A Book, a Creek, and a Circle of Joy by Rebecca Fox
The hike had been long. The children were hot, a little tired, and more than a little restless. No one asked for a story—but something in the air asked for a shift. So I waded into the creek, sat down on a smooth rock, and opened the book.
Keywords: nothing without joy, storytelling, play
The hike had been long. The children were hot, a little tired, and more than a little restless. No one asked for a story—but something in the air asked for a shift. So I waded into the creek, sat down on a smooth rock, and opened the book.
Instantly, something changed. One by one, they followed—plopping down in the cool water, forming a circle around me. Ripples lapped against legs and knees. Sunlight glinted off pages. And the book in my hands? A Day on the River.
You couldn’t have planned it better. But this wasn’t planning. This was presence.
Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia approach, famously wrote, “Nothing without joy.” It’s a principle often misunderstood as superficial delight. But joy, here, is deeper. It is the spark that animates relationship, that rekindles attention when it’s been dulled by heat or fatigue or expectation.
This wasn’t just a storytime. It was a moment of relational repair—between bodies and nature, between children and rhythm, between learning and life.
Too often, we separate “academic time” from the body’s wisdom. We cling to routines, even when they no longer serve. But children don’t need rigidity. They need resonance. And sometimes that means reading a story not on a rug, not in a circle of chairs, but knee-deep in a forest creek.
The joy wasn’t in the book alone. It was in the surprise. The disarming delight of seeing an adult sink into the water fully clothed, choosing connection over control.
This is what responsive teaching can look like: not a deviation from learning, but the deepening of it. Not a reward for attention, but a reawakening of it. In the creek, story met setting. The children’s bodies relaxed. Their eyes widened. They leaned in.
And just like that, learning returned. Not because we demanded it. But because we honored the moment.
(That might have been the day I ordered pizza delivery to the GPS location at the creek…and it arrived! :)
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