Kindergarten Life Cycle

It's so critical to understand ecological systems and cycles. We need to honor and replicate the natural world as a matter of course.  Biomimicry has become a science tending specifically to this end. Our failure to pay attention to natural systems has partially gotten us into this unsustainable quagmire. 

I visited a kindergarten class today; the kingdom of the 5-year-old.

They had a netted cage with two monarch butterfly chrysalises hanging by their little threads at the top. One chrysalis was bright green and the other a bit darker.

Monarch breeding has been the staple of life cycle wonderment for elementary children from forever. Just hunt down the milkweed plants etched with leaf chews, or send in an order to a science materials house. Voila - caterpillars.

This morning the children ran straight in after the morning bell to the chrysalis cage to check on overnight progress. Things looked pretty much the same as when they left the day before. As they explained the process to me, one kid actually used the word metamorphosis and the others very confidently used chrysalis. The vocab had been implanted in their kinder minds.

The natural shifting in life stages of this insect actually changes the shape and size and mode of locomotion of the critter as it advances to its “adult" self. What an awesome and radical natural system!

An hour later I sat near the circle of kinders with my back to the butterfly table. I turned and glanced over at the container...and a butterfly was out!  It just hung there, quietly!  Next to it was a clear and empty chrysalis. The whole thing had happened while we went about our business of the early school morning. No one had seen the probing or twisting outward and downward of the new insect. It was, simply, out. Done. Stretching its wings. We celebrated!

I felt cheated at first. How come we didn’t get to watch? Why did it have to sneak around on its own, and then just show up? No announcement. No clue. We had missed the show; the change that helps to explain this incredible natural cycle. It just...did it!

But, that's the challenge. We need to understand nature without requiring it to perform for us at will. The metamorphosis we experienced was not a circus act; a spectator sport. 

What if the monarch-in-a-cage-show within the primary classroom was only the beginning of an equally intense progression of natural system and cycle revelations? Do we continue this magnificent show?

By the end of the school day the monarch butterfly had walked its way, upside-down, across the top and appeared to sidle up to the other chrysalis:

“Helloooo? You, in there...yah, you! I’ve done it!! Remember last week?? It worked!! I got six long legs now and, I think, wings! I know you’re in there. Helloooo!?”