In giving my students a test on Friday about the first three chapters of Siddhartha, Mr. Miller was inspired. He suggested that the students should have to take the taste the only way that the Samanas would approve: out in the rainy weather. I couldn’t have been happier. He also took the opportunity to torment students by throwing leaves at them while they tried to write. We debriefed the activity and one student said it was one of the best quizzes we’ve taken. I was happy to see how seriously the students took the exercise, the quad was silent as the students flipped through their texts and used each others’ backs as writing surfaces. 

As silly as the exercise was, the kids benefitted from the experience. With Mr. Miller’s out-of-the-box opportunity, the students gained experiential learning and became ascetics, if only for a few minutes.