Let me give you a little background. As teachers we practice how to evacuate the school when the fire alarm goes off, how to go from the classroom to the library, computer lab, lunchroom, office, bathroom, etc. We teach how we want them to sharpen pencils, put books away, let us know if they are having hot or cold lunch, the proper way to hold scissors, etc. We have to date neglected to teach about the use of one little thing. The function of that little thing has been on the mind of one of our young students since the first day of school. The thoughts running through the active little mind might have been, "I wonder why no one ever uses those." Well, today that student decided to use the experimental process to learn what that one little thing could do. I'm sure the thought was, "It has to be cool there are a bunch of them all over the school." So this young innocent mind called for the little hand to reach up, grab the handle and pull down. I can only imagine the jump this little heart made when the alarms started to sound. Only to be confronted with the horrible fear of being responsible for those big trucks showing up, everyone leaving the school, the adults counting people, and of course that horrible sound that would not stop. Yes, we had an unscheduled fire drill today. It was actually good timing, we needed to do a drill, and now we have a student who learned a lesson that will never be forgotten. Those little red and white squares with the handles that say PULL are going to cause a lot of noise and make a bunch of big trucks with big men come visit the school.
I love the experimental process. Watching the students take charge of their own learning and try different things in order to better understand the world around them is what really keeps me going.
