So, are you curious?  What did four preschool teachers want to find out about the fire station and what happened when they rang the doorbell, clipboards in hand, and started asking questions?  Firefighter Lance answered the door, and after we explained to him what we were doing, he showed us in and proceeded to give us a forty-five minute tour of the station, answering all of our questions. 

 

When we came back to the conference center, we were given tools to put together a documentation board, which is a display teachers can use to pass on information about the project.  We titled our project “Surprises at the Fire Station”, which helped us to narrow down the pages of notes we had taken by limiting us to the information we did not know before we went.  For example, we predicted that there would not actually be a Dalmatian at the firehouse.  We did not know that the purpose of having Dalmatians in the firehouse years ago was to have them run ahead of the horses, clearing the streets like a siren does today.  Here are just a few of the many other “surprises” we found:

1. Grocery shopping is a daily duty at the firehouse.  While we were there, the ambulance crew had just arrived back from the store with the order for the day.  They offered us a soda.
2. The most common kind of burn for a firefighter is not caused directly by the flames, but by steam.  When they sweat under their gear, the extreme heat causes steam so hot that their skin burns. 
3. During the day, the TV can only be on from noon-1:00 so that they can watch the news after lunch.  The firefighters do get free time after 5:00pm during a 24 hour shift.  Lance said he works out during this time in the downstairs fitness room.  He said he also uses the time to do home improvement projects.  Recently, he brought base board and quarter round from home and spent his down time in the fire station basement applying stain.  When his shift was over and the stain was dry, he took it home and put it in his house.  This works well for Lance, because, as he pointed out, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
4. Firefighters have to go through paramedic training, which is full time training that lasts for four months.  They train with doctors at the hospital, and when the four months is over, they are required to work twenty shifts in the ER, deliver at least six babies, and attend surgeries to practice intubation.  Lance said this training was the hardest thing he has ever done. 
5. Probably the biggest surprise is that at the end of our tour, while we were sitting in the ambulance, one of the firefighters asked us if we would like to accompany them to the local library to read to preschoolers.  We agreed, and the next thing we knew, we were headed there by ambulance.  If you had told me that morning that my day would include an ambulance ride, I wouldn’t have predicted that the day was going to be so pleasant.

 

 

When we got to the library, we were led to the children’s area, where a group of preschoolers involved in a group called “ready readers” (or something like that) was waiting for the firefighters to read to them.  In her greeting to the children, the librarian informed them that after the presentation, the children would “do phonics”.

“Hmm….” I thought to myself, “What if she had instead asked the children what they wanted to find out about the firefighters, writing down their questions so that they could see the letters going onto the page, observe beginning sounds and notice the question marks at the end of each inquiry.  She could have made a list of their predictions (the Dalmation, the pole) and compared it to their findings(no pole-it’s hard on the knees, no dog).  Then the context of the letters would have been meaningful.”  Ahh…my Katz-ichism(teaching by Lilian Katz, one of our workshop leaders and world renowned expert on the project approach) is really changing the way I think!