I am in Boulder, Colorado this week for the IDEC 2013 conference. I hope to use this space to share observations and reflections on my experience. Please join in the conversation if you’d like, either here in the comments, or on twitter by following #IDEC2013.
Embarking on this experience of understanding Democratic Education is a bit foggy for me. I’m not sure what people will say or do. I’m not sure what people are thinking.
The word that I am trying to keep in the very front of my my mind is OPEN. I will be surprised this week. I will be wary this week. I will be joyful and inspired this week. I will second guess myself this week. I’m so glad to have found these wise words from Margaret Wheatley, via the Museum Center for Learning blog:
“I have to admit that the greatest challenge for me and those I work with lies not in adopting new methods, but in learning to live in this process world. It's a completely new way to be, unlike anything I was taught. I'm learning to participate with things as they unfold, to expect to be surprised, to enjoy the mystery of it, and to surrender to how much I don't know and can never know. These were difficult lessons to learn. I was well-trained to create things-plans, events, measures, programs. I invested more than half my life in trying to make the world conform to what I thought was best. It hasn't been easy to give up the role of master creator and move into the dance of life.”
I consider myself a relatively organized person - I like knowing what will happen. But teaching in a democratic context puts community at the forefront of the school culture - it is not an afterthought. Although I have spent many years thinking of myself more as a curator and facilitator than a teacher, creating prompts and encouraging exploration, “democracy” adds another layer. I need to put aside my view of being the only expert in the classroom. Everyone who is a part of the community, big or small, brings something to the table. I don’t need to stop making personal choices, but I need to be more empathetic as a teacher. Everyone in the school community is an equal member, and the only thing I know is that somehow, we will learn and grow and change through the context of community building. What will it look like? Sound like? Smell like? Most importantly, perhaps: What will it feel like?
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
04 August 2013
14 June 2013
Weekend Links : On Teaching
Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching, from Brainpickings
I recently got engrossed in a piece on artful thinking from Unboxed, a new to me journal about adult thinking in schools. I'm looking forward to spending some time reading some of the pieces in the current journal on design thinking, and then poring over some back issues as well!
Finally, I'm joining in the Making Learning Connected MOOC, and you can, too! In their own words:
"Making Learning Connected (#clmooc) is a collaborative, knowledge-building and sharing experience open to anyone who’s interested in making, creativity and learning. As we design and then engage in “makes” that tap into our personal (and professional) interests, share what we’ve done with the Making Learning Connected community, learn from each other’s experiences, and reflect on our own growth, we’ll be agents in the recursive creation and re-creation of this experience known as a Massively Open Online Collaboration (MOOC). Throughout the MOOC, we’ll engage with and employ Connected Learning principles as they relate to making and learning."
Read more about it on their blog, sign up on the right side of that page, and then join the Google+ Community! Six weeks of fun and making!
Some teachers might have the summer off, but I'm realizing that it just means we can get that much deeper into finding out more about teaching and learning.
Happy Weekend!
27 October 2011
Ramble on
Sometimes, a teacher has a bad day. It happens in any profession - things are a little off; a few things combine to make work harder for some reason. If you're sitting at a cubicle, it might be a frozen computer or things on the wrong forms and the beginnings of a cold. Whatever your job, bad days happen.
For me, today was a bad day. I could even quote the title of this book
as an example of what I mean. It starts with no breakfast and an especially cold morning on the Oregon coast and escalates to paint everywhere and miscommunication with colleagues and a commitment that requires a 45 minute drive in the afternoon when still, nothing has been eaten yet. I was really having a pity party today. And when a teacher is having a pity party, it turns out things get even worse because selfishness is not a positive trait in a teaching and learning environment. It makes things harder than you can imagine. But most of you out there reading are teachers, so perhaps you can sympathize.
The point of the story, though, is what got me out of that funk. First, I had to realize that I was throwing a pity party and being selfish, and the child who was dropping pumpkins on the ground to "see if they bounce" was not doing that to get on my nerves - it was nothing personal. My attitude had created a touch of unproductiveness in the classroom, so I sat down and made some notes about the pumpkin experiment. And when it broke, it went into the sensory table with our other pumpkins that we have been dissecting. Problem solved. I left school and stopped by home, where I cried about fairness and sadness and everything else I could think of that has been bothering me. I got an excellent hug from my husband and he listened to my hysterical storytelling of my morning. That helped. Then I got in the car with an apple and a big bottle of water to drive to another school, where I was scheduled to do some schoolwork - an observation of a Kindergartener for a presentation on assessment that I'm working on this semester for grad school. I listened to sad music and realized that was not helping, so I changed it and sang along to the radio. I drove down the coast and saw big expansive views of the Pacific Ocean and literally let out deep, calming breaths.
Then I got to the school to find that there were no children inside; no teacher either. I started to panic that my day was not on the up and up, like I thought. But I saw some movement outside, so I went out to find the children collecting mushrooms in the forest outside their door. They were putting them in paper bags, one "kind" of mushroom for each bag. They were planning to bring them inside and classify them, sketch them, weigh them, and measure them. I was given a bag and they asked me to join in. So one hour after leaving work in a stressed tizzy, I was standing on a Pacific Northwest rainforest hillside collecting mushrooms, with the ocean roaring nearby and the care and affection of children right next to me. I stayed with them until the end of their school day and said I would be back in two weeks - and one boy asked why I wasn't coming again everyday.
He didn't ask me that because he knows me as a teacher. He did not ask me that because I am some fantastically phenomenal person, or a celebrity. Maybe he just likes playing with pattern blocks, which we did while I was there. But he was being kind and affectionate. I thought that I was cured my the mushroom picking - but I think that statement really cured me. Before visiting that school today, I had planned to spend the evening in bed by the time we hit morning snack. But I am reenergized. I'm humbled by children - right now it is that one little guy in particular - but it is the attitude that I need to start every day with. Our job is about the care and nurturing of children, no matter what the situation. And with their attention and questions and eagerness, they are caring for us, too.
If you are still reading, thank you for letting me ramble. And I would love to hear about your day, too.
For me, today was a bad day. I could even quote the title of this book
as an example of what I mean. It starts with no breakfast and an especially cold morning on the Oregon coast and escalates to paint everywhere and miscommunication with colleagues and a commitment that requires a 45 minute drive in the afternoon when still, nothing has been eaten yet. I was really having a pity party today. And when a teacher is having a pity party, it turns out things get even worse because selfishness is not a positive trait in a teaching and learning environment. It makes things harder than you can imagine. But most of you out there reading are teachers, so perhaps you can sympathize.The point of the story, though, is what got me out of that funk. First, I had to realize that I was throwing a pity party and being selfish, and the child who was dropping pumpkins on the ground to "see if they bounce" was not doing that to get on my nerves - it was nothing personal. My attitude had created a touch of unproductiveness in the classroom, so I sat down and made some notes about the pumpkin experiment. And when it broke, it went into the sensory table with our other pumpkins that we have been dissecting. Problem solved. I left school and stopped by home, where I cried about fairness and sadness and everything else I could think of that has been bothering me. I got an excellent hug from my husband and he listened to my hysterical storytelling of my morning. That helped. Then I got in the car with an apple and a big bottle of water to drive to another school, where I was scheduled to do some schoolwork - an observation of a Kindergartener for a presentation on assessment that I'm working on this semester for grad school. I listened to sad music and realized that was not helping, so I changed it and sang along to the radio. I drove down the coast and saw big expansive views of the Pacific Ocean and literally let out deep, calming breaths.
Then I got to the school to find that there were no children inside; no teacher either. I started to panic that my day was not on the up and up, like I thought. But I saw some movement outside, so I went out to find the children collecting mushrooms in the forest outside their door. They were putting them in paper bags, one "kind" of mushroom for each bag. They were planning to bring them inside and classify them, sketch them, weigh them, and measure them. I was given a bag and they asked me to join in. So one hour after leaving work in a stressed tizzy, I was standing on a Pacific Northwest rainforest hillside collecting mushrooms, with the ocean roaring nearby and the care and affection of children right next to me. I stayed with them until the end of their school day and said I would be back in two weeks - and one boy asked why I wasn't coming again everyday.
He didn't ask me that because he knows me as a teacher. He did not ask me that because I am some fantastically phenomenal person, or a celebrity. Maybe he just likes playing with pattern blocks, which we did while I was there. But he was being kind and affectionate. I thought that I was cured my the mushroom picking - but I think that statement really cured me. Before visiting that school today, I had planned to spend the evening in bed by the time we hit morning snack. But I am reenergized. I'm humbled by children - right now it is that one little guy in particular - but it is the attitude that I need to start every day with. Our job is about the care and nurturing of children, no matter what the situation. And with their attention and questions and eagerness, they are caring for us, too.
If you are still reading, thank you for letting me ramble. And I would love to hear about your day, too.
19 September 2011
planning for engagement
I have been thinking about the level of engagement that the children have with their environment in my new setting.
What pulls children in? What makes them choose an activity or material and really engage with it?
I think that children are engaged when they are the ones who choose the outcomes - they can be finished quickly or linger on, depending on why they have chosen something. We introduced a sensory table the other day, and eight children played with the sand for 30 minutes. Part of that is novelty; part of it is true engagement. Piles were made and destructed, animals were buried and unearthed, and some serious space negotiations happened. Those kids were really busy.
The space is really really important - I feel like I've always known that, but it is so true right now. The children don't need to be told what to do, but we (as teachers, parents, caregivers) need to throw out a few ideas and give options. Children want to be quiet, loud, fast, slow, messy, and deliberate with careful actions, sometimes all within a span of 10 minutes. And the right space encourages that in a way that doesn't make the adults want to rip their hair out.
We've added a bit of structure to the morning, none of which was there before, and that has been positive. We sit down together twice - once at the start of the morning, and once before lunch. We have been listening to stories and singing some songs; one day we drew self-portraits; another day we read Not a Box
and then each child drew an idea for pretending with a box on a piece of paper with a square drawn on. Over the past 4 weeks, my main goal has been to get to know these children and understand what to expect from them, the other teachers, the parents, and the culture of the school in general. With that information, I can understand my role much more clearly.
I need to support the children as they engage in deep and meaningful play. This involves so much - the environment, the materials, planning experiences, exploring alongside them, and listening. I hope that I can listen and then use that information more purposefully than I have in the past. I have a track record of listening and documenting and then ending up with folders full of photos and little projects that stopped soon after they started. I've made a heavy goal for myself, but it is one of the most important ones I have made in my eight years of teaching.
What pulls children in? What makes them choose an activity or material and really engage with it?
I think that children are engaged when they are the ones who choose the outcomes - they can be finished quickly or linger on, depending on why they have chosen something. We introduced a sensory table the other day, and eight children played with the sand for 30 minutes. Part of that is novelty; part of it is true engagement. Piles were made and destructed, animals were buried and unearthed, and some serious space negotiations happened. Those kids were really busy.
The space is really really important - I feel like I've always known that, but it is so true right now. The children don't need to be told what to do, but we (as teachers, parents, caregivers) need to throw out a few ideas and give options. Children want to be quiet, loud, fast, slow, messy, and deliberate with careful actions, sometimes all within a span of 10 minutes. And the right space encourages that in a way that doesn't make the adults want to rip their hair out.
We've added a bit of structure to the morning, none of which was there before, and that has been positive. We sit down together twice - once at the start of the morning, and once before lunch. We have been listening to stories and singing some songs; one day we drew self-portraits; another day we read Not a Box
and then each child drew an idea for pretending with a box on a piece of paper with a square drawn on. Over the past 4 weeks, my main goal has been to get to know these children and understand what to expect from them, the other teachers, the parents, and the culture of the school in general. With that information, I can understand my role much more clearly.I need to support the children as they engage in deep and meaningful play. This involves so much - the environment, the materials, planning experiences, exploring alongside them, and listening. I hope that I can listen and then use that information more purposefully than I have in the past. I have a track record of listening and documenting and then ending up with folders full of photos and little projects that stopped soon after they started. I've made a heavy goal for myself, but it is one of the most important ones I have made in my eight years of teaching.
01 September 2008
The First Week
What a whirlwind it has been, starting at a new school! There are so many faces, both adult and child, to remember. I'm doing well with the names of my students -- that is always a top priority for me. There is nothing worse than moving to a new country, starting in a new school, and having your teacher call you by the incorrect name.
I have twenty students, and this is the first full week of school. Things have been simple around the room: play dough, watercolors, easel painting with tempera, scarves in dramatic play, familiar classic books in the book area, and a very inviting light table.
The room is arranged pleasantly, and the blank canvas that I had is filling up quickly! I am trying to make it as "homey" as possible, and I'm happy with the result. Homey, yet child centered and simple. Easier said than done, I think!
There is much more to come, with photos of the environment and hopefully emerging projects as well! One student mentioned making a dinosaur movie, quite out of the blue, and it seems to be a fleeting thought. A few of them have mentioned that we need more marbles and more cars; we have turned that into a discussion on money and where it comes from (cash machines) and how cash machines work. If that pans out, you'll be hearing much more.
I am on a beautiful campus that I'd like to have the children take advantage of, so perhaps they will become enamoured with something in the school community and environment. It is impossible to predict what we will begin to study right now -- they have only been a full class for four days! We are creating a classroom community right now, and what we decide to look into is really on the back burner.
I have to mention that I am reading The Hundred Languages of Children again, and it continues to inspire me. It is good to get into the history of the approach and learn about why it works there. I am always looking for inspiration rather than a solution, and Reggio Emilia provides some fantastic inspiration. If you get the change, pick up the book. It is essays that you can read one at a time or you can go straight through the book like I am, because I'm going to read Lillian Katz's Engaging Children's Minds next and I can't wait!
I have twenty students, and this is the first full week of school. Things have been simple around the room: play dough, watercolors, easel painting with tempera, scarves in dramatic play, familiar classic books in the book area, and a very inviting light table.
The room is arranged pleasantly, and the blank canvas that I had is filling up quickly! I am trying to make it as "homey" as possible, and I'm happy with the result. Homey, yet child centered and simple. Easier said than done, I think!
There is much more to come, with photos of the environment and hopefully emerging projects as well! One student mentioned making a dinosaur movie, quite out of the blue, and it seems to be a fleeting thought. A few of them have mentioned that we need more marbles and more cars; we have turned that into a discussion on money and where it comes from (cash machines) and how cash machines work. If that pans out, you'll be hearing much more.
I am on a beautiful campus that I'd like to have the children take advantage of, so perhaps they will become enamoured with something in the school community and environment. It is impossible to predict what we will begin to study right now -- they have only been a full class for four days! We are creating a classroom community right now, and what we decide to look into is really on the back burner.
I have to mention that I am reading The Hundred Languages of Children again, and it continues to inspire me. It is good to get into the history of the approach and learn about why it works there. I am always looking for inspiration rather than a solution, and Reggio Emilia provides some fantastic inspiration. If you get the change, pick up the book. It is essays that you can read one at a time or you can go straight through the book like I am, because I'm going to read Lillian Katz's Engaging Children's Minds next and I can't wait!
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