My class just finished reading Wonder by R.J Palacio and the last chapter even made some of us cry….including myself! I am not sure what it was precisely that made some of my students cry when reaching the end of the book. So, I asked one student and she said that she felt happy for Auggie because students at Beecher Prep finally accepted him for who he was. She then asked me why I was crying at the end. I said, “Well, Harmony, I think because at the end of the book he liked school and he made people wonder about things they hadn’t thought about before.” And quite honestly, wonder left me wondering about my class, about my school, and about me as a teacher. It is safe to say I have been “emo”, as my students would say, lately because it will be hard to see them move on next year. Being the end of June, I feel like this is the time of year when many teachers are wondering. Some of the thoughts that came to my head were:
I wonder what will happen over the summer for my students…
I wonder what their Grade 4 experience will be like….
I wonder how time went by so quick…
I wonder if I prepared them enough for Grade 4…
I wonder if everyone in my class has felt like Auggie did when he won his award…like they were “floating.”
The very next day, we went on a fieldtrip to the Scarecrow Forest near Steinbach and I was asked by several students if I could sit with them. I always enjoy the bus ride part of fieldtrips. I sat down and I felt like I missed a really important question in my wonderings from the day before which was: I wonder if I have created the conditions for my students to wonder? I sat with Jayden and Anera on the way there and Rhys on the way back. Moments after I sat down, the first thing Anera said as I pulled out my 1st generation Ipod was: “I wonder which generation Ipod that is? It’s pretty thick.” I laughed and told her it was a first generation. Then Emily, who was sitting next to her said, “I wonder if Mrs.Collette has Rihanna on her Ipod.” We got to the Scarecrow Forest and students were heard saying things like, “I wonder how many eggs a chicken makes a year…I wonder how they built this tractor out of a tire….I wonder how long it takes for a pumpkin to grow….I wonder how they built these tunnels.” On the way home, I sat by Rhys and he said, “I wonder what Grade 4 will be like, Mrs.Collette.” I told him that I wondered about that too sometimes. Rhys fell asleep and I was just taking in what would be the last fieldtrip with my students this year. It was fun listening to students laughing, singing, talking about video games, their baseball games, and hockey. I guess on most days I would have not analyzed their wonderings too much. But today was different and by the end of the fieldtrip, I had found the answer to the question I posed before sitting on the bus. Their ability to wonder was apparent in everything they did that day. I came to realization that when you create the conditions and environment for students to wonder, powerful and meaningful learning is able to take place and everyone gets the opportunity to feel like they are floating.
How I will miss these wonders in my Grade 3 class: