{"id":2310,"date":"2026-07-27T16:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T16:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/?p=2310"},"modified":"2026-07-27T17:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T17:02:12","slug":"observing-exploring-and-investigating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/observing-exploring-and-investigating\/","title":{"rendered":"Observing, exploring, and investigating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Child
Ella Hedges working with a child<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This year, I have dedicated myself to volunteer service, working full time at a nature preschool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with preschool children is an experience that differs from what I anticipated. Being so young and still learning about the way the world works, I expected to be teaching the students things they didn\u2019t know, guiding them towards greater knowledge and maturity. And while I consider myself a \u201clifelong learner,\u201d I didn\u2019t realize just how much opportunity I have to learn from 3\u20135-year-old children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an experiential educator, I am simply a student with responsibility. A responsibility to mitigate risks, but also a responsibility to fuel growth. I found I was able to better function in my position by changing my mindset from \u201cguiding students to growth,\u201d to \u201ccoming alongside the students to learn together.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important things I have learned, or re-learned, is how to be observant: how to explore and investigate. While I have great enthusiasm for exploring, in my \u201cadult life\u201d that looks more like climbing mountains or white-water rafting. What I forgot is what exploration can look like in my day-to-day life. While white water rafting counts as exploring, it can also apply to looking down at my wet boots after walking through a puddle. While I have often done this, it never felt like an opportunity to be filled with wonder, but then I see a child walk through the same puddle, and watches intently as the water slides off the edges of their boots, forming new puddles around them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quote by Rachel Carson frames this thought process beautifully: \u201cWhat if I had never seen this before? What if I never see this again?\u201d By following this line of questions, I am led to observe, investigate and explore like a child experiencing these things for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Person
Ella Hedges gardening<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ella Hedges, Unit 337, Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,43],"tags":[188,131,130,183,185,186,187,160,184,182],"class_list":["post-2310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children","category-outdoor-ministries","tag-arkansas","tag-brethren-volunteer-service","tag-bvs","tag-children","tag-creation-care","tag-exploring","tag-ferncliff","tag-nature","tag-preschool","tag-unit-337"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2314,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions\/2314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/bvs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}