In practice | Teaching: We need gates

It’s a few hours after sunrise on a blazing hot Phoenix morning. Still, my three kids are enamored of the learning that’s happening around them at the neighborhood park. After chasing lizards and trying to make sense of the behavior of an ant trail, my oldest son notices that there is an echo near the racquetball courts.

“Why does it do that?” Joel asks. If this were a classroom, might draw a detailed diagram of wavelengths or send a science web site. But it’s not a classroom. It’s the park, where learning is totally untested, and we have all the time in the world (at least before we melt away in the sun).