Learning Space

So we began work on the new PK Yonge today.  It will be interesting to say the least.  I'm ready to build this thing!   There will definitely be some work to be done, though.  It is a scary thing to envision something that isn't.  It isn't like we are just plopping down a new configuration of an old floor plan.  We are completely redesigning what it means to be at school. 

Of course, none of this is new.  One of the quotes that Prakash (Nair...the lead President of Fielding Nair International) shared with us tonight was from John Dewey - "Schools should not be about preparation for life, the should be about life itself."  I really think this is right on the money.  One of the analogies used was that of a "committed sardine".  Apparently, scientists have done research on how humongous schools of sardines are able to turn so quickly.  What they found is that it is not really all that quick.  There are always some sardines swimming against the rest.  Those around them start to turn.  Eventually, when there is a critical mass, they all turn.  John Dewey was the first sardine to start swimming the other way.  Prakash feels that we are about to hit critical mass where all the sardines are about to turn.

One of the ways he helps people see that they are ready for the change is by showing them what they already believe about life, their own health and well-being, and what we say we want our schools to accomplish.  When we really look at this, it becomes completely obvious that how we design our schools does not accomplish this mission.

One of the other quotes he shared which hit home for me is from David Orr:

The goal of education is not mastery of a subject, but mastery of one's self.

It is a myth that we can adequately restore in life that which we have dismantled in school.

This are the kinds of thoughts I have behind my paradigm in my classroom.  I really want to be teaching these kids what it means to be in the world, not just in school.

It doesn't appear that you can post a youtube video inside of a blog, so I am putting two links to some youtube videos that I think probe a lot of this kind of stuff and really make you think about what we are trying to prepare students for.

Shift Happens - this is a video we watched in a faculty meeting last Spring.  This version has been update.  I think the question at the end is really good.

Students Today - this one came up as a related video when I searched for the other one.  I think it has some other good points.  The two videos are complimentary.

Also, here is the Fielding Nair International website.  You can see the kinds of schools they design.

It's all about control

As I continue to read more and more about giftedness I feel myself thinking more and more about how the kind of things we should be doing for gifted students really is what we should be doing for everyone.  It seems to me that we have created a culture in our education system where being "gifted" is a contest and a label that many use in order to increase their social status as it were.  Of course, I still believe that there is a difference between a gifted child and an average child, but I also believe that what is needed in gifted education is essentially what is needed in all of education - a paradigm shift (as I've mentioned before).  Essentially, if we teach students rather than curriculum, we will in turn be providing the extra stimulation that each gifted child needs.  And if we do it the right way, we can actually form our gifted curriculum around the child, rather than just putting all the gifted kids in the same room for 45 minutes a day and teach them a subject at an advanced pace even if they are not gifted in the same area as the class.

 

This semester promises to be one of an awful lot of growth.  I feel like I am finally starting to figure out how to put words to what I have been thinking about and doing over the past 2-3 years.  I've also noticed this semester that I am getting much better at guiding the pre-interns in my room as they are in their infant teaching stage.  I hope that they are able to really digest the overall world view that I have in for my classroom.

 

Of course the big question is how does my thinking about "teaching the child" actually come to fruition?    I feel like the way I approach my classroom and my students is very different that I hear described by many other teachers I have talked with.  Not that they don't care or don't know what they are doing.  Simply that they are approaching their task from a different angle and they have different priorities.  But deep down, I believe that, even if there are small differences in approach, what is best for kids is to truly change how we view about what we do.  For example, we can't reasonably hope to graduate independent, critical thinkers who can navigate uncharted territory if we use the entire 13 years that they are in our care controlling their environment, their choices, their movement - even their bathroom usage!  No adult would live that way, so why do we force kids to?  I'm not saying I want a free school, but I have learned that when you give the students more choice and more control you actually have more influence in the room.  I have also learned that by shear force of rule and law, you can have absolute control in a classroom, but when you choose that, then control is all you will have.  I don't want control.  I want to be part of a community.  I want to know my students.  I want them to learn how to take control of their own learning.  Why do we control everything in their lives and make all the hard choices and then complain that they can't make good decisions or think critically?

 

The answer, I believe is that change needs to happen.  But I don't want change for its own sake.  And I don't simply want to go back to the 70s.  But after reading about what many educational reforms in the 1970s and 80s and listening to the teachers that lived through them, it seems that the problem wasn't in the theory of change, it was that the teachers were forced into change that they didn't want and didn't understand.  There was no shift in paradigm, so there was no change in the way education was done.  It just led to people complaining about "the new math", "open classrooms", etc.  So I guess the question is, how do we truly accomplish the paradigm shift, because without that shift, nothing else will happen.

Do I have a choice?

So I've begun work on my Teacher Inquiry Project for this year…How do I engage my  higher-achieving students at a deeper level?  I'm revolving this question around using a Literature Circle format as the students discover the 20th Century.  I've divided the students up into two groups.  The group of boys  have chosen to read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor focusing on Civil Rights issues, while the girls have chosen to read Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse focusing on The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.  Both groups were also given the option of picking The Watsons go to Birmingham, 1963.  My hope is that by providing some student choice there will be even greater by in there there was for the Civil War novels.

 

Once again, we will be utilizing the wiki for a response mechanism.  My desire is to have the students take over more and more of the ownership and leadership of the wiki.  My biggest dilemma at this point will be how to assess their usage of it.  I know that I can require a certain number of log-ins, but I also know that by doing so I will most likely just end up having students do the minimum and not really put the depth into it.  I want them to see the wiki as a place where they can not only put their thoughts about the story, but also a place where they can discover others thoughts and respond to those as well.  I'm hoping to create an actual 'Book Club' type of format where they are working collaboratively to puzzle together to construct their own meanings from the literature.  Of course, I will also be logging on in order to probe some of their thinking where needed, but I hope that as it progresses, there will be less and less need of that.

 

I see this fitting in with my larger thoughts at this point by creating or attempting to create a collaborative culture that is centered around the students, their interests, their choices, and their voice.  Rather than me dictating comprehension questions and forcing them to see all of my interpretations, I instead want to encourage them to discover it on their own.  Again, however, I am left with the problem of assessment.  I think some sort of survey and questionnaire is in order as well as some sort of accountability grading.  I think that I may have them be in on creating what the accountability grading might look like and then force them to hold each other to it rather than it only coming from me.  When it comes to actual assessment of what was learned, however, I want to find a way for the students to really be able to assess themselves…that is what it iis all about in the end right?

Imagination

Imagine a school.  That is what I want to do.  I want to imagine a school…not simply build one.  As I read and reflect on what I want to learn about gifted education, I begin to realize how much of an overlap there is with what I feel about progressive education and educational reform - in all facets of education, not just in gifted education.  I continue to find myself in class thinking - this is about all children!  I know that there are specific differences between the needs of gifted learners and their more mainstream counterparts, but when I think about what I feel a true education should look like, I don't know that the process would be that different.  I think that gifted learners and high achievers would definitely spend less time repeating things they already understand, but I think that education in general should be less about a repetitive, mass-production model and more about how people learn and how they begin to learn to think.  That is the difference.  So much of education today is all about teaching kids specific content.  I think we need to stop looking so exclusively at content we want to impart and start thinking about the kind of people we want to produce.  I think this affects the gifted learners the most because I think they are the ones who are the most negatively affected by the current state of affairs.

 

I imagine a school where the students are encouraged to really explore their own passions.  To be given the space, time, and access to really strive to answer their own questions.  I'm not really sure how you set that up in a way that still allows for some mastery of basics to occur.  But I think that the idea of a "liberal arts" education needs to change.  I think that we as a society have decided that everyone should be "well rounded" and therefore should be exposed to all sorts of different things or we won't be whole.  What ends up happening is that most kids check out of school because there is an extreme disconnect between what they care about and what we are teaching them.  Too often, the teacher is so entrenched in their own passions and questions they fail to see that rather than truly educating their students and teaching them how to think, they are simply trying to impart their own knowledge and passions onto the students.  Why do we all need to know the same things?  That doesn't make sense to me.

 

In the realm of gifted education, I feel the same way, even in my fifth grade classroom. Without completely throwing open the door and saying "Learn whatever you want, I don't care if you learn anything at all!" I think that the gifted students in our rooms have a lot going on in their heads.  How can we help them tap that?  At this point I'm pursuing the use of Literature Circles and a wiki to help my high achieving students be able to push beyond just understanding history through non-fiction texts.  My desire is that they will use the wiki to really express their own thoughts about what is going on with the stories but also that they will begin to listen to each other and pushing each other to go deeper.  We'll see how they do, but it is a start. I just think we need to rethink so many things…but it is all still in such an infant state in my mind, I don't even really know how to crystallize my thinking at all. 

 

To top it all off, even though I know we all have to cut our own path through the jungle of life, I constantly have this nagging feeling that I am trying to uncover what others have been doing for decades.  That I'll show up one day and say - "YES! This is what I've been searching towards!" only to find hundreds of people already there looking at me and thinking, "Duh! We've known about this for decades.  Where have you been?"

The Challenge of Passion

So what is more important - the challenge or the passion?  Or are they supposed to meet in some strange but exhilarating way?  As I look forward I'm not sure which direction I'm being pulled.  A part of me wants to see that my passions and interests should carry me and that new challenges, though hard, are supposed to be enjoyable because I'm passionate about it.  However, I don't know that this is necessarily proved true in a biblical sense.  There are definitely plenty of people who did something because that it where God led them, not because they were supremely interested in it.  So how do you tell if you are moving in the right direction.  I have people on one side, people who I know are part of God's plan for my life, that tell me to look at what God has given me.  I've heard on at least 2 different occasions from two different people this year that I should be a principal or do some other sort of administration.  However, I don't really have this desire.  Is this like people who receive the calling to be a priest?  I don't really know.  I do know that I'm interested in how to get the most out of kids - especially gifted and high achieving kids.  I am also seeking to be challenged to go farther in my thinking.  I'm seeking to surround myself with others who are seeking the same thing.  But I find myself in a situation where I feel myself being whittled, not sharpened.  Or am I being sharpened in a different way?  A way that I'm not aware of?  How do you ever really sort all of this stuff out?  At what point do you simply have to pick a theory and move forward?

 

Honestly there is a part of me who looks at this whole situation and says, I only live once.  I need to focus on what can make me the best teacher, the best learner, the best Christian, the best person I can be.  Similar to the whole "Teach to Your Strengths" theory, what really distinguishes the good teachers from the truly great teachers is that the great teachers realize their strengths and work to improve them and capitalize on them.  They don't spend their careers trying to make their weaknesses into strengths.  I sort of feel like that is what I'm being asked to do.

 

Or am I just being a little kid saying "I don’t wanna!"?

 

How do I really make the decision for which direction to take?