“I could have them still here and I also kinda want them away”
Five-year-olds Avery, Hugo, and Farryn are talking about the wild turkeys that live in their city. There are different opinions and expressions of uncertainty. Avery thinks the birds, who have a reputation of harassing people, should be removed. Farryn is unsure, explaining, “I don’t want them to move away, but they could go in a cage in a zoo so they don’t bother anybody.” Hugo is also of two minds: “I could have them still here and I also kinda want them away.”
The question of the wild turkeys is just one of the numerous relationships between people and the rest of nature to be sorted. In the effort to control rats, do we use poison which harms birds of prey? During outbreaks of mosquito borne diseases, do we use pesticides which will kill other insects? The list of issues goes on. In this essay, I consider how we might engage the young children in consideration of the complex relationship between humans and the rest of nature. I explain the importance of engaging children in complexity, share a transcript of conversations about wild turkeys as an example of children engaging in such questions, and wonder how to expand on such conversations.
Newtowne School’s Atelier

Child’s wild turkey drawing.
Avery, Farryn, and Hugo’s conversation took place in Newtowne School’s atelier (studio). Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the school’s mission is to help children become, “curious, lifelong learners who can contribute to a kinder, more sustainable and equitable world.” Newtowne has four aged-based classrooms serving 55 children ages 2 through 5, and is a Reggio Emillia inspired school. One outgrowth of the connection to Reggio is that there is also an atelier where small groups of children come for playful learning experiences facilitated by the atelierista (me). With an awareness of the entangled environmental crises that are shaping the world my children are inheriting, a central aim of my teaching is to foster their solidarity with nature.
The Importance of Engaging Children in Complex Topics
Fostering children’s solidarity with the natural world, growing a feeling of kinship, belonging, and empathy, is not straightforward. Consider the Spotted Lanternfly.
With its vibrant color scheme, I find it an attractive insect. I think many children would agree. And for the past several summers, there have been campaigns across the U.S. encouraging people to kill them. There are considered reasons for these efforts. Introduced from Asia, lanternflies lack natural predators in the U.S. and have spread across the eastern seaboard, damaging vineyards and other crops.
I’m ambivalent about these campaigns. I recognize the need to stop the spread of the lanternfly. At the same time, our ecosystem is complex, made up of many different parts that interact in multiple ways. I have seen preschoolers randomly stomp on spiders, ants, and other small critters, an impulse I try to curb. I question the simplistic message—stomp—and wonder if it misses an opportunity for deeper education. Without a thoughtful conversation about why it is good to kill lanternflies and not spiders, I worry that my efforts to dissuade children from randomly killing will be compromised.
A general principle: question simple solutions to complex issues. In adulthood, our children will face numerous situations where answers aren’t clear, where there will be important trade-offs to weigh, and different perspectives to understand. They will need to know how to navigate complex topics with others. Raising children who are prepared for the challenges of the world’s entangled environmental and social issues involves helping them become practiced in grappling with these complexities.
The Everything Questions Podcast, Episode 5
“Do you have questions? ‘Cause we have answers. Join us together for our class podcast.” So starts every episode of the Everything Questions podcast. Created by Green Dragonfly classroom teachers Maggie Oliver and Vaidehi Desai, each episode is devoted to their 5-year-old children answering questions on a specific topic. Topics have included dinosaurs, spiders, and writing books.
Knowing of my plans to help the Dragonflies create an episode on the school’s Critter Count—a census-like activity aimed at increasing awareness of the animals we live amongst—our director Caitlin Malloy encouraged me to ask the children questions where there could be disagreement and debate. In other words, questions about complex topics. I decided to ask the children about the wild turkeys of Cambridge. Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Newtowne School is located, is a densely populated urban area and home to a robust flock of wild turkeys. Though native to the area, wild turkeys had been completely eradicated in Massachusetts by the end of the 19th century. In the 1970s, a flock of 40 from New York were reintroduced to the state and have thrived.
My fellow Cambridgians have diverse and often strong opinions about the turkeys. There is a Facebook page created by turkey enthusiasts. Others describe them as “feathered fiends.” Their aggressiveness and a lack of regard for traffic patterns (crossing streets and snarling traffic) provokes hostility towards the turkeys. The kids at Newtowne are well aware of the wild turkeys. Most have seen these impressively large birds and have heard adults sharing opinions and stories about them.
Given the different opinions, the turkeys were a perfect topic to engage children in the complexities of city-dwellers’ relationship with the rest of nature.
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“Should we move the wild turkeys out of Cambridge?
What follows are transcripts of the first of three groups of Green Dragonflies discussing wild turkeys. You can listen to all three groups’ conversations on Spotify where the Everything Questions podcast can be found (check out Episode 5 starting at 8 minutes in).

A group of Newtowne children observing a flock of turkeys near the school. [Photo credit: Ben Mardell]
I introduced the issue of turkeys as a question coming from my colleague Emma, who became curious about the birds when visiting from China. I explained that Emma has “heard stories about the wild turkeys being mean to people like the delivery guy. Or sometimes they stand in the middle of the road and block traffic so cars can’t go by. Or sometimes they get on the tops of cars and they scratch the paint. So some people say that we should move the wild turkeys out of Cambridge somewhere else?” Then, to provoke conversation and debate, I asked the children,
“Do you think that is a good idea to move them away? Or do you think they should be allowed to stay in their house?”
Avery: I think we should move them.
Ben: Avery, why do you think that?
Avery: So they don’t do that any more.
Farryn: Well, I don’t think we should move them. ‘Cause I like turkeys. ‘Cause they’re funny. But I want them to move, but I just don’t want them to move at the same time…
Hugo: Also at a place. There was some turkeys still in the cage and some were just wandering out of the cage. But it was like a fun place…
Ben: Avery would like them to be moved. Farryn is like, part of her wants them to be moved and part of her wants them to stay. What do you think?
Hugo: I like when they go gobble gobble.
Farryn: Yeah, because that’s a funny noise. That’s what I like about them.
Hugo: I kinda like how their little thing goes the drip,
drip, drip.
Ben: You mean the thing on their neck?
Hugo: Yeah. Drip, drip, drip.
Ben: Avery, hearing this, does this change your opinion? Do you still think they should be moved?
Avery: I still think they should be moved.
Ben: So you’re solid about your opinion.
Hugo: I could have them still here and I also kinda want them away.
Farryn: I have something else. I don’t want them to move away, but they could go in a cage in a zoo so they don’t bother anybody.
Hugo: But I think some of the ones that were just wandering around, they probably jumped over a fence or squeezed themselves through this fence and got out. To get out of their cage.
Farryn: But what if you put a glass cage, or maybe a plastic cage with really hard, hard, hard, hard, hard plastic? Or metal ones.
Avery: They would probably break through it if it was glass and then get hurt.
Farryn: Yeah. Otherwise you could do a metal one.
Avery: Yeah. Or you could do a metal one.
Hugo: But they would get some scrapes probably. Maybe little scrapes.
Avery: What if it was made out of wood? Then …
Hugo: That might hurt their beaks because it might crush their beaks down.
Avery: If it was wood it would be hard for them to get out.
Hugo: But if they tried really hard it might accidentally break their beak into pieces.
Avery: What if you did wood with holes in it that were the right size for its beak to get out? Farryn: Or you can make a little door for it to get out.
Avery: But then it would be hard to get it back in.
Farryn: Oh … but if it had a rope attached to the turkey it could get out and then the human could attach the turkey to it and it could just stay on the rope. And the human could unattach it and get it back into the door and lock it.
Ben: Do you guys think that is a good idea?
Avery: But then it would be hard for the turkey to get out the door. Unless there was just a big hole and a cover for it that fit in the hole.
I am delighted by the children’s commitment to finding a solution that helps people and doesn’t hurt the turkeys. And I wonder about providing children more information about the complexity of this situation. Hugo seems to think the wild turkeys he encounters are escapees from captivity. Would his opinion be different if he knew that turkeys are indigenous to Cambridge?
Continuing Such Conversations
The Green Dragonflies ability to engage in a substantive conversation about a complex question is impressive. They clearly enjoy thinking together.
It is important to note that the Dragonflies’ ability to converse was nurtured over time. Some had been practicing listening and sharing different points of view since they were Orange Sea Stars, the toddler classroom at Newtowne School. This ability to engage in complex topics is a schoolwide, multi-year project. Going forward, I wonder about finding other topics children could discuss and authentically contribute to. A possible topic: cats and birds. The Boston Birding Festival is hoping to start a dialogue about the impact of outdoor cats on the bird population. This is a conversation that Newtowne children could provide an interesting perspective to.
Cultivating children’s understanding and appreciation that there is often more than one way—more than one explanation or solution or perspective—involves complex teaching. And it is necessary. When it comes to forming ethical relationships between people and the rest of the world, there is a lot to talk about. We all need practice in having these conversations. If we are open to it, working with young children will provide many opportunities.
Ben Mardell is the atelierista and pedagogista at Newtowne School. He is also a research affiliate at Longlong Kindergarten at the MIT Media Lab. Mardell has over 20 years of teaching experience with children birth through six. He has also been a principal investigator at Project Zero, a research organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, leading the Pedagogy of Play and Children are Citizens projects, and a professor of early childhood education at Lesley University.He enjoys playing with his family (hiking and games) and participating in triathlons.
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