A Curriculum of All-Bugs-All-The-Time vs. Hubris and Habit
I once taught a boy named Rico who had a passion for insects. He came to me that way as a three-year-old and was still hunting for bugs as a five-year-old. He didn't care at all for the tub of plastic insects we had inside the preschool, even the super-sized scorpion that every kid wanted, left him shrugging. Instead, he peered into the dark places -- under and behind furniture, for instance, or into the thin cracks between the baseboards and walls. -- because that, he knew, was where the bugs wanted to be. He included spiders in his studies, as well as snails and worms, even as he knew they were arachnids and mollusks, and for a time allowed himself to be fascinated with crabs and lobsters after the visiting "Bug Man" told us that they were, in fact, a type of insect. But his main interest were the bugs that live among us on a daily basis, the creatures he found in his garden, under his house, while on walks, and, of course, on the playground.
He would occasionally play with the other children, and often lure some of them to join him in his hunts, but he spent a great deal of time on his own, on his hands-and-knees, peering under leaves, turning over rocks, and investigating the damp, dark corners of the yard. When he found something interesting, he would begin to call out to others, CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: A Curriculum of All-Bugs-All-The-Time vs. Hubris and Habit