Living the Questions

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."  --Rainer Maria Rilke

I went back into my previous blog post titles and realized that there are several posts that I never finished and that still linger as Drafts in my blogger account.  Often they are more like unsolved questions that are lived but that I'm not quite able to articulate.  Here's a really big title and theme left unwritten: Dr. King; The Tradition of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience and Nature Study.  I know that there is a connection between Dr. King, the tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience and Nature Study and maybe even an answer or two to some of the big questions of our day buried between that interface, I'm just not sure what.  This title and many others live as drafts in cyberspace and in my mind as unresolved questions.   Rilke captured this human dilemma in the above quote, and I know that he is right.  We need to live with our questions.  Answers don't drive us and move us forward, questions are what drive us and move us forward.  They make us who we are. . . To be human, is to be living with questions.  The details and answers in life have a place, but only a place.  We need to make room for more than answers.  The facts and details of our lives are embedded and framed by the bigger unanswerable questions that we hold.  It makes us who we are.

There are lots of seemingly large unanswerable questions we need to hold onto. . . How do we love our enemy?  Can we end poverty and hunger?  What would world peace look like?  How do we save our planet?  These questions have a place, even if they have no clear apparent answers.  Holding onto these big questions gives us hope for a future we cannot see.  Letting go of these big questions is to fall into despair and hopelessness.  We may not be able to bring about world peace, but maybe we can bring a bit more peace to a student or a friend through a generous act or a few kind words.  Maybe we can share our own resources a bit more generously and help a family or two with a heating bill or a food basket.   Maybe taking care of an outdoor learning center and bringing students outside to learn is a kind of small nonviolent civil disobedience that is needed in an age of excessive data and test taking.  It seems like the big questions give us a path to both wander and wonder, if we opened enough to listen.  

Computers are made for answers, but humans are the ones who hold onto the questions.  And we are the holders of hope and transformation or the bearers of despair and hopelessness.  In previous blogs I have talked about wonder, passion and love for the subject matter as important attributes for learning.  All of those things are hard to evaluate in a standardized test.  Holding onto big questions without apparent answers is another critical skills (or perhaps human attribute) we need to give time and voice to in education.  And again, it is nothing we can evaluate on a standardized test, but it is worthy nonetheless.

I think the future of great thought and of education will be in the hands of poets like Rilke and you and I, who are willing to hold onto big questions without needing immediate answers.  And this is good news, because we are born into wonder and we are born into poetry.  Rilke and others only reminds us that this is so.

I wish for all of you, big questions that fill you with wonder and hope for a world yet to be.  Perhaps just living with them, "gradually, without noticing it, [we will] live along some distant day into the answer[s]."

Encouraging an Insect Garden

My son John spreading mulch

My son Ben mulching our raised bed weed garden

We continue to grow and expand the outdoor learning center here at North Shore Elementary School.  Our latest venture is to develop a garden for butterflies and other pollinators and various insects and birds that might be interested in landing.  As some of you may know, I've been raising monarchs at home and in my classroom for the past several years.  Students and I have been enjoying observing and learning about this amazing insect.  We have a small milkweed stand in front of our school that has become a great resource for not only the monarchs and other insects, but for curious students as well.  (I profile this a bit in a previous blog.)  I thought it might be fun to develop a garden devoted to milkweed and native nectar plants and see if we can expand our hospitality.  We have a small field that is not mowed just beyond our trails that seemed like a good location.  Ilse (monarch expert and wife to Russ our bird expert) suggested that we brush hog the area, put down cardboard, cover it with mulch and let it sit for a year.  The goal is to stop the grasses from growing and then plant milkweed and other plants directly into the mulched area.  Thanks to the help of several good people the garden is underway!  The field was brush hogged by Jim (he was the inspiration for two of the eagle scout projects a few years ago as well).  I gathered all the cardboard I needed from the food service at North Shore (thanks to Amy, Girard and Mike).  The city generously donated mulch (thanks to Brian, Don and his crew).  And my two sons, John and Ben, helped spread mulch both on the future garden and on our weed garden.  Ilse came into my class and planted milkweed seeds in pots with my students.  The pots are sitting outside for the winter and will hopefully grow into seedlings that next year's fourth grade class can plant in our new garden.  I hope to add a border next fall and plant a variety of nectar flowers in addition to the milkweed.  At that point I will need additional volunteers and donations.  The amazing thing is... I think I will find the support and we will have started a garden devoted to insects!

It's a small project, this outdoor learning center, but it continues to quietly grow in the backyard of the school and in the marginal spaces on the property.  Thank you so much to everyone who supports and helps with this project!  For me, it is more than a couple of trails, an outdoor classroom and some gardens.  For me, it is a validation that what I believe in and what I try to teach is supported by wonderful, generous people.  Thank you.  

Students in our outdoor classroom

              

The Holy Earth Revisited

The 100th Anniversary Edition
Foreword by Wendell Berry
Edited by John Linstrom

A little over one hundred years ago, Liberty Hyde Bailey set sail to New Zealand with his wife and two daughters.  He had retired from his professorship at Cornell and his position as Dean of Agriculture.  The first World War was just beginning.  He was on his way to give a lecture at a worldwide science meeting, bringing his wife and daughters along for the adventure.  It was on this voyage that Bailey began writing, The Holy Earth, the first of what he termed "The Background Books."  In these books he explored the more philosophical questions of life.

Bailey was a renowned scientist and beloved professor.  He was innovative for his time, not only writing technical books on specific plant species, but also developing the field of science we now call Horticulture and promoting "Nature-Study" in the primary schools (to name just a few of his many life passions).  In every context and every book he wrote, he added a bit of the poetic and a sense of wonder for the details of his study.  But it is in The Background Books that we are able to take a small glimpse into his philosophy and his wisdom gained from a lifetime devoted to wonder and discovery.

"By lens and prism and balance and line we measure minutely whatever we can sense:  Then with bared heads we look out to the great unknown and we cast our lines beyond the stars.  There are no realms beyond which the prophecy of science would not go.  It resolves the atom and it weighs the planets."   --L.H. Bailey, The Holy Earth

The Holy Earth was in many respects revolutionary for its time and yet it was also deeply connected to its time.  Bailey was doing what all great minds lean into as they learn more about this planet we call home . . . the wonders of the universe and our place within it all.  His love for the earth and all creation was based in the soil beneath his nails and his ability to wonder about the smallest and greatest aspects of the world in which he lived.  I suspect this book will always be a bit revolutionary.  It will always call out to the poet in the scientist and the scientist in the poet.  It will always remind us that, as Bailey reminds us in the book, "Science but increases the mystery of the unknown and enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual vision."  


     

Where do we belong?

"I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know:  am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?"

--Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours,12

In search of things that don't belong . . .

This past summer, I helped with an outdoor education class (Bailey's Budding Naturalists) at the Bailey Museum.  One activity was to walk through a trail and look for things that didn't belong.  There were a variety of items that were placed throughout the woods and trail (a pair of pliers, a stuffed iguana, a comb . . . ).  One bright child said, "I know what doesn't belong, we don't belong!"  I hadn't thought of that answer.  I asked him, "Are you sure?"  and then, "If we don't belong here, where do we belong?"  We didn't come up with answers, but what an interesting question.  Where do we belong?  Where is our home?

This question has floated through my mind ever since.  Where do we belong?  I would like to believe that I do belong in the woods but if I am honest, I think I mostly consider myself a visitor or an observer, not really a family member.  What if the natural world was how we defined home? What if we saw our houses as shelter, but the environment  (the trees, grass, squirrels, insects, birds etc.) as all part of our home?  What if we really realized that we played a part in the habitat around us --that we are not just bystanders, but really an integral part of the web of life in the natural world of our neighborhoods?  What if we thought about how we fit into our habitat and how we impact our wild home?  Although these notions might not cross our minds, I'm guessing that the many creatures that live with us recognize and respond to us the moment we step foot outside.  As we wander near a pond, frogs stop croaking, rabbits take cover, birds send warning calls, crickets jump. . . As we step outside, we are not invisible bystanders; we are part of the web of life, whether or not we are paying attention.  Our presence changes things and makes a difference.

When I start to think this way, I also begin to realize that I have so much more in common with the trees, squirrels, nuthatches and ferns than the appliances, chairs and tables in my house.  All those things that make our lives convenient are nice --don't get me wrong-- but they are simply part of our shelter.  Our habitat is so much bigger than that, isn't it?  I'm trying to imagine that I belong in nature.  I'm trying to remind myself that we are active members of the natural world.  It draws me into wonder more . . .What lives in that dead tree?  Where do those rabbits go? What bird was that?  And maybe, in the end, it makes me care more.  How am I helping or hurting the habitat I'm a part of?  What can I do to help support those birds through the winter?  What does that butterfly need to survive?  Maybe this is the shift of thinking that will help us each do our small part to save our environment, our home.  

"I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. . ."   I read this poem the other day and it reminded me of that wonderful question, "where do we belong?"  It made me think that we are part of a widening circle that reaches across the world.  We do belong in the great web of life.  When we walk into the woods we are home.  The wild world is, in the deepest sense, home.  Our ancestors knew this.  I would like to believe that I'm beginning to remember it.  Maybe there will be a time when I realize that I am the falcon and the storm and the great song.  And so is everyone else. . .
 

The Sense of Wonder

Night Sky

"I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel.  If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. . . Once the emotions have been aroused -- a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love -- then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response.  Once found, it has lasting meaning.  It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate."
                                                                                           --Rachel Carson, 1956

In Rachel Carson's words I hear echos of Liberty Hyde Bailey's writings on nature study. . .

"Knowledge begins  in wonder.  The consciousness of ignorance is the first result of wonder, and it leads the pupil on and on:  it is the spirit of inquiry."  
                                                                                    --L.H.Bailey, Nature-Study Idea, 1909

The fact that these sentiments are voiced throughout the ages is no surprise to me.  I think we were gifted by our ancient ancestors with the natural ability of seeing the world through eyes of wonder.  A sense of wonder is as rooted in our hearts and minds as the desire to be known or the need to belong.  We are born into wonder and it is the beginnings of knowledge.  Wonder is in our DNA.

I can never forget one evening with my son John as a four year old.  We had attended an evening Halloween party at his preschool and as we left the party it was truly dark outside. We walked into the parking lot and the entire night sky was filled with stars.  John stopped dead in his tracks and stared skyward.  I followed suit and we both stood there gazing.  I might have said something, I don't remember.  Perhaps I pointed out the big dipper (pretty much all the star knowledge I know), perhaps I commented on the beauty, I have no memory of conversation.  What is memorable was us simply staring in absolute wonder.  I'm not sure there were words to capture those moments of awe.  I'm guessing if words were shared they were as quiet whispers.  The whole time, parents and children were filing out to their cars leaving us the last two in the parking lot.  It was John's first time seeing a night sky and that night it was my first time seeing the night sky through his eyes.  Lucky me.  Later, he would dream of becoming an astronaut.  Much later, he would take a college course on astronomy.  He has always had a fascination with the vastness of the sky and this universe.  Today, he is a writer and a student.  He continues to be filled with wonder.  I hope his wonder never ends.

Student taking a picture of
a monarch just released

Large milkweed bugs

My students are learning about organisms in science this marking period.  Our monarch butterflies have been a perfect introduction to the world of insects.  On Friday, we went out exploring the milkweed patch in search of additional insects that live on this hardy plant.  Students brought out their Chromebooks with the goal of taking pictures of the various insects we hoped to see and that we had learned inhabit milkweed.  The milkweed was filled with beetles and bugs and the students were highly engaged trying to capture photos of the various creatures.  One student at the end of the patch yelled out, "I've found aphids!!!!"  The entire group rushed over to check out the clusters of aphids on a milkweed stalk.  It seems a small wonder, aphids and milkweed bugs, but these students were filled with it.  I would like to take credit for their wonder, but I cannot.  It is in our DNA to be fascinated with the world around us.  It's what makes us human and gives us hope for a future we can't even imagine.

Whether staring at the vastness of a night sky or tiny aphids, we have the potential to be filled with wonder in this world.  It has been written about by poets and scientists alike --painted on cave dwellings and expressed on computer laptops.  To see the world with wonder is why we are here.   Happy wonderings!

"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."  --Rachel Carson    

Back to School

Those of us in the education field know that August is more than the dog days of summer, it also marks the end of summer break and the beginning of a new school year.  Nervous energy starts to set in as we try to imagine how to prepare our classrooms and meet the incoming classes of students.  My son Ben is a first year teacher in a Detroit Waldorf school.  I've been teaching for many years and we are both filled with a level of excitement and nervousness that does not seem to diminish over time.  Every year is a new beginning, with a new group of students and new goals that will be set and re-set as we face the challenges and surprises that await us.  It is always a bit thrilling and overwhelming and it never gets old.

If teaching were the "filling of a pail," it would be so much simpler.  We could test, train, re-test and be done and move on.  The information could be filed in an organized hard-drive brain and retrieved as needed.  Those of us who have been in the education field for awhile and those of us who have been students of life for awhile, know that education is much more akin to the "lighting of a fire" than the "filling of a pail" or the filing of data into the brain.   How does one light the fire to think and learn?  This is where education becomes an art.  Each teacher brings his/her unique set of skills and knowledge to this art project we call education.  Each student brings his/her unique set of skills, needs and knowledge to the project.  It is always a work in process and it is always unique to the individuals creating it.  It's never a finished product because we are never done learning.  With any luck, some of us will find a passion for a subject matter and a fire will be lit.  And when a fire is lit (in any educational area) learning becomes an adventure into knowledge that we never lose or forget.  It is knowledge that gets seared into our hearts.  That's the art of it all.

Male monarch raised from egg

This summer, I've been raising monarch butterflies.  I have been finding eggs on milkweed and I've been raising them up through their transformation into butterflies.  I've started a butterfly garden in my backyard and loaded it will baby milkweed.  On the smallest plants I'm finding eggs!  It's exciting.  I've got approximately 16 monarchs in various stages in my house.  A couple of weeks ago, I shared several eggs and caterpillars with friends so that they can also catch the monarch excitement.  It's a wonderful project.  Ilse Gebhard, Russ Schipper, Erik Mollenhauer, Cindy and Paul Wackerbarth and Brian Hayes are all part of the "lightening of my fire" for monarchs.  I will never be the same and I can't thank them enough.  (The previous blog details a bit of this process and story.)  I will bring my monarch lessons into the classroom again this year and share my love of this amazing insect with my students.  We will read, write and examine monarchs and their impact on our society in the context of our fourth grade curriculum and objectives.  I can't wait to share the excitement!

I have also been reading a wonderful book written by acclaimed poet and writer Georgia Heard entitled, Awakening the Heart; Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.  I hope to set up my writing workshop with a poetic sensibility.  Georgia Heard has lots of great ideas for encouraging students to discover words and images from their own lives and bring them to light in the written word.  Her book speaks to "lightening a fire" for writing that has captivated me and I hope helps me captivate my students as they develop their writing skills.  I will also be bringing in lessons I've learned from the outdoor education workshop, Voices From the Land (detailed in a previous blog). Brian, Erik, Cindy and Paul are masters at "lighting the fires" of learning through listening to the landscape and  through nature study.  I hope to share some of that excitement with my students this year.

I would be remiss, if I did not mention Russ Schipper's gift for sharing his love of birds with me and my students.  For the past several years, Russ has volunteered in my classroom (along with the other fourth grade classrooms) to light some fires for learning about birds.  My students have learned observational skills, non-fiction reading skills, adaptation lessons and many other important thinking skills through the study of birds and Russ' help with the Cornell Backyard Bird Count.  I hope we can continue that tradition in the year ahead and for years to come!

This summer has been a time for rejuvenation, study and the lighting of my fire.  To all the students and teachers out there, here's to the messy art project we call education!  May we light some fires and share the love of learning with those we meet in the days ahead!

Peace and Love.

Exploring the Educational Borders Between the Heart and the Mind

"In all things nature there is something of the marvelous."  --Aristotle

"Science but increases the mystery of the unknown and enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual vision."  --Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Holy Earth  

Monarch larva pupating

Monarch emerging from chrysalis

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."  --Albert Einstein

The above quotes are written by great thinkers and scientists, renowned in their fields of study (philosophy, horticulture and physics respectively).  All three quotes though are pointing to something more than what might be considered hard and fast logic and/or science.  Philosophy and science are generally based in reason and logic.  They are about making sense of the world through discovery and facts . . . about proving the null hypothesis . . . about finding objective truths (or as close to truths as we can come).  And yet, I have started noticing an interesting paradox with many (if not all) the great thinkers and scientists that I have read.  There is a love of their subject matter that goes beyond the facts.  Science as something that is "marvelous," and "enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual vision" and is about "widening our circle of compassion," implies a delving into the heart.  These are not factual statements; they are statements of love.

This paradox, this jumping borders between the heart and the mind, makes so much sense to me.  Show me a great scientist and, chances are, they are passionate (and even in love with) their subject matter.  How could they not be?  Who could spend their life work studying the reproductive lives of bees (my entomology professor at U of MN) without some sort of passion and heartfelt love for bees?  These scientists are passionate folks.  If you want to be awed by moss, read Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, Gathering Moss.  She will pull you into the story of mosses so that you will never look at moss the same way again.  Moss is an amazingly adaptive species that can survive and reproduce in the most unlikely of spaces.  You will grow to love (if not highly appreciate) moss after reading her book.  If you need a reason to fall in love with trees, read Joan Maloof's book, Teaching the Trees.  I'm in the midst of reading her book now and I'm already seeing trees from a different perspective.  I've always been fond of trees, but now I'm learning just a bit more about the interwoven relationships between trees and the animals and insects that live among them.  The more I learn about trees, the more I appreciate them.  Life simply continues to amaze me.  And the fact is, I know so very little.  I feel a bit like Winnie the Pooh; compared to scientists, "I am a bear of very little brain."

The above monarch pictures show a couple amazing processes that I've had the opportunity (along with some of my students) to witnessing in real life: the monarch caterpillar (larva) turning into a chrysalis and the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  Both processes are spell-binding and although the processes are scientifically documented, they are still miraculous to observe.  My family knows that if I walk by milkweed (the only thing monarch caterpillars can eat) I look for eggs and caterpillars.  And when I find either one, I take them home and raise them.  About 1% of monarch eggs survive to adulthood, so I like to increase their chances.  I have learned a little bit about the lives of monarchs and all I can say is, "what's not to love?"  These insects have an amazing life story.  Summer monarchs mate and lay eggs, living for about two to five weeks.  Fall monarchs suspend mating and travel to Mexico, living up to nine months!  Monarchs travel from as far away as Canada to their overwintering home in Mexico.  After winter, they mate and begin their journey north.  It's really an incredible story.  But the story doesn't end there.  If you examine a common milkweed plant, you will find many different species of insects and spiders that are also fascinating creatures.  Did you know that when aphids (common pest to many plants) become overcrowded on a plant they will birth a generation of aphids with wings?  Or that aphids are almost entirely female with the sole goal of mass producing genetically identical babies?  Every plant, animal and insect has carved out a place in this world and adapted amazing ways to survive.  I'm not going to claim to love aphids, but I can pretty much bet, there's a scientist out there that does. . . This world is amazing and the more I know, the more amazed I become.

I am not a scientist or an expert of any kind.  In fact, as I grow older I realize more and more how little I know.  I'm a generalist at best.  I've been teaching elementary school for twenty years.  This means I teach all subjects from reading to math to social studies to handwriting (to name just a few).  I'm a "jack of all trades, master of none" (my sons like to say, it took me several years to graduate from kindergarten to first grade).  The few bits of information I shared in this piece of writing are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding and appreciating monarchs or aphids . . . hopefully enough for you to share a bit in my amazement.  There is another lesson here for those of us who are generalists in this world.  We need to remind ourselves that the heart has an important role in education.  Teaching requires at least as much emphasis (some of us would say more) on the love of learning as on any subject matter that we present.  Great scientists are born, out of not just knowledge but a love for their subject matter.  If we want to start a revolution of great thinking, we need to work on the love of it all.  The mind will always follow a great story.  And if we want to really save this world from the myriad of dangers we face, lets teach from our hearts, like there's no tomorrow (so that there will be).

"Nature-study is not science.  It is not knowledge.  It is not fact.  It is spirit.  It is concerned with the child's outlook on the world."  --L.H.Bailey