Waiting For The Sun
We hiked to the Carroll Avenue Bridge.
We’re talking about measurement. This bridge is impressive and it’s just past the “Big Lawn" which is what the children call the green space at the center of the college down the street. The children have been measuring that green expanse in running leaps, rolls, tumbles, and shouts. It was time to find out about how tall the tallest bridge is around here!
The children stopped to read the placard which shows the previous iterations of crossings over Sligo Creek. This current version is so very high! Walking across it was terrifying, honestly, because of the wind. Thank goodness one of the children was willing to hold my hand! The children voted to go back again but this time, UNDER THE BRIDGE. So we did.
The children navigated their own way to the bridge, this time along the creek. It was so interesting to watch them trying to figure out which way to go, to predict turns right or left, naming landmarks along their way. When we got there, they were amazed at the great arches. They could barely see the places we walked only a week before! They ate their meals brought from home below it, still fascinated by those arches. Their excited chatter echoed above and around them. Afterward, they sketched these and approximated the bridge’s great height on their travel drawing pads brought along for this purpose.
Recording their research — how tall is this bridge? How many arches? How many cars have driven across it?
But listen, that’s all something and it’s certainly something wondrous and wonder-filled in terms of project-based, emergent learning.
Let me tell you about the moment that will stay with these children.
The sun — and its warmth that we’re all so tuned into now that we’re all outdoors — was traveling the sky, going in and out behind clouds. We stopped at one point, creekside, taking in this new-to-the-children section of the creek — its larger boulders, new whirlpools, rapids, and the snow covered woods on the other side.
As we walked along, the sun seemed to play hide and seek with us. The cold would flood in and then the warmth would return as the sun appeared again.
The sunlight suddenly flattened and we felt a chill in the air. We counted, slowly measuring the space between each number, 1—2—3 and kept a count as we waited for the sun to come out.
At 38, the sunlight burst through the trees, the snow glittered between tree shadows, the light sparkled on the running water, and there, the glow of the bridge suddenly filled the distance. The invisible became visible. A shout of celebration for a “38-er” went up with one voice as if the sun could be summoned just by counting!
These moments, only found by removing the four walls, will serve as moments to savor.
This practice, this staying in place, growing our patience, marking the place we stand will be part of the children’s sense-memory. We breathe, we count, we place ourselves in the world.