum, where knowledge is acquired
through interest-led interactions with the environment. We are also
lucky that K lives in such a rich and enticing natural environment. The
farm has added volumes to our curriculum, making it easy for me weave
all sorts of academics into our play because the environment is so
naturally stimulating and engaging.
Many
critics of the Reggio Approach argue that left to their own direction,
kids would never choose to pursue academic endeavors. While this might
be initially true for older students who have never had the opportunity
to direct their own learning, I can confidently say from experience that
this is not the case for students whose education has supported their
intellectual curiosities from the very beginning. Because I trust K to
show me what she needs and wants to learn, and I trust my own ability to
build a flexible and quality curriculum around my observations of her, I
know she is always interested and motivated to learn. It is a different
kind of teaching in the Reggio Approach and it takes some getting used
to for sure, especially considering most of us grew up with traditional
education programs. The benefits, however, for both K and I are
well-worth the effort it took to transform my approach. Through an
emergent curriculum we collaborate on projects more-or-less as equals,
though we play our respective roles as teacher and student. We both
spend our days learning, having fun together, building our relationship,
and challenging one another to grow and roll with the continual ebb and
flow of life.
When
I met up with K this morning, she was finishing up her breakfast,
quickly stuffing the last few bites of omelette into her mouth when she
saw me so that we could get to work. I asked her to please slow down so
she didn’t choke on her food and reminded her that we had to wash hands
and wipe down the table before moving on to drawing, which is how she
decided she wanted to start the day. After taking care of our
responsibilities we started to draw with colored pencils. K is all about
mastering her fine motor skills and is drawn to just about any task
that allows her to work on them, so drawing is a particularly appealing
activity. I love creating art with K because when she is so focused on a
task that we are able to carry on very natural and genuine
conversations as we work on our projects alongside one another,
sometimes collaborating, sometimes working individually. I was drawing a
pattern with triangles and K asked how to draw one. I paused to show
her, hand over-hand. She was more interested in circles and asked to
draw those, so we practiced that shape as well. I told her that when I
want to do something well, I practice it over and over again so that I
can get better and make my shapes look more how I want them to. Then I
drew five small circles in a row as she watched intently.
We
worked on our art for nearly 30 minutes, K making circles and various
lines while I worked on my triangle pattern. She had a color that I
wanted to use and so we got in some sharing practice. She didn’t want to
give me the red pencil so I politely asked if I could use it when she
was all done, explaining that I could keep using the orange and yellow
pencils until she was finished using the red. She agreed and after a few
minutes she said “here you go” and handed me the pencil. I thanked her
and started drawing my triangles and after watching me for a few moments
she asked for the pencil back. I told her I needed to draw and color in
a few more triangles and then I would return it to her. She continued
using the orange, patiently waiting until I was done with the red. Among
her scribbles, K noticed a pattern and pointed to her page saying,
“mountain” to show me what she had drawn. “You did draw a mountain,” I
remarked pointing at her drawing, “I see it right there.” K smiled. I
smiled back. Then she asked to listen to “Apples and Banono’s” her current
favorite (K prefers the Keith Urban version of this classic Raffi song). We danced around and did some yoga for the rest of the
hour, read a few stories and then headed out to the garden.
By
9:15am, we had already worked art, literacy, music, and creative
movement into our daily curriculum. We worked on fine motor skills,
practiced personal responsibility, patience, and sharing, we got in a
little exercise, and
we worked on conversational skills, yet we were relaxed, had a great
time and allowed our natural motivation and interest tell us when it was
time to move onto the next activity. Sure my studies in education and
human development have helped me understand children’s attention span
for activities at different ages, but more importantly my ability to
tune into and participate in K’s educational experience and learning
style is what I rely on when we work together. I make our activities as
interesting and enjoyable as possible to get the maximum educational
benefit from each, but when K loses motivation to continue I follow her
lead and we move onto the next activity that draws her in. It is a waste
of both our time and energy for me to stick to a prescribed schedule
because when she isn’t engaged, she isn’t learning anything except that
my agenda is more important than hers and I do not respect her enough to
think her capable of playing a role in her own learning process. That
is not a message I want K, or any of my students to internalize.
I
want K to trust her own instincts, listen to her physical, emotional,
social, and intellectual needs. I want her to see how satisfying and
meaningful learning can be and much fun she can have practicing her
favorite skills and seeking out the answers to her many questions. So
when K asked to take our adventures outdoors, I grabbed my water bottle
and invited her to pick out a pair of shoes and hat. We started by
heading up to the cherry tree to pick ourselves a delicious and healthy
snack. We worked on our colors, identifying the darkest red ones because
those are the ripest and most delicious. I explained that the darkest
ones are the ones that have soaked in the most sun and are therefore the
sweetest. “I got one!” K said when she found a dark cherry, holding it
up to show me. Instead of telling her “good job,” I said with
enthusiasm, “that one is dark,
I found a dark one too,” I showed her mine and we both popped the sweet
fruit into our mouths. Since I am partial to a Reggio-Inspired teaching
style, my objective is not to evaluate her activities or judge her
success, but rather to share and participate in her learning process,
expose her to new experiences, and invite her to explore alternative
possibilities and multiple perspectives.
Once
K and I had our fill of cherries, I suggested we check on the tomatoes,
since I harvested pounds of them over the weekend and knew there were a
ton more that had since ripened. K loves the garden because it means
she gets to work her fine motor skills in relation to food, two of her
most favorite things right now. K loves to taste the garden, asking
first for the name of each plant and then asking for a taste. I love
walking through the garden with her because all that naming builds her
vocabulary and all that tasting helps enrich her culinary experiences
while adding depth to her knowledge and understanding of plant biology
and agricultural sciences. Both the naming and the eating help her
develop a pleasurable association with healthy food, a deeper connection
with the natural world and the possibilities associated with a more
self-sufficient lifestyle. Again we had the chance to practice selecting
the best fruit for harvest and while just a few weeks ago K was
regularly pulling the green “baby” tomatoes and tossing them on the
ground, today she identified the reddest ones, pointing and checking to
make sure it was a quality selection with a “see me pick it?” This is
huge for K, who until very recently, loved to test her boundaries in the
garden. She has learned that not all the food is for picking and that
there are specific windows for optimal harvesting. I shared with her how
impressed I was by the respect and responsibility she showed for the
plants in the garden. She smiled.
When
I reminded her that it is wasteful to eat only the insides of the
tomatoes, K took care to eat the whole thing, rather than tossing it to
the ground after a few nibbles. I happily offered her another tomato
when she was done, which she gratefully accepted. Today K had my full
trust as she perused the garden freely. She proved to me with her care
and thoughtfulness, her patience, and restraint that she is ready for
the responsibility of being a participatory member of the farm. She
earned a notch in her gardener’s belt as we harvested tomatoes,
vine-dried lima beans, and a watermelon radish the side of a soft-ball
which we promptly and enthusiastically took back to my kitchen to prep
and eat. I showed K the nail brush that I use scrub the root vegetables
and her whole face beamed with her quiet excitement when I pulled a
chair up to the sink and let her scrub to her hearts content. I narrated
my actions as I carefully got out the chef’s knife and sliced up the
radish, reminding her to keep her fingers safe and away from where I was
cutting. K watched as the deep pink of the inner radish became more
exposed with each cut. It was an enormous radish though, so I was at it
for a while and she quickly lost interest. She was, however, not yet
satisfied with her scrubbing work so she began to wash the few forks,
spoons, and coffee cups in the sink. I really need to get on that play kitchen for K, I thought to myself as I watched her fall happily into the zone of sensory play and fine motor development.
We
listened to Sam Cooke croon as we worked quietly, side-by-side, each
deeply focusing on our task. I was practicing my best and safest knife
skills, cognizant of how I was modeling this responsibility to K, who is
always observing me (later that day I saw her replicating the “safe
grip” I demonstrated as she “cut” her velcro play food). Once in awhile
she asked for a slice of radish, reveling in its spicy crunch, and
together we arranged a plate of the pretty pink and green veggies to
offer up to our friends on the farm. K and I spent over two hours
soaking up the sunshine and priceless lessons in agriculture, botany,
culinary sciences, and biology. We took in a rainbow of sensory
experiences, more personal and social responsibility development, and
worked our fine motor skills as we twisted, picked, plucked, grabbed,
and gripped the various shapes and textures across the farm. We shelled and collected an entire jar full of dried lima beans to store
for soup on a rainy day in the future, fed the chickens some dried kale
and admired the new baby duckling, observing how the mama protects and
cares for her vulnerable little one.
When
our time together came to a close, K was exhausted from all the
adventures. We packed a ton of lessons in today and far more than usual,
spanning a wide variety of subjects, yet we had a great time together
without any conflict whatsoever. We had an amazing day together and my
faith in the power of an emergent curriculum grew even stronger. Nothing
about our day together was planned, except that K’s mom suggested last
night that the lima beans were ready for picking. I mentioned it to K
when I first arrived during breakfast but although she was interested in
the idea, K elected to start our day inside. I didn’t pressure or try
to persuade her, trusting that she’d let me know when she was ready to
head out and tackle the job. When we stumbled upon the lima beans after
feeding the chickens I asked her again if she was interested and this
seeing the big green and brown pods hanging above her head was more than
enough to entice her. K thoroughly enjoyed opening the crispy, dried
pods and collecting the big white beans in the jar.
K and I allowed our interests and motivation to guide our curriculum in true Reggio fashion. It was a beautiful, exciting, and intellectually stimulating day. We did meaningful and enjoyable work, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes independently side-by-side. I don’t believe for one second that it is a coincidence this was one of our best days together. We were fully engaged in the process of learning and we were enjoying ourselves so much that time seemed to fly by. It is days like this that remind me why I love what I do and why I believe so passionately in the Reggio Approach as the most effective way to transform our struggling public school system. Though this approach was designed for early education, the philosophy applies beautifully to learning at any age and paves the way for self-directed, project based, and interdisciplinary learning. This is the kind of education that is meaningful, relevant, gratifying, and leaves teachers and students alike excited to get out of bed every morning and get to work. Just imagine for a moment a world in which this is the norm and perhaps you will understand my enthusiasm for the Reggio Approach.