catalyst cata·lyst (kat′ə list′): Dodge Kids Rock Picking Rock

"Rock Pickers," Richard Olsenius for In Search of Lake Wobegon

Ever pick rock? My husband grew up picking rock. As a kid in central Minnesota, you could hire yourself out to pick rock for the farmer down the road. As he tells it, the day you picked rock was usually an unusually hot day in spring. You and the other unfortunate kids that signed on for this task put on your Dad's old too-big work gloves, trudged out to the baking spring field and arranged yourself in a sort of band, distantly shoulder to shoulder, as if you were participating in a search and rescue mission. You all walked like this behind a tractor pulling a flatbed trailer. You walked with your head down because your job was to look for rocks that had heaved themselves up to the surface over the winter. These upstart rocks could damage the cultivator blades or the teeth of combines and generally get in the way, so they had to be cleared from the field. Bigger rocks were carried on a stretcher by the older kids. Your neck got sunburned. Your arms and legs got scraped up. Not really enough time to horse around with the other kids. You got too hot, and the next day you were very sore. Yup, central Minnesota rock picking.

Here at Dodge, preschoolers have been picking rock too, but they don't get paid for it, they don't get too hot and there is plenty of time to horse around. We've been out scouting for sizable rocks to harvest for our on-going sculpture inquiry with local sculptor, Peter Morales (see previous post). We have a very loose idea that it would be fun to create stone turtles across all of our classes here at the Preschool. But to make rock turtles, we need the raw material, so we've been out and about, between snowstorms, finding rocks and hauling them back to our playground. Teachers have tried to turn over the task of rock picking and hauling to the kids, not because we want to torture them, but because they like it, and it's good for them.

Picking and hauling rock when you weigh 30 to 50 pounds and you are three to five-years-old is very physical and very challenging work. This type of demanding, hands-on, cooperative, kid-accomplished activity is sort of a hallmark of our work here at Dodge. In such activities, kids have to do a lot of problem solving, and they have to do it together. They must coordinate their efforts and actions, and stay focused in order to accomplish the task. There is risk involved as well (they can drop the rock on a toe or wrench a limb) and failure is certainly possible (the rock can roll away, or they can get too frustrated to continue). Of course teachers help, but only in order to sponsor action that is already being taken; if none of the kids takes action and all are passive, we do not move the task forward, we look for alternative projects. It takes a big measure of impulse control for teachers to stand aside and let children really do this sort of work; control freaks need to step back, bite their tongues and nearly tie their own hands behind their backs. As you might imagine, many teachers are, by nature, control freaks, so this is stuff is skill-building for us as well. Disciplined teachers intervene only to tie ropes for rock skids, to help line up a lever or ramp, or when peril is imminent. I confess that on one recent expedition, when kids had pulled a 100 pound rock for at least a 1/4 of a mile and it began to pour rain, we stepped in and stepped up the pulling. But we try pretty hard not to jump in with answers and actions. We, unlike the parents and caretakers of these students, have the luxury of time. We can devote an entire morning to getting a 100 pound granite stone back to school.

It is interesting to watch individual kids approach this kind of work; the skills necessary comprise the fundamentals of getting along in the world and functioning successfully with a degree of autonomy-- and these kids will have the skill set to pick rock in Benton county. As you might suspect, at this point in the school year, most kids are able to sustain attention in a task like rock-picking, and to cooperate with friends to get the job done. Some kids need assistance with basic skills—focus and cooperation—but this is age-appropriate too. Some kids dig right in and really take risks, putting their shoulders to the wheel as it were. In cooperative tasks, we see that different children bring different skills to the project: listening, problem-solving, taking the lead, following, supporting and, sometimes, dissenting or altogether ignoring. Each kid finds a place in the task—even the dissenter is staking out her territory. And, if a child is unable or unwilling to engage in this type of collaboration, teachers and caretakers learn more about that kid's motivations and proclivities.

These projects are generally great barometers of development across the board. Of course, a lot of physical development occurs each time we embark on such tasks, and, remember, physical activity builds stronger, more complicated pathways across the entire brain. While this project at Dodge may not be as authentic as having to build your own hut, or cook your own dinner, it bring the kids a little closer to the fundamental skills most humans need to survive (after all, we think you survive better with art, and you can't make a stone sculpture without stone). I don’t think we can do enough of this sort of stuff; kids and teachers alike learn a lot in the process.

Back at school, kids admire their finds and survey their rock stock. We hear a vocabulary of comparisons emerging. Language develops around a need to describe what they see. The math skills of differentiating and categorizing come into play. There is an opportunity and a growing desire to classify and adopt the taxonomy of geology. Teachers bring literature into the equation and we have class discussions about the nature and history of rocks. Big concepts are floated in these discussions: plants and animals can turn into rocks after many years...the moon is a rock...the Earth is rock...the rock under our feet used to be at the bottom of an ocean that covered this part of the planet...gasoline was oil, oil was rocks, rocks were plants and animals ...gas can be trapped in rock...lava is liquid rock (nothing is cooler than lava!)...salt is rocks...we eat rocks! Suddenly the world is a very compelling and amazing place, all because we found this rock and hauled it back to school.

When you are out in the field picking rock in Benton county, you might not be thinking about how compelling and amazing the world is. You might be wishing you were back in your cool, dark bedroom, munching on Doritos, sipping Kool-Aid and listening to Pat Benatar. But even preteen rock pickers reap the rewards of picking rock. There's all that vitamin D exposure to consider. And think of the oxytocin flooding the brain after the sunshine and physical exertion. Don't underestimate the time spent in quiet, zen-like contemplation, when the mind is freed by sheer boredom and tedium. Think of the eye-hand coordination being developed and all those pathways forging across the brain! And then there's the ten bucks you earn at the end of the day, just enough for the new Joan Jett album, and maybe an Orange Julius at the mall...