Prairie Creek Week 3!

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of the experiences that I had as a younger student were grounded in Vygotsky’s work. One common thread I’ve had in this class is the realization of all the theory that teachers applied while I was student that I hadn’t noticed when I was a student. It is very special to have the opportunity to peel back the curtain and see the inner workings of what I experienced as a child. One particular example of a time in which I think I was in my ZPD in elementary school was while reading Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility with my fifth-grade teacher Ms. Lenarz. I had always been a big reader, and by the end of elementary school, my teachers had me reading books that were more advanced, but still felt like children’s books. I struggled to find books that pushed me to be a better reader. Instead of having me read young adult fiction, or even modern fiction for adults, Ms. Lenarz pushed me to read a book by a 19th century author with nuances that I had to work to understand. I was ready to read this book, but I had never been given the chance to do something like that before, and with the assistance of Ms. Lenarz, my MKO, I was able to finish the book and really understand it.

One example of scaffolding that I observed today while in the classroom was watching Michelle, the 4/5 grade teacher, assist the students in her class with making a fire. Michelle provided the students with all the materials—kindling, dry firewood, newspaper, and matches, but allowed the students to construct the fire themselves. It was obvious from the ease with which they accomplished the task that they had been trained in how to get the fire going, and were pretty comfortable with the process at this point. Michelle reminded the students of some things (“what shape do we lay the firewood in”) and supervised them safely, but also gave them space to learn themselves. Soon, the fire was roaring, and warming the clearing, and the students were able to roast apples and cook potatoes in the embers for a snack later. Here, Michelle served as an MKO, who was providing and had provided scaffolding for her students to use to build the fire. Vygotsky highlights the importance of this sort of relationship in his theory, and it was great to see it in action here.

This week we got to go to Prairie Creek in person, which was a great experience. It was so helpful to be in the physical space with the students and made me so impressed by how well teachers were able to deliver lessons online! The school is small, and the staff are very trusting and friendly—there is no really check in procedure—when we arrived we asked where the herons where and they just pointed us around to the back. I think this is partially to do with the size of the school because all the stuff most know about when visitors are coming because the population is so small. We went around to the back of the school where the students were sitting around the fire pit on log benches. Michelle came out, and helped the student set up the fire like I already described above.

I haven’t had much of an opportunity to be an MKO to the students, in part because we are only really allowed to observe the classroom, and not to get involved with assisting the students much for COVID reasons. This meant that I am not able to really interact with students much, and act as a resource. Interestingly, at one point in the morning Michelle put some elderberry branches on a picnic table and then had to walk away. A student turned to me and asked if the berries and leaves of the plant was edible—a question to which I did not know the answer. It was strange to be in the position of being asked to be an MKO, but then not be able to deliver. At the time, I just told the student I wasn’t sure and that he should ask Michelle, but in the future I would try and think of a response that would push the student into their ZPD, maybe asking why they though it was edible, or something along those lines.

The teachers at Prairie Creek seem to work hard to really use the space around them. Michelle used the outdoor space to do a lot of teaching lessons. Each student is assigned a tree to watch, and records when the tree shows signed of leafing out and budding. The students went off and checked their trees first, and then returned and reported back. They then did a reading exercise where they were looking for examples of writer’s choice in an article about have the natural world influences inventions. Then. Michelle had them estimate the height of a tree and showed them some simple trigonometry. It was very exciting to get to see the students really use the natural world to draw conclusions about things.

After these projects, the students were able to have some free time to do an activity that interested them outside. Some drank hot chocolate and talked, others roasted food in the fire, some shot off rockets they had made earlier, and some used elderberry branches to make beads and blowguns. The students were provided with the equipment to do what they wanted, and I saw them use handsaws and other tools in ways I had never seen students before. That trust in the students was really fascinating to see. Michelle was extremely knowledgeable—not just about teaching and the lessons the students were trying to learn, but also about the natural world. She knew the names of all the tree species around us, and what type of birds we saw circling overhead. I was really impressed by all her knowledge and the work she had obviously put into building that knowledge base. She seems like a great resource for the kids to have.

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