"She would show us the real thing so we could figure it out ourselves."

Jordan is going on a field trip today, to the Seattle Children's Theater to see "Go Dog Go."  He is fine with these sorts of field trips but they are not his favorite.  This morning he was reminiscing about his kindergarten teacher, who had grants from the Seattle Aquarium and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to do oceanography with the kids.  Jordan said, bursting with enthusiasm at the happiness of the memory:

"Mommy I think I was really lucky to have Mrs. Murphy for kindergarten.  She did all kinds of field trips to all kinds of places, not just to the theater.  Like we went to the tide pools and the beach to find out about the animals that live there.  Because if we had questions about something and she didn't know the answer, she would show us the real thing so that we could figure it out ourselves.  Like if we had questions about starfish, and our questions were so hard and so interesting that she didn't even know what the answer was, she would take us to the tide pools to see a real starfish, and that way we could learn about it all together."

It brought tears to my eyes.  Not only did Mrs. Murphy give Jordan the opportunity to learn about starfish directly, she helped him understand himself as a person who poses legitimate questions that go beyond the expertise of the local authority, and who figures things out by making his own observations in collaboration with peers.  And this was all so well articulated to him that a year later he is still treasuring that sense of himself and the opportunities he was given.

I told Mrs. Murphy about it by email, and cc'd the principal.