The Rookery

Today we went to the Starling's Body Fair to see their recent science work and learn some things, too.  (Did you know that babies have 300 bones but, by the time you're an adult, you have just over 200?)  Fairs like this are common at Prairie Creek.  Our tour guides (the three Starlings featured in the pictures below) showed us what they had been doing and guided the Herons through some of the activities they'd created.  The older kids take the responsibility of being an audience very seriously.  They ask great questions.  They are enthusiastic learners.  They share amazed compliments.  They all remember their work being valued by older students when they were younger.  Now it's their turn.

Not only do events like this build our community, they also make the work of the younger students much more real.  When you are a teacher (as these Starlings were) you learn for a reason.  Sharing what you've learned with people who are eager to learn from you is so much more meaningful than regurgitating what you've learned on a test.  This is at the heart of authentic learning (which, for me, is at the heart of progressive education).  In a progressive school, what you learn is important because you will be using it.  You seek out knowledge because you need it.  – MM