::K::

            The youth school kids have been like elusive deer up at the Linne Doran property.  We see occasional herds of mud-splattered bodies trotting over the land and, then, as soon as we turn our heads, they vanish around the bushes, not to be seen again.  A couple of weeks ago, however, we finally met the youth school kids and practiced what the school calls Coyote mentoring.

            The misting clouds and thudding of rain against the Alder leaves in the morning presaged a slippery, entertaining day in the mud.  It was guild day at the youth school and my inner science nerd had no choice but to select the “naturalist guild.”  Sheets of rain blanketed the land as we set out on a full-spirited tromp through the woods.  We were looking to get dirty, to feel the temperate rainforest’s detritus against our hands and faces, to poke our heads into murky, recondite holes, to upturn logs in hopes of discovering something slimy (if it moved, even better!). 

            We probed and smelled many of the forest’s unknowns and collected samples to return with us so that the kids could add to the fields guides they were creating.  A list of notable finds included: a hardened jelly blob washed up on the pond’s shore, large smelly scat prominently deposited upon a pond log, fine “hair” in the soil, a cantaloupe-colored mushroom, and, according to one young naturalist, a log that smelled like chocolate. 

            No doubt, it was energizing to see kids dive full tilt into their environment, but helping them make their field guides was one of the most refreshing and inspiring hours I have experienced in a long time.  Seven and eight year olds thumbed through field guides, sifted through information, and sketched and wrote about their newly identified species for an hour and a half with complete focus.  Yes, the adults assisted them with difficult vocabulary and asked them some guiding questions, but, ultimately, the kids controlled their learning experience.  When kids are given the power to control their learning path, they will run miles down it without stopping. 

            Teaching kids the art of questioning and patience is key to maintaining this curiosity.  One young boy came to me with a brittle, flattened conifer sprig he had saved in a phone book for future identification.  With every movement, more and more needles fell to the floor.  Nevertheless, we observed the nature of its buds, the shape, color, and smell of the needles, and the feel of the midline.  This limited information led him to a tentative hypothesis of Douglas-fir.  His learning experience around this tree did not stop at this one entry in his field guide.  We uncovered lingering questions, such as, the tree’s location, the overall shape of the tree, and the bark pattern.  The answers to these questions will only lead to new inquiries.

I walked away from my day with the youth school with a powerful mentoring tool.  The time to ask questions and the courage required to delve into the unknown, to look under the mind’s logs, is essential for inquisitiveness to grow.  When people are given the time and space to answer these unknowns for themselves, their learning journey will be filled with intriguing ideas and questions they might never have come across if they were too closely guided toward the answer.  This means that the hardest part about mentoring is learning to wad the answer up into a ball and throw it deep into the forest.  Students will stumble across it eventually.  Perhaps that is why the youth school kids are always scuffling about in the bushes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.