We began our year inspired by the words and work of children’s author, Mac Barnett. We were enthralled by his ideas of breaking the fourth wall and creating a place of wonder for children and adults to explore. When we observed the children’s interest in sea animals at the beginning of the year we made the purposeful decision to dive into one of the magical worlds of Mac Barnett by reading the book, Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem. On the inside cover is an advertisement which we read to the children. It said that by sending a self addressed envelope we would receive our very own blue whale to care for. Some of the children were excited by the idea.

“Yeah we could keep it at our school!” Others were more hesitant and nervous. “We will have to ask Gillian if it is okay.”

“I’m not sure that this is a good idea.”A few months after sending the envelope we received a letter from the law offices of Magnusson, Olafsson, and Oskarsdottir letting us know that our blue whale, named Olsen, was indeed on his way, but was stuck in customs in Sognefjord, Norway. Upon reading the letter the children began to imagine Olsen being physically stuck in Norway. They immediately developed ideas and theories to get him unstuck and to our school. As teachers we were energized by the excitement of the children and we believe that in turn the children were encouraged by our energy. This mutual motivation produced an environment ripe for seeking knowledge.

“Emergent curriculum is not a free-for-all. It requires that teachers actively seek out and chase the interests of the children. This kind of teaching environment demands a high degree of trust in the teacher’s creative abilities, and envisions an image of the child as someone actively seeking knowledge.”

- Inspired by Reggio Emilia: Emergent Curriculum in Relationship-Driven Learning Environments

We moved forward in developing and guiding this emergent project and the question came up, “Why would you focus on developing ideas around Olsen when you know he will not be coming to your classroom?” This was a valuable question and made us think further as to why this work was important. We went back to Mac Barnett’s TED Talk for guidance. In his presentation he says,

We took this idea and went even further to believe that when you wonder, your mind is open to all the possibilities of learning. We approached the work of Olsen with a playful attitude and created a low risk, high challenge environment for the children to wonder and learn. Our excitement about the work seeped into the larger community and we began getting feedback from parents, colleagues and the other children at school. Olsen has worked his way into all aspects of the classroom and in turn has given us the perfect umbrella to work under. Olsen appears in our literary work, in our science and research, our theorizing and engineering, our dramatic play, in our artwork, our walks in nature, and anywhere else you could imagine. Through all of these experiences the children are developing creative confidence and the knowledge that they are active participants in their own education.  

“You’ve got truth and lies and that little space, the edge in the middle, that liminal space, that’s art. . . That place which we can call art or fiction, I’m going to call it wonder. It’s what Coleridge called ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ or poetic faith.”