Engineers at the Beach

Engineers on the Beach

I was at the seashore today, and all along the beach front I found them: engineers. Children building and excavating, using the materials at hand: water, sand, waves, shells, and occasionally a bucket or shovel. And the thing is – no one was telling them what to do or how to do it. They were free to build or explore or destroy. They just wadded in and began, having no idea they were engineers.

It doesn’t matter whether they were two years old or twelve; everyone loved to play in the water and sand. They often built something, possibly a castle with walls surrounding it. If the waves washed it away, they would try again, maybe in a different place, or with thicker walls or moats. Moats appeared to be the answer, except when they were dug too close to the castle, which caused the walls to slide right down into the moat. So, they tried again.

Today, one little boy dug a ditch with his hands, from the sandcastle down to the water’s edge – surely that would do some good.

The very little ones often started up in the dry sand near the towels. But they needed water. So, they began learning how to use a pail. First, they’d get dad to fill it for them. But since they immediately dumped all the water out and it disappeared into the sand, they found that their father quickly lost interest, and they must now figure out how to fill up the pail themselves, down by the thundering waves.

Some days, the beach has a river running parallel to the waves, leftover from high tide. Children loved to run along the beach in the shallow water. Today, a girl with a shovel built a dam across the little river, successfully stopping the water flow. This drew the attention of other children who came to help build it bigger.

And children didn’t just build. They tested their strength against the waves and learned to approach them cautiously. They threw handfuls of sand into the water and watched the patterns they made. They kicked at the waves and yelled at them. Jumping over the waves was fun and losing one’s balance was common.

I remember as a child, discovering that my feet would sink into the sand. They sank deeper and deeper as the waves washed back and forth over them. I remember wondering how far they’d sink and wondering how to deal with the little sand crabs that scrabbled at my toes.

Today there was a toddler learning the same lessons.

It’s impossible to list all the things children did at the seashore. They were not even aware of all the things they were learning, things that were not part of a curriculum. No one had given them instructions to follow or forms to fill out. No one timed them or tested them or graded their work. And each child did their own thing. And most likely, when they return to the beach tomorrow, they will have tucked away in themselves memories of today, lessons they learned.