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Ah. Saturday morning! Time for my early morning exercise jaunt. I walk out the door and on our front lawn I see this small white orb.  Why is someone littering, what is that?  I head over to retrieve it, and there on our lawn is this massive mushroom, not a button sized mushroom, but a toe-box sized mushroom.

WHERE did that come from?  It has not been that moist. And it is not yet the time of year where I leave in the dark and arrive home in the dark, and I have been looking out at our lawn each day. At least I think I have…

Did that thing grow overnight? I knelt down, looking at the fine patterns, the segmented stem, and thought to myself, how did I miss this? 

When I got home from the exercise I asked my husband, “Did you see that mushroom?”

He mused, “Oh yes, it has been growing all week. Quite quickly in fact. It was a puff ball a few days ago.”

I thought to myself, how did I miss that? Was I not looking? Then I thought about all of the things in life that we sometimes miss. Sometimes things get ahead of us and grow and grow, suddenly they are there.

This could be a child learning to read. Or count. Or understand friction. Or play a song. They plug away and then suddenly there is a mushroom’s worth. 

Or the unnoticed growing mushroom metaphor could be a group of feelings that are building in one of our young people, we do not notice and suddenly there is a tangled outburst. A mushroom of sorts. 

As we walk through our space, think of how if we stop and notice, we can see the change every day… and then when the large beautiful fungus appears– just as on a simple early morning exercise one notices a mushroom– we smile and understand. 

Water Lead Test: 

As part of a new law, all schools and child care providers are required to test for lead in the drinking water and fix any issues when lead is found above an established action level. The intent of the law is to protect children, students, and staff from lead in these settings.

A Learning Opportunity for Educators & Community Members: October 1, 2019

Paul C. Gorski is Associate Professor of Integrative Studies in New Century College at George Mason University. He is also the founder of  and the  a website that has won more than a dozen awards internationally for its contribution to multicultural education scholarship and practice.

• Where: Newark Street School, Newark, VT
• Schedule: 9:00 am–3:00 pm, Fulfilling the Promise of Equitable Schools; lunch is included
• Registration: Participation is capped at 50 participants.