Our primary class chose to study some of the animals found on our campus during the first semester. They learned about chickens, goats, donkeys, wasps and snakes. In addition to reading books and articles about each of these creatures, they studied them up close, except for snakes. We didn't have any actual snake sightings this fall. One of their projects was the following educational video in which they instruct us all how to stay safe around snakes. I hope you enjoy it. They are working on a stop animation video about the water cycle now that we will post here soon.
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One of the great things about having a large natural setting for a school is that the campus is a huge laboratory. Intermediate students have been learning about erosion and weathering (5th grade Earth Science TEKS). Our school building sits atop a steep hill above a flood plain. We have the amazing ability to bring these TEKS to life. Where the septic tanks were placed in the hill there is a rain runoff area from the driveway. This week the entire student body toured the campus to study the check dams that were constructed on the other side of the campus by Design, Build, Live volunteers summer before last. Then we began collecting rocks and logs from all over campus to build new check dams. Kate had one team with the little red wagon hauling rocks from the east side of campus, Rashid's group brought logs up the hill and my group cleared the goat pen of large rocks. Then we used the wheelbarrow to bring rocks from near the gardens on the southern side of campus. We worked together and in about an hour and a half, we built a series of check dams on the hill. The chickens inspected our work and seemed to be satisfied. Later that day, we did some research into the connection between famous landforms and erosion factors. Yesterday the kids worked in small groups to create models called "Lentil Land." Each model featured at least 6 landforms that we had researched. Integrating spelling with -ion words like location and erosion, we spent the day making connections and having fun while working together. After making the models, students created a map of their project complete with compass rose. Words like "delta" and "isthmus" come to life when you are having fun. (The Lentil Land project comes from of TOPS Science, which we highly recommend.) Meanwhile the primary class made it rain inside by creating a model of the water cycle (2nd grade Earth Science TEKS) on the stove. You can bet that everyone of them knows a lot about evaporation and condensation now. They were so excited, you would have thought it was a birthday party! What is great is that we tied it all together, rain, runoff, erosion. It made the very cold rainy days we spent earlier in the week inside at the Inside Outside School more relevent. This fall the students planted seeds in our garden beds. It seemed like for a long time that not one seed germinated. It was dry and hot. The conditions were not right. Then there were little plants long after we had given up. I recently moved to a house that has had the septic system replaced. The property is mostly dirt now, but there was a beautiful lawn when we first became interested in the property. The property is seeded, but there has been no rain. We turned on sprinklers and still nothing. A wise friend reminded me that the seeds need the right temperature in order to germinate, not just water. What do children need in order to begin taking more initiative in their own learning? I have had parents coming to me in the past week with concerns that they were not impressed with the work of the children in the first semester. I initially felt anxious about this, but through reflection, I have come to know in my heart and mind that this is part of the process of changing the direction. It takes time for these seeds to germinate. It takes trial and error for the students to begin to take ownership of their learning. In their post reflection if they come to the awareness that they didn’t meet their objectives, and that they want to do a more thorough job of presenting their learning, they learn much more than a C- on a piece of paper would ever tell them. When you take away the grades, the student has to work hard for a different reason. If there is no extrinsic reward, the chance exists for us to work for our own satisfaction. Educating for Human Greatness is not an overnight process. It is a garden that may look fallow for a time. We are in a drought, but today we will get a lot of rain. It is a 100% chance, but it is still winter and we cannot think that the rain will turn our campus green this week. I have faith in what we are doing at Inside Outside School. I believe there is a better way to nurture learning than what we are offering children in the USA where high stakes testing pressure is taking the fun out of teaching and learning. I sit in the library of our school before the first students arrive this morning, surrounded by my favorite children’s books, hearing the rooster crow outside as he leads his flock of hens across the lawn, thankful for another day to be here now and do what I love. The Little Engine That Could has been pulled from the shelves in preparation for a new elective class that begins tomorrow. I think I can! I think I can! Place-based education helps students learn to take care of the world by understanding where they live and taking action in their own backyard and communities. (The Benefits of Place-Based Education: A Report from the Place Based Education Evaluation Collaborative). This morning at the Inside Outside School, Rashid is working with students to plant a Fall garden. The cool morning offers a multi-sensory feast with the feel of the dirt, the passing traffic noises of a rural country road, the weight of the different garden tools, the proximity of other children, the smell of the earth, the balancing their bodies must do to work on uneven ground. The children work together to prepare the soil and are challenged to solve problems cooperatively as they arise. How will they share the tools? How will we reach the inner section of the garden? Where will we locate the taller plants in relation to the path of the sun this time of year? The children are having a "Be Here Now" experience, fully immersed in hands-on learning. I find that children want to learn, in fact, they love to learn. When they can learn outside, where most children prefer to be from the time they are infants, school is an adventure, something they don't want to miss. Here are pictures from our morning, here in this place we are learning about together. One of the books that made the biggest impact on my whole paradigm of education is Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education, by David Sobel. I re-visit this very short book from time to time and feel a renewed excitement for the road I am travelling. The big take away is that environmental education for children that focuses on oil spills and the terrible things happening to rainforests and glaciers does not create environmentalist. It is too scary for children and too abstract. Children need to fall in love with the natural world, form a genuine empathy for living things and then they will have a stake in taking care of the environment for the rest of their life. This is the bedrock conviction that motivated me to find a campus with a creek, bring in a donkey, goats and chickens. In the afternoon at The Inside Outside School, children work with their "clan" and their clan mother (modeled on the Northeast Woodland Indian tribes) to care for the campus. One group feeds the animals, offers clean water, gets the chickens back into their coop for the night, and empties the compost buckets. Another group cares for other outside spaces while the third group sweeps, mops and vacuumes the inside spaces. Once the chores are done we put on our waders, grab the goats and head for the riparian wooded areas near the creek. The older students are building an empire at the far corner of the property which they named "Tiger's Treasure" last year. This area of the creek is just around the bend from "Toenail Beach" where the largest Texas toenail fossils have been collected. (I wonder when some thoughtful student will discover that these giant oysters fossils would be an interesting independent study project.) One student prefers the swing in the middle of the property which hangs from a giant old pecan tree. The kindergarten boys leave this nature literacy time soaking wet, muddy and worn out. "What's important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it and feel comfortable in it, before being asked to heal its wounds. John Burroughs remarked that "Knowledge without love will not stick, but if love comes first, knowledge is sure to follow." Our problem is that we are trying to invoke knowledge , and responsibility, before we have allowed a loving relationship to flourish." (Beyond Ecophobia) While public school teachers are worried about test scores our teachers are trying to develop an effective natural insect repellent formula, figure out why the flower seeds didn't germinate and show the children how to do a blanket stitch around the perimeter of their felt number square. All of those things are important. It is important to me that children love school, love animals, trees and creeks, learn to sew, cook, grow a carrot, and hammer a nail. It is important to me that our teachers love their job, love children and have become lifelong learners themselves. There were numerous moments in my time as a teacher that I wanted to find something else to do...anything! I never want to feel that way again. That is important. Thank you David Sobel! Recently we were invited to consider the possible cruelty of catch and release fishing. One of our school agreements is that we will have respect for the environment. There is the possibility that fish experience the beginnings of suffocation as we struggle to unhook them. The possibility exists that our handling of them interferes with their protective covering. Do they feel pain from the barbed hook? Rather than making a decision on this I presented the concern to our HIVE. The HIVE is our democratic meeting where we discuss topics and try to come to consensus when action needs to be taken. We are now three weeks into the process of this discussion. The students have been challenged to find out the facts so we can make an informed decision. It has helped us bring light to the difference between fact and opinion. We are looking at unsubstantiated claims vs. factual information. I love this process and what it asks of our children. For now we have put fishing on hold during our Nature Literacy time. Every time one door closes, others open, so there is a new interest in hanging out in the creek and playing with mud and sticks. It also helps that we are using Nature Lit time to walk the goats in the woods. Yesterday we learned that they like to race. Who knew? Maybelline, the donkey arrived at the Inside Outside School Saturday after a really fun game of "Chase and Trailer Tag." She is very sweet, but still wary of the two leggeds. Her goat friends showed up in high spirits on Monday afternoon. Maybelline was a bit disappointed that they were so disorganized, but she tried to be hospitable. Elsie, the apparent leader of the goats girls let Maybelline know that she would have to earn their respect. Maybelline mentioned that she was planning to protect the goats from coyotes if the need arises, and it would not hurt them to work on their manners. Elsie wanted to know how many coyotes Maybelline has actually ever chased off, but it was not something Maybelline wanted to discuss. This morning the goats were playing "Queen of the Mountain." Bella won this round. Maybelline did not show any interest in the game, but she had just finished a dust bath and may have had other aspects of her beauty routine to attend to. The chickens have front row seats to all the new activity. What fun! What do we already Know? What do we Want to know? What did we Learn? This famous KWL chart guides my own inquiry adventures. As I prepare to begin year number two at IOS, I think back to what I already knew about starting a school. Not much. What I wanted to know was HUGE. I took business classes, met and corresponded with other school directors, read a bazillion books, researched for hours and hours on the internet. And what did I learn? Again, the answer is HUGE. My process of inquiry learning has been exactly what I want the students to undertake, and the Seven Dimensions of Human Greatness (Identity, Inquiry, Interaction, Initiative, Imagination, Intuition and Integrity) are the woven threads of my own journey’s tapestry. This summer I received a new thread for my weaving. At the Lama foundation near Taos, I met Rob and Peg, the people who started Roots and Wings School. One of our students was moving to Taos and was planning to attend this school and I had heard just a snippet about it from her mother. I have driven past this school for many years on my way up the mountain as we drove to Lama for our annual summer pilgrimage. At dinner one night, my husband met Rob and Peg in the serving line and brought them over to eat with us. The beautiful thread gifted at dinner thais Expeditionary Learning. One gift it has offered me so far is a stream of books from Amazon from their website’s recommended reading. The reason I am so excited about EL is that it is offering me more nuts and bolts to help us continue to craft our inquiry based learning curriculum. One of the most profound sentences that I have read this summer is…inquiry is the curriculum. This slammed into me as the absolute truth. It is the truth for me as a lifelong learner, and for our students. Much of what I uncover as I continue to explore EL is confirmation of what I already know or sense and the valuable “how to” guidance that I am always on the look out for. This summer my own self directed inquiry is about expeditionary learning, goats, chicken coops, portable air conditioners, insulation, fencing, livestock guardian dogs and yurts. Next stop, kilns. What do I know about kilns? Not much….yet. The current issue of Parentwise led me to the National Wildlife Federation's website (nwf.org) where there is a wonderful article called, "The Dirt on Dirt." Here is an excerpt: When we let our kids play in dirt we're not only allowing them to explore the
wonders around them, we are also exposing them to healthy bacteria, parasites, and viruses that will inevitably create a much stronger immune system! Many kids who live in an ultraclean environment have a greater chance of suffering from allergies, asthma, and other autoimmune diseases that we would otherwise be protected from through the simple pleasure of playing with some nice common dirt. The Joy of Dirt Studies have shown that simply having contact with dirt, whether it's through gardening, digging holes, or making pies out of mud, can significantly improve a child's mood and reduce their anxiety and stress. Who knew, right? With antidepressant use in kids on the rise, an increasing number of experts are recognizing the role of nature in enhancing kids' mental health. Dirt can even improve classroom performance. It's easy to see the effect when you watch children play outside. I encourage you to visit their site and get the rest of the dirt on dirt! I wish I had photos of the Secondary students working with cob mud bricks on Friday to go with this entry. They mixed up 3 batches of cob with different amounts of sand and clay and left them to harden. They are working on an outdoor oven on the back porch of the school. I was less thrilled about the mud slung all over the back (white) wall of the school and the sliding door. Sometimes I can be a stick in the mud. I am reading The Nature Principle, Richard Louv's new book. Something that has stayed with me is this sentence. "At the University of Michigan, researchers demonstrated the participants' memory performance, and attention spans improved by 20 percent after just an hour of interacting with nature, according to results published in Psychological Journal in 2008." We spend an hour a day in nature at the Inside Outside School every afternoon, and uncounted hours outside for gardening class, recreation hour, lunch, some outside math classes, and apothecary as well as free time after lunch. This chapter also states that schools with greened grounds experience reduced absenteeism, something I can attest to. He is preaching to the choir, but I am loving this book even more than Last Child in the Woods. More and more I believe in what we are doing with renewed conviction. Tom put together our outside classroom benches today on the hillside. Special learning areas are being tucked away here and there. Green is beautiful. |
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