THE SPEED OF A SLUG: An Illustration of Active Participation — by Frank J. Mosca, Ph.D. On a cool, clear November morning, I stepped onto the terrace at The School in Rose Valley to take up my post as morning greeter. There is no better way to start one’s day at school than to welcome children and parents as they arrive each morning. On this morning, several students of mixed ages were already present and I noticed that they were marveling at a slug leaving a trail of slime as it crossed the bricks. One student put his foot in the way and the others watched for several minutes as the slow moving creature took the long way around. “Does it run out of juice?” asked one student. “It sure is slow,” suggested another. “I hope it gets off the terrace before everyone else gets here,” a third child worried. “Maybe you can figure out just how fast it’s moving,” I ventured. That is all the prompting it took. Within seconds Kendall had broken a stick and laid it on the ground in front of the slug. He began counting. Then the others chimed in… thirty-seven, thirty-eight…It took the slug one hundred sixteen seconds to cover the length of the stick. “We’ve got it! One stick in one hundred sixteen seconds!” the students shouted. “That’s interesting, but maybe not a very useful unit of measure.” I stated, “Sticks come in lots of different sizes.” A frantic search for a ruler ensued. “Five inches! The stick is 5 inches long.” Kendall confirmed, holding the stick against the recently acquired ruler. “So, 5 inches in 116 seconds.” “116 seconds is almost 2 minutes,” Julie shouted, “can we round up?” “Ok, good…About 5 inches in 2 minutes…how far in one minute?” I asked. “That’s two and a half inches in one minute.” Someone replied. As another school bus rolled up and, as the children dispersed, I wondered out loud, “How far would that slug go in an hour?” I found this seemingly simple experience to be magical. Just the fact that we have no problem with kids on their bellies, outside, before school, observing slugs might be impressive, but, as an educator, the way the energy in the multi-aged group grew was thrilling. As I arrived the next morning, Julie, a third grader, declared that she and her dad figured out that the slug moved twelve and a half feet in an hour. As I passed the kids, on my way to my office, I asked Kendall if he had figured out how many miles per hour the slug was moving. “No” he replied, but following me into the office asked, “got a pencil?”
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PEN The Journal of the Progressive Education Network Spring 2020
