I was thinking I’d write something non kid-related, but I just got back from a 5th grade trip to an environmental education center – School in the Woods, they call it – as a chaperone for 65 kids, for 4 days and three nights. Translation: I was “on duty” for 65 kids for 90 hours, or 5850 kid hours.
That’s a lot of kid hours, and there’s an unbelievable amount to tell. Just ask my husband, who’s listened to me recount numerous tales. Just when I think I’ve told the best, I flare with excitement that there’s yet another that simply must be told.
One of my funniest moments was mis-hearing the instructor of my group tell kids the scientific name of the phenomenon created by chomping on Wint-O-Green Lifesavers in the darkness of a night hike without flashlights or any other light. The kids stood in two rows, facing each other, mouths wide open in defiance of 10-plus years of parental reprimands to eat with closed mouths and the ever-helpful, “no one wants to see what you’re eating” now receiving not just permission, but instruction to chomp, and to make sure the person across from you could see fully into what’s happening in your mouth. And what happened? Green sparks of light flew out of our mouths. I was delighted there were an uneven number of kids in our group, so that I could participate. I opened my mouth as wide as my dental hygienist exhorts me to do twice a year, chomped mightily, and laughed heartily – I was not going to let down the student across from me, who was relying on my full participation to observe 5th grade science in action. We all laughed, surprised and happy and sparking green light out of our mouths, enjoying the minty flavor as an added bonus. “Tribal luminescence” the instructor called it. And I was temporarily distracted, as I couldn’t figure out which part of this had to do with tribes or anything tribal. I was sure it was something I must have missed in my own elementary school education, and left it at that.
Now, at home, safe and sound and off parental duty to 65 kids, I’m free to look this thing up, and I found my error. Apparently what happened was triboluminescence, from the Greek, tribein, to rub, and it refers to the light created from rubbing things together (or chomping them or somehow pulling their little molecules apart). In our field experiment, what got pulled apart was candy, and the green sugar somehow became green light. Nothing tribal about it, although later in the week you might have thought tribal mentality was taking over some of our youngsters. I’m still off parental duty, and now I want to know how come there was never any light emitted from all the rubbing and ripping apart that occurred after hours in my early twenties?
Back to the outdoor learning experience. All our senses were awakened in our environmental home away from home – in the woods, sans media, sans cars, sans technology, sans a glass of wine after the kids went to bed, sans all the “comforts” we tend to take for granted. Experiences ranged from the sublime (a night hike just two days before the moon was full, so the sky shone and reflected off the shiny rain gear, making it seem almost like daylight in parts) to the mundane (“Does everyone have their gloves? Hats? Rain gear? Water bottles? Back packs?”); the wondrous (learning about mushroom spores that travel underground for hundreds of miles) to the irritating (relentlessly trying to get certain students – the same ones for the entire trip – to shut up and stop ruining the experience of the eager-to-learn kids); the magical (there’s nothing better than being swept up in 5th graders laughing and singing and holding hands and practicing skits for the final night’s campfire and looking comfy in woolen hats and pajamas) to the gross (“vomit kits” and bed bugs – yes, actual bed bugs). A kaleidoscope of every possible emotion and experience, yet out in the woods, with unexpectedly delicious food, comfortable beds, and, eventually, lodges that reeked of wet, dirty socks. A lot of wet, dirty socks. If you haven’t smelled that recently, you’re lucky.
But not as lucky as me. I got to take part in something that I will never get to see again – the chemistry of these 65 kids, their minds, their creativity, their sensitivities and emotional first-time-away-from-home experiences, their joy and frustration and yes, even their smelly socks, and even the letter that came home suggesting how to wash/wipe/heat/freeze every single item to make sure no unwanted creatures came home with us. I had the good fortune to be smack dab in the middle of 5850 luminescent hours of loud, chaotic, silly, tiring, challenging, funny, exhilarating, enlivening kids who populate my son’s world.