I found a stick at Prairie Creek!!

[Isaac Fried]

My first thought upon arriving at Prairie Creek Community school was how empowered and independent the children were. Walking up to the front door, I saw groups of kids running around the yard, sitting in the grass, and looking at me inquisitively. All of them appeared quite authoritative in their existence, even when I couldn’t see an adult in the area. When I found where my class was meeting, I asked the kids if Michelle was their teacher, to which they responded affirmatively and recalled past Carleton students who had shown up to hang out with them each week. The kids call their teachers by their first name, which is indicative of the role that Prairie Creek adults play: they are guides and full of knowledge, but power isn’t placed in the hands of someone with a title. Rather, the children themselves take charge of their own learning. They are allowed to wander the school property freely without fear of being yelled at for straying, and require little corralling because they are motivated and filled with excitement about their Wednesday activities. They do everything with their hands, and often offer their own thoughts without prompting (or even waiting to be called on). Yet Michelle is in total control of the Herons, as her fourth and fifth grade group is called. She highlights and explains the importance of questions, behaviors, and wonderful ideas the kids come up with, complimenting on each as well as rephrasing and adding her own insights to what the child has offered. Examples of Michelle’s continuous guidance include lessons such as “if you aren’t listening then you won’t know what to do”, “joking around with a response might actually confuse others”, and “it’s important to use evidence when making a claim.”

The best way I could physically describe Prairie Creek is calling it a summer camp. There is a vast amount of outdoor space that containing both prairie and deciduous forest biomes, and I am guessing the creek itself might include some swampy areas as well, although I did not get to see it in person. There is also a playground, chicken coop, and various tents used for outdoor classrooms during the pandemic and/or forest school, which is the entirely outdoor day that happens each Wednesday. I only got a peek inside the actual building, but there were enormous and likely child created sculptures hanging from the ceiling and the room really resembled more of a workshop than a traditional classroom.

The woods is not only a physical location filled with lean-to forts, but also an entire child society. During recess, the area becomes a construction zone full of sticks, grass, and rocks that function both as building materials but also various forms of currency to facilitate the trading that takes place between students. One child proudly announced to some younger students that he “owned” a shop in the woods. Something particularly intriguing to me was a conversation the Herons had early in the day about the possibility of fort removal or preservation, which Michelle noted to me was not singly an issue the kids were concerned about but something the teachers had discussed as well. The Herons took turns offering their opinions in a very democratic debate over whether to leave the existing forts intact or take them down. Michelle only had to do a little guiding and paraphrasing of students comments in order to paint a complex issue dealing with economics, equal opportunity, and distribution of material goods, as well as the importance of preserving school history. I was floored by how students aged nine, ten, and eleven could participate in such a rich and elevated dialogue. Of course, there were instances of shouting matches and regular interruptions by some kids, but this is to be expected, and Michelle handled them with grace and experience, noting that “saying yes-no yes-no is not a way to find a solution to a complex problem” and also requesting that students “listen to the opinions of others instead of stating your own argument repeatedly.” These simple yet wonderful ideas adhere to Prairie Creek’s mission of encouraging “democratic decision-making and problem-solving where children are empowered to speak their voice and effect change in pursuit of a just and compassionate world.” (Prairie Creek Website and mission statement)

It was difficult for me to notice any lingering pandemic related fatigue in students or teachers as the methods of learning and the environment were already so different from traditional schools and educational practices. However, I did in discussion with Michelle and several other Prairie Creek educators learn that the children had lost quite a bit of experience last year due to protocols implemented during the height of the pandemic. Michelle noted that most of her students had not yet participated in the woods society as the eldest at the school, and this role of modeling recess to the youngest students was entirely new to them. Some students who had done their learning entirely distanced last year had even forgotten what activities they enjoyed during time in the woods, and we could see some children looking a bit aimless while others were busy with their shops or forts. Michelle also told me that more classes had started coming outside for Wednesdays due to the pandemic forcing outdoor learning, and some of the tents that functioned as outdoor classrooms apparently were not permanent.

Piaget’s model would put the Herons at the tail end of the concrete operational stage. They have most of their logic and classification skills already, but questions like identity and socials issues haven’t yet come up for most of them. I observed an example of this when I was introduced to the class early on: as students went around sharing their name, their favorite mushroom, and pronouns, many of them became confused about what a pronoun even was. I assume that Michelle added the pronoun question for my benefit, but it was obvious that the fourth and fifth graders not only were not used to including them, but many hadn’t even thought of the implied identity question (gender) that accompanies these set of words. Michelle had to define pronouns multiple times as we made our way around the circle, and there were some amusing responses and statements throughout! The Herons demonstrated both decentration and reversibility during a time designated “woodscraft” in which they were able to dye acorns, build small fires to boil water in a tea kettle, or whittle sticks with small pocket knives. Reversibility was necessary for the procedure of building a fire and keeping it going long enough for the water to boil, and whittling required attention to safety and proper knife usage as well as concentration to create a “stop cut” in order to cut a mushroom shape into the stick (if you’re confused I’ll show you the stick I’m working on!! This is what I was referring to in my title so congrats if you made it all the way through my post!!!!)

[Adam Ross]

I’m blown away by the ways in which the students at Prairie Creek are experiencing the unstructured, outdoors-focused aspects to their school that you observed. Everyone knows “kids are so imaginative” but I, as an adult, always forget how active imagination can lead to thoughtful and complex, if not convoluted, feats of art and engineering when nurtured carefully. Probably because I’m not imaginative enough. These herons haven’t even reached middle school yet, but they seem to have gained an intuition for building and keeping a fort, diplomatically working towards protecting everyone’s creations, engaging in democracy, and the real estate market. It sounds like there are some real benefits to this type of learning for students in the concrete operational stage, as you identify. The ways in which they apply the skills they are learning are immediately useful and are relevant to the things that are happening around them; they are concrete. Macroeconomics classes which ask questions involving even the most basic of hypothetical economies would engage 0% of the skills these kids should be developing, but here they are effectively learning about economics. You better let me see the mushroom stick you are working on!

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