Learning in the Holler

I had an impromptu hike with my two youngest nieces and my mom tonight.  They were tired, as it was the first weekday of their Spring Break, but they both braved a short walk like troopers.

As we started to explore parts of the holler (or hollar or hollow) around us, we came across a small bit of land that had been worn away by water over the years.  Any adult could easily jump this minuscule crevasse, but we stopped to wonder how the tire and the bit of metal had been deposited here.  There were no ready answers from my nieces.  I pointed out the direction that the water was flowing (a very small stream) and G-ma pointed out that when we have a lot of rain that the small stream turns into a large stream.  With those prompts, the consensus was that, "they must have come from up there."

We crossed the crevasse, and walked up a bit further to find a large blue plastic bucket that had not made it past the fence that has kept out the neighbors livestock from our property.  I asked why that bucket had not traveled further.  Many other questions followed, but the important part of this story is that I told my nieces that there is no right or wrong answer to that question.  G-ma noticed that the gap in the fence was indeed big enough for the bucket, but it had not traveled forward.  We hiked on.

We ended at an old dilapidated house, one that is a pile of metal roofing and wood sides/flooring that have collapsed on itself over time.  When I was a kid, it still stood and my brother, I and our friends bravely entered it.

As we stood there, looking at the heap, the oldest of the two nieces said, "I think I might know where that metal we saw came from."  She went on to explain how a bit of the metal roof of this house could have blown over to where we had crossed.  I told her, "that is good thinking." (Even though it was highly unlikely due to the apparent ages of the metals.)

I don't know if my saying "there are no right or wrong answers" had any bearing on her coming to that conclusion, maybe it was a happy coincidence (after all, all of my nieces are brilliant people); however, the experience tonight gives me more fuel for saying that we need more real thinking in education.

Instill a desire in our youth to really think, regardless of right or wrong.  When you tell a child they are wrong, does that lead to true learning?