On one of our last days in New Hampshire I took a hike with my two nieces (ages 8 and 5), my son Hal (age 6) and Hazel (age 2). We headed off to "The Rookery," which is a beaver pond about a mile and a half from my mother-in-law's house. Many years ago, when the beaver's flooded the area, the trees died but were left standing. Several trees were on rocky outcroppings that have become tiny islands and in these trees great blue herons have made nests. Herons return to the same nesting place, or rookery (thus the name of the Heron's blog), year after year, building on the nests each year. If you go to our rookery at the right time, you can see up to ten herons silently flying on impossibly slow wings and bringing food to their cranky young.
This wasn't the right time of year to see the herons but it's still a beautiful place and we headed off at a brisk pace. Of course, with kids, one's pace rarely stays brisk and the they started catching red spotted newt efts. Then they started picking up birch bark. And when we came to a small stream they wanted to see where it went. My first impulse was to say, "We're almost there, let's keep going" but I said, "sure" instead. We really didn't have anywhere we needed to be.
Hazel and I sat down to build fairy houses and the "big kids" headed down stream. I could hear them exclaiming, "Look at this rock!" "I bet this ends at the lake!" "Ohh! It's so refreshing" (really, one said that). Every once in a while I would holler, "Can you still hear me?!" and three voices would answer, faintly, "Yes!" After about a half an hour they came back, brimming with excitement. The familiar hike had held new discoveries and a bit of danger. We eventually made it to the rookery but that was really beside the point.
A few days later, I came across this quote from Adirondack guide Les Hathaway, "The trouble with people today [the 50s] is they're so busy coverin' ground they ain't got time to notice what's on the ground they're coverin'." It reminded me of our hike to the rookery but, this close to September, it was impossible not to reflect on teaching, too. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the push to "cover everything." It's so easy to cut off a conversation because it's time "for something else." It's so easy to forget that the real learning happens during the journey, and if we take shortcuts, the destination is not as meaningful.
Prairie Creek is a school dedicated to taking the time to allow deep and rich learning. It is rarely an efficient process. There can be wrong turns. But it is only through exploration that children make discoveries. As we begin the year, I commit to you that in the Herons, we'll take the time to notice what's on the ground we're covering — and I welcome you to come along on the journey.
The Rookery 
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