Field Notes

A boy in one of our recycling projects wanted to build a stool. He knew exactly what he needed: plastic bottles, a flat piece of plastic. And he could draw out the materials before he touched them. He built it. It worked. He could have moved on, and most classrooms would have let him, because a working stool from a five-year-old looks like a finished piece of learning. I know this child, though. I know he can do more than a stool. And that is the part of the Zone of Proximal