Back in December I wrote a post about a caterpillar my daughter and I found our roof top:

I live in Doha, Qatar, and I recently planted a few trees on my roof top garden. My daughter and I were on the roof tending to our young tress when she noticed several caterpillars. She was fascinated with our hairy little friends.

I remember being enthralled with the whole process of metamorphosis as a child and wanted to introduce this transformation to my daughter.  Sure she is only two-and-a-half, but such a magical event can be appreciated at any age. Right? We took one of the caterpillars, some leaves, a branch and put it all in a jar, hoping that we could watch the entire metamorphosis over a span of a few weeks.

The little guy is doing okay. He is eating the leaves, growing, and dropping a massive amount of poops, which are coming in handy for our other project- potty training. “See the caterpillar goes poo-poo too.”

Well that was away back in December and at the time we felt that we had identified our little friend as a Gastropacha (Stenophylloides) populifolia.

But after seeing the moth, it looks more like a Lasiocampa (Pachygastria) trifolii.

It had been nearly three months, and I had begun to give up on the moth. I was sure it was dead. Just yesterday, my wife said I think the moth is out, and my daughter was so excited to see the moth too. I am sure the concept of metamorphosis is way above her comprehension at the age of two-and-a-half, but you should have seen her face as she spoke to the moth, go on fly now. Can you fly moth?

I am not sharing this story because I think it is cute. There are many lessons here on what learning looks like. The lessons that could be learned if this process were given to older students are immeasurable.

We are always deriding young people of needing instant gratification and having short attention spans, but how often do we give them the chance to slow down to the speed of nature when they are studying it? Forced to cram our time with curricula expectations, we are shortchanging our students by rushing throiugh worksheets to be ready for exams.

If we want them to take the time to really connect with a topic and learn, we have to give the time. After all it takes three months for a caterpillar to transform into a moth.

What are your ideas? Can you see the benefit of expecting students to maintain focus and patience on an idea like this?