The Rookery

Sharing the Joys of Learning

A picture of dead man's fingers in a kindergartener's journal after going to the Mycology Museum.

On Wednesday, the Herons taught the rest of our community about what we had been learning.  The event had the excitement and energy that I always love about culminations.  There were missing copies to be found and last minute touches to be added.  A forty mile an hour wind made the transformation of the Albero into a shaggy mane inky cap much more of a group challenge than I had anticipated (I can't believe they did it!!) The Herons were all business.  I didn't re-direct a single child as they worked to teach their peers.

But culminations aren't just about the class that is presenting.  They provide energy to the rest of the school, too.  Information that is gleaned at a culmination filters back into every classroom. Drawings are made and questions are asked.  Younger students find their teaching role models - soon they will be doing this with their peers, too.  Big, whole school culminations show our students what is valued at Prairie Creek - their curiosity, ideas, and learning.  EVERYBODY in the school took the time to listen to the Herons and learn from them.

One of the things that we have been talking a lot about as a staff is how to rebuild our traditions this year.  We are working to help students rediscover their capabilities as learners and teachers.  We are working to re-establish the connections among classes that had to be isolated all last year.  We are working to recapture the joy that learning should have when students are doing things they care about.  The Herons took a running leap and ran a whole school culmination just five weeks into our school year - we are so proud of them.  (Below is the letter Simon shared with them on Wednesday afternoon.

 

 

Finding Out What You Know - the Joys of Culmination

It has been way, way too long.  On Thursday, I looked across the Herons' room to see students bustling this way and that.  Several were headed to the basement to find puffball costumes.  Two were climbing the spinning Albero on the playground to figure out how much paper it would take to turn it into a giant inky cap mushroom.  Three were mapping the location of dead man's fingers, pheasant backs and turkey tails on the school grounds to create a guided tour of our fungi.  They were all on a mission - busy and happy - and I was...unnecessary. The students were driven by their own vision and were completely independent. It felt indescribably good. 

This is what I strive for as a progressive educator.  I work to create an environment in which learning and teaching is who we are and why we are.  I try to give students the tools they need to ask questions, find answers and teach others independently.  The students have spent the past month learning and exploring and now they are ready and eager to teach.  They are deepening their understanding as they shift into teaching mode - discovering gaps in their knowledge and filling them.  They are synthesizing what we learned as they work to communicate to a new audience.  Their creativity and energy is palpable; we are on the crest of a fantastic wave that has been building for a month.  We know so much and we are bursting to teach it.

Last week we filled the board with what we had learned so far in the theme.  I let that ferment over the weekend and we returned to add to our list and brainstorm how we might want to teach.  Students volunteered for the eight big concept areas we decided on - and I put them into groups.  In their groups, they determined the key information they wanted to share with their "customers" and how they wanted to teach it.  They created their "to do" list and...got to it.  In the coming days, we'll practice exactly what we will say to the people who come to each exhibit and put the finishing touches on our props and teaching aids.

Culminating events are meant to bring things into focus.  I think that those "things" often go beyond the informational content of what we have been learning about.  Students learn to bring their work into focus, setting goals and learning how to reach those goals independently.  We come into focus as a class, too - we are often amazed by what we've learned and what we can do together.

Captions on images (the blog program is being grumpy tonight!): Lions' Mane treat, culmination planning, line plot for our mushroom homework data, oyster mushroom growth, dead man's fingers, planning a mushroom ramble in the creek, finding costumes to be a puff ball and inky cap, and many of us holding our harvested oyster mushrooms,