The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

Today, in the middle of a pretty intense game of Predator Prey (a HUGE tag game), one of my students turned to me and asked why there were no houses in Wisconsin, and only farms. She asked this after looking across the county road and seeing a large population of cows. She said that in Minnesota, she always saw only rows of houses, and why wasn't Wisconsin like that too?

Right there, in the middle of the game, I found an opportunity to tell her that there are actually houses on the farm, but the people have so much land that you can't always see them, and that their neighbors are on the plot next door too, but the houses just aren't as crowded. I felt that explaining that Wisconsin also has cities and that just down the road there is an apartment complex as well was important, while pointing out that there is quite a bit of farmland in Minnesota as well.

It seems a bit impressive (not necessarily in the positive way) that a child can go through ten years of life and say that they'd like to take a picture of a farm because they've never seen anything like it before. But then again, how impressive it is upon me that I am able to bring some light to the situation.

I never cease to have those moments where I realize that there is an amazing amount of positive effect that comes from what I teach, whether its seen right there in front of me, or just an residual effect.