Monarch Teacher Network Comes to South Haven!

Lisa releasing a butterfly

"In the end, we will preserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."  --Baba Dioum

Watching a monarch come out of its chrysalis 

Cindy, hard at work!

Becoming one with the monarch

Tagging a monarch

Last week teachers from Mattawan, Paw Paw, Detroit and South Haven gathered at North Shore Elementary School in South Haven to participate in a two-day workshop devoted to incorporating the monarch butterfly into the educational setting.  It was a hands-on workshop that left teachers with everything they need to raise monarchs and integrate monarch lessons into their classrooms.  Teachers learned how to construct rearing cages and butterfly houses.  They learned how to find, raise and care for monarchs throughout their life stages; they learned about milkweed and the other insects that live in the milkweed patch; they learned the science and story behind the life cycle and the migration routes of this amazing insect and lessons and games that incorporate the monarch into math, science, reading, writing and social studies.  (A guide and DVD with details on both the science of monarchs and monarch activities for students of all ages was also included in the workshop.)   A huge thank you to Brian Hayes, director of the Monarch Teacher Network who makes these workshops happen!  And a huge thank you to Erik Mollenhauer (founder and former director of the MTN) and Cindy and Paul Wackerbarth who were the lead volunteers.  They volunteered both their travel expenses and their time to join us in South Haven and teach us something that they are passionate about --- the care of monarchs and their love of this amazing planet we call home.  Thank you Brian, Erik, Cindy and Paul!  We are richer for this wonderful experience!

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature . . . he finds it attached to the rest of the world."  --John Muir

Reconnecting with Nature in a Digital World

Erik Mollenhauer

On Tuesday, June 28th, at 7:30 P.M., Erik Mollenhauer will be presenting a thought-provoking lecture at Lake Michigan College in South Haven, Michigan.  He is both a scientist and a storyteller.  He will bring his knowledge of science and his love of storytelling together in this powerful lecture, sure to inspire.  Erik is a nationally recognized teacher and has done presentations and led tours around the world on monarch butterflies, birds, trees and other wonders in nature.  This presentation will focus on the challenges we face in a world of technological distractions and environmental crises.  There is an admission fee of $10 which includes a pre-presentation reception with refreshments starting at 6:45.  I hope you can join us!

Graceland in the Milkweed

"I've reason to believe

We all will be received

In Graceland, in Graceland ...

I'm going to Graceland" 

--Paul Simon, Graceland

Searching for monarch eggs and larva

This past week, was our last week in school and we spent time in a nearby milkweed patch.  A few days earlier (May 28th), several students (and I) reported seeing adult monarchs.  We knew that if there were adults, there would be eggs. We carefully turned over leaves looking for signs of monarchs.  Even without finding signs of monarchs, it was a success.  Throughout the year we have been learning about the common insects, plants and birds of our neighborhood.  Walking to this patch we were able to use the lessons we had learned to enjoy the walk and the wandering.  Earlier that week, we spent time digging up baby milkweed in the school lawn and transplanting it into our new butterfly garden.  My students felt like heroes saving the plants from the lawn mower.  What a wonderful way to be a hero and what a perfect way to close the school year.  

While my students were searching for signs of monarch, Paul Simon's song, Graceland started rolling through my head.  "I'm going to Graceland; For reasons I cannot explain there's some part of me want to see Graceland; And I may be obliged to defend, every love, every ending;  Or maybe there's no obligations now;  Maybe I've a reason to believe;  We all will be received, In Graceland. . . "  There seemed something very much like grace in the milkweed patch this week.  Watching us all intent on finding monarch eggs or larva amidst the weeds, hoping to give them a bit of a better chance in our rearing cage. . . It felt like we were all in this web of life together . . . the students, the butterflies, the weeds . . . and we all needed each other.

One day this past January, a student came up to me during math.  He looked at the table that our monarch rearing cage use to sit and said, "I miss our monarchs."  I stopped and looked into his deep brown eyes and said, "So do I . . . they will be back."  It was one of those small moments that stuck with me and I know that I will never forget.  This student has what could be called a less than adequate childhood.  As a result, he has an anger and a hopelessness that seems to reflect something like PTSD.  Schoolwork is hard, relationships are hard, life is hard.  I won't share the details, to preserve his privacy, but this is not uncommon.  There are so many children who suffer from a less that adequate childhood, he is just one example.  When he said, "I miss our monarchs," it felt like for a moment he had shed his skin a bit and he shared his battered heart with me.  That moment felt like grace.

This is what I think. . . there is something grace-filled in the very ordinary things in life . . .  When we realize that common insects and weeds are amazing, we realize that everything is amazing.  I'd love to believe that studying monarchs and milkweed helps my students understand this idea.  It felt as if this one student did understand and he did know that the monarchs help remind us that we too are good enough. . .We are all, in some sense, like the common insects and weeds in this life and we are all amazing.  Although so many of us struggle, feeling a bit like failures or less than good enough in a world where we are often reduced to numbers and scores, the milkweed patch reminds us that we are more than that.  We are not failures, we all will be received in Graceland. . .  and we are all amazing.  I would like to believe that this student learned there is hope and a bit of grace in this life by studying the common insects and weeds in the field.  If you wonder if you are good enough . . . here is what I suggest. . . walk through a patch of milkweed in search of monarch eggs and feel how amazing this web of life we inhabit really is and you too will have reason to believe;  We all will be received, In Graceland. . . 

Mentoring for Monarchs

Planting Milkweed with the Kindergarteners

Community Circle in our Outdoor Classroom

Reading with our Kindergarten Friends

Last Friday, my class and I had the great pleasure of mentoring Kindergarteners.  Anna DeVries' class, from Lincoln Elementary came over to our school to learn about monarchs and help us plant milkweed (donated by Ilse Gebhard).  We had a lovely time!  After planting milkweed, my students led a tour of our paths (pointing out trees and birds as they walked).  We took a few moments to share our favorite plants and animals as we sat in a community circle in our outdoor classroom.  Later, we were treated to a wonderful snack from the Kindergarteners, while my students read the nonfiction book that we wrote earlier this year.

We learn by teaching.  One of my students came up to me, after reading to a friend, and said, "Mrs Linstrom, did you know that most monarchs only live for three to five weeks and there's just this one generation that can live for up to nine months?!"  (I actually did know that and I thought he did also.)  This fact should not have been a surprise for him.  I thought this was common knowledge to my students.  I had told them, we watched a video that included this fact, they had written about the monarch migration, and this fact was included in the book that we published together in class.  How could he not know this?  Here's what I have learned after years of teaching. . .  Students need to learn through teaching each other and they need to learn through hands-on and meaningful experiences.  This student hadn't really understood or comprehended this information until he read and taught it to someone else.  I responded to him, "Yes, isn't that amazing?!"  And I was again reminded that learning and teaching are two sides of a coin and that I am fortunate to be on both sides of that coin on a daily basis.  I also thought back to a wonderful experience I wrote about several years ago in this blog, entitled, About Learning A Lesson I Already Knew  (5/19/12)   http://lhbitrail.blogspot.com/2012/05/about-learning-lesson-i-already-knew.html.  In that post, I described how sometimes seeing something actually happen before our eyes will cause us to remember it so that we'll never forget.

I hope that everyone has the opportunity to live on both sides of the education coin as we all continue our journey through this amazing life of learning and teaching!      

Birding with an Old Friend

Checking out the wren nest

Listening for birds on the trail

Last Friday, my class and I had the good pleasure of going birding with our friend, Russ Schipper.  He visited our class (and all of the fourth grade classes at North Shore) earlier this fall and shared his knowledge of birds and several bird specimens.  He lit the fires of several of my students and we continued to study the common birds of Michigan throughout the year.  Russ came back in February to help us with the Backyard Bird Count through Cornell University.   It was a cold, windy day and most birds were smart enough to take cover, so we only saw a handful and Russ promised to come back in the spring when the weather was nicer.  What a lovely time we had!  We saw and heard many, many birds.  I was amazed at how many birds my students were able to identify with the help of Mr. Schipper.  A big thank you to Russ for his generous dedication to spreading the love of birds with my students and hundreds of others throughout West Michigan!

This Friday, we will be planting milkweed and other plants donated by Ilse Gebhard (Russ Schipper's wife) for our future butterfly gardens.  We will be getting together with Ms. DeVries' kindergarten class from Lincoln Elementary.  My students will teach the kindergarteners some of the interesting facts they have learned about monarchs this year before we all go out and plant!  My students will also read to the kindergarteners the nonfiction book on monarchs we wrote collaboratively earlier this year and give them each a copy to take home.  We are looking forward to this fun opportunity to mentor, teach and plant!  Thank you Ilse Gebhard!

Monarch Education

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.  

--William Blake

Male Monarch on Milkweed

My students will have the rare opportunity to speak on the house floor of our State Capitol in support of making the monarch (Danaus plexippus) our state insect.  It's bill SB812.  Aric Nesbitt, our state representative, presented the bill to the floor last week after receiving letters and signed petitions from interested people like us.  The bill will go to committee and my students will testify in favor of it.  The opportunity for my students to participate in the democratic process in this way is amazing and I'm so excited for them!

We raised 20 some monarchs in our classroom this fall.  The eggs and caterpillars were all wild natives of South Haven.  After taking a workshop on monarchs and raising them at home, I'm pretty good at spotting eggs and caterpillars on the milkweed that they inhabit.  Studying the monarch has not only taught us about insects, habitat, adaptation and migration; it has also brought joy into our educational setting.  We had the rare opportunity to watch a caterpillar (larva) move into its chrysalis (pupa) stage and watch a butterfly emerge from the chrysalis.  Those moments were spellbinding for all of us.  We studied their milkweed habitat and the other animals that inhabit the milkweed patch.  We learned about their life-cycle and their amazing 2,000 mile migration crossing the borders of Canada, the United States and Mexico.  We studied their population growth over time.  This spring we cheered when the population grew from the previous years' numbers and we worried when we heard of the ice storms that hit Mexico shortly after the monarchs started heading north.  We wrote a class non-fiction book and poetry in honor of this amazing insect.  In short, I think we grew to love it, as one does when one studies and cares for anything in nature.

I remember a few summers ago, I was getting ready for a new school year and a family asked if they could stop by and meet me before open house and classes started.  The student was labeled autistic and he struggled in social situations.  I was happy to meet him and his family before the craziness of the school year began.  The student's dad spoke very little English and the student was extremely quiet.  Although my classroom wasn't all set up, I did have a chrysalis in a rearing cage and a map of the monarch migration route posted nearby.  As I was showing the family the classroom the dad became more and more interested in the rearing cage and map.  He finally pointed to the map and more specifically to Michoacan, the monarch overwintering site in Mexico, and he said that was his home.  I was in awe.  I asked him, "I have heard it said, that the monarchs carry the souls of those who have passed and they are part of the Day of the Dead celebrations in those parts, is that true?"  He smiled really big and nodded his head yes.  It was a wonderful moment.  My new student also started to study the map and then he started talking about animals he liked and pets that they had. . . That little chrysalis had become the perfect ice breaker.  Who would have thought?  The monarch not only crosses geographical borders, but it also has the potential to cross relational borders.  On that day, the monarch was a wonderful ambassador building connections between me and my student and his family.  I share this story, but I have many other examples of  how this amazing insect has enriched my life and others in a variety of ways.  What a perfect insect to represent our great state of Michigan!

The study of an insect may seem less important than the many issues of our day, but I firmly believe that it is in the studying of things close at hand that we truly learn and grow in this world.  I am thankful for the lessons this amazing insect has taught me and my students.  I am also thankful to Ilse Gebbard (Kalamazoo) and the good people at Monarch Teacher Network (New Jersey).  Their work and dedication to the monarch is making this world a better place, one insect and one human at a time.

"One should pay attention to even the smallest of crawling creatures, for these too may have a valuable lesson to teach us, and even the smallest ant may wish to communicate to man."  

--Black Elk, Lakota Nation

                 

  

Letter Writing, Politics and Monarchs

Representative Aric Nesbitt teaching

Last Friday we had a surprise visitor in our classroom, Representative Aric Nesbitt.  Earlier that week, we wrote letters to him encouraging him to vote in favor of making the monarch the official state insect for Michigan.  He stopped by to thank us and teach us how a bill becomes a law in our state.  It was exciting.  My students were thrilled that he would take the time to visit and that they could talk to him in person and remind him why they believe the monarch would be the perfect state insect for Michigan.  We will be touring the capitol after spring break, so it was also good timing for a lesson in government.  In addition, some students solicited autographs for a petition in support of this worthy cause.  We will be excited to see how the vote for this bill turns out.  A special thank you to Ilse Gebbard, the leader of this movement and a great supporter for monarchs in our state and beyond!  And a big thank you to Aric Nesbitt, who took the time to listen to us and to teach us!  In a time when politics seems to be divisive and even downright unkind, it's nice to meet someone who seems to genuinely care for students and maybe now even an amazing insect!
    

Some of my class posing with Aric