Eeeek a dead frog!!

Before I complete my story about the Beijing trek, I want to tell you about our fun with the preschoolers. Our agenda (as per instructions from Delphine, who oversees the schooling) is to expand the preschoolers’ understanding of the community in which they live. We decided to start with the concept of neighborhood and neighbors.

In order to make this an active, fun-filled learning experience, we took a neighborhood walk and collected natural things in the process. Each child was given a zip-lock bag (what did we do without them!) with his/her name on it. We headed out into the cul-de-sac with six preschoolers to begin our collection.

There was great excitement over the presence of a dead frog, not completely desiccated and somewhat stinky, lying on the side of the road. True to archetypal form, the girls screamed and ran and the boys wanted a closer look. Fuzzy grasses, rose petals, rocks, seed pods, pinecones and leaves were among the treasures that went into the bags. During the walk, we stopped in front of various houses and talked about which neighbors lived where.

Blind children do not experience what we call “incidental learning” – information that most of us gather by seeing. An example of the way things can fall between the cracks is reflected in aa conversation I once had with a student I will call “Roland.” I was teaching Roland how to spread peanut butter on bread (think about doing this as a totally blind person) and we were talking about different kinds of sandwiches. He said that he really liked ham sandwiches. “Roland, do you know what kind of animal ham comes from?” I asked. “A chicken?” he asked. Sighted children would pick up this information at a young age by seeing (for instance) a little picture of a pig on the label of the package.


When we got back to the schoolroom, each child shared their favorite thing with the others. Then we gave them each a three-ring binder and helped them staple their bags into their books. Some of the bags were pretty heavy because of the rock collection, so teachers had to discretely dump a couple of rocks. These are “concept books” and this one will focus on learning about the community beginning with the neighborhood and expanding outward to the greater community.