Opportunity and flexibility are important in elementary classrooms. Too many teachers teach their lesson plans and often don’t teach their students. You sometimes have to seize an opportunity and let the planned lesson fall by the wayside. These are often the best learning days. I was lucky enough to learn this early in my career. One of the units we did was a butterfly unit and hatched butterflies. We set everything up and with the help of a kit, we had 30 caterpillars ready to go inside their chrysalis’ and turn into butterflies. I had many friends do this unit and the butterflies emerged at night or on a weekend. They would then show the students and then let the butterflies free. I had the best of all outcomes with my class. We just got back from lunch and one girl ran over to look and started screeching that they were hatching. I had a choice to continue with the math lesson or focus on the butterflies. I chose the butterflies. I asked the students to grab their notebooks so they could draw and write about the process they were seeing. As a class, we even skipped our specials. It was art, the teacher came out and joined us with paper and crayons. Susan DeCamp was our art teacher and one of the nicest people I know. I still have one of her paintings hanging in my house 25 years later. We took the whole afternoon and sat outside huddled around this box holding the chrysalises. It is probably one of the deepest and most long-lasting lessons I have ever taught. All that I did was sit back and let it happen. I spent the next 2 and a half hours listening, dispelling misconceptions, and answering questions. Not one student wanted to go play with the other kids during recess. At the end of the day, it was a scene of chaos when we let them go. Kids running everywhere on the field chasing their butterflies. The best part is that I learned as much as the students did. I learned about what teaching really is while they learned about butterflies. That lesson stays with me to this day and I bet if you were to find some of those students, they would still remember that day. As a teacher, I wonder what lessons kids will remember and take with them. It is usually never the ones we think they should remember. I have confidence that this lesson will stay with them forever. The way I can tell is, later in the spring I heard one of my students telling the story to another teacher and then correcting the other teacher when they said “cocoon” instead of chrysalis. The student went on to correct the teacher by telling them that cocoons produce moths, not butterflies. I wish every teacher could have seen that day and learn the lesson of the butterflies.
