Wednesday, May 16, 2012

What's the Last Thing You Learned from a Child?

The children find a sassafras tree and show me how to tear the leaves to experience the extraordinary smell of root beer.

I'm a city girl.  I don't even know what sassafras is.  "You're kidding," I say, doubting that I'll smell anything. 

"Here," one girl shows me.  "You look for a mitten shape, and then you know you have sassafras. Haven't you heard of sassafras?"   

Sassafras Leaves

Sassafras in the Sun

Suddenly, the morning walk to school becomes an education in sassafras. 

I turn to a group of children and ask, "Did you all know this about sassafras?"

"Yes!" they nod.  "Yes!

I love learning new things, especially from children.  I hold the sassafras leaf to my nose and smell lemon, root beer, and even something like mango. 

How wonderful that such things exist in nature!  "I have so much to learn," I announce. 

I really do.

And, on a side note, I'm currently learning how to keep this very chipmunk from eating my strawberries.


I'll keep you posted.

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What's the last new thing you learned about nature from a child?