Ok, so let's summarize the last 3 posts.
We have a bee trapped in a car that is not willing to stray from its unsuccessful path because past experience has proven that this path could lead to success. This bee is a metaphor for the many teachers who would like to blame the unmotivated students of their class on past teachers or the students themselves instead of looking at changing their own teaching methods to engage all learners. We have a creative 12 year old girl who has lost interest in the education system but has figured out how to please her current teacher enough to get good grades. In a long drawn out sigh she states, "I love to learn, but school is boring." Lastly, we have a group of at risk learners, kilometres away from pencil and paper tests and teachers' demands of silence, who collaborate to design and build a successful engineering project. So where do we go from here? We alter our definition of education. The education system as a whole needs to engage their biggest clientele - the students. It is time to put the blame and frustrations away, to pack up the neat and tidy text book worlds, to accept and promote failures and all that we learn from them and listen to the kids of the world. How do you engage all learners in your classroom from the good, organized student (who, if you are being honest with yourself, was never engaged in traditional schooling but just has a large drive to please), to those at risk boys who can never seem to sit still, to the gifted learner who is never challenged, to the struggling learner who is working at a different grade level? Well, for me, the answer comes in the form of project based learning. This has been labelled many different titles in the past years but I will to refer to it as project based learning. Not to be confused with a summative project, where I teach all the core concepts and then the student applies them at the end of the unit. No, project based learning is a process where inquiry, experimentation, research, synthesis and curriculum content are all combined at a level that is individualized for the student and ends with a purpose and audience. The student plays an integral role in monitoring their learning and challenging themselves at a level that is appropriate to them. The instruction is driven based on student needs and catered to only those students who require it. Alright, I am going to be honest here for a minute. I started project based learning because I was frustrated. I was frustrated with giving a test and making sure I covered all of the accommodations that were stated on students' individualized education plans. I was frustrated with sitting only with the struggling students, while the middle of the road students were left to defend by themselves. I was frustrated with not having a good understanding of where my students were at until the test, at which point it was too late since the unit was over. And who is kidding who here, my ADD could not handle the quiet, row structured environment. I was bored. Viewing the student as a learner instead of as a product of the education system alters the focus of the classroom from one where we fill empty vessels with knowledge, knowledge, knowledge to one where we nurture curiosity and develop lifelong learners. This is the path that all teachers need to find if we are to fulfill the demands of the 21st century world. This is the path that will lead the bee from one of repeated frustrations to one of limitless possibilities. Here it is, October, the wind is whistling, and rain is hitting the window and I am daydreaming of a summer spent by the lake. Because I am a teacher and I can spend a summer by the lake.
However, once a teacher always an observer of human behaviour. My day on the beach consisted of observing (in awe I might add) a group of boys. Within, the education system this group of boys is one of our biggest at-risk targets. According to experts, and speaking in generalizations now, boys tend to lack the focus and attention skills required to get through an uninterrupted language block (approximately 2 hours). They don’t put near the effort into their reading or writing skills that they should and as a result tend to accumulate gaps in their learning. Interesting perspective. Let me share with you what I witnessed that day. I witnessed a group of at-risk learners spend 4 hours one hot sunny afternoon designing, orchestrating, and building a water system complete with damns and pulleys. It started with one 8 year old boy digging in the sand and filling the newly created “hot tub” with water. As the boy travelled with a bucket to the lake to retrieve water for his new luxury item the curiosity of an entourage was peaked. Upon his arrival back at his creation he found 2 more boys. One easily 2 years his junior and one roughly the same age. This hole in the sand was one of the most miraculous inventions these boys had witnessed. The decision to build 2 more holes and attach them so they could have a group hot tub received great attention from the boys who were tossing a ball in the shallow end of the lake. 30 minutes passes and the construction crew has grown to 12 boys varying in ages from 4 – 13 years old. The community hot tub has turned into the Hoover Damn. Leaders have developed and roles have been assigned. Intricate engineering and collaboration has led to many pools with connecting veins all weaving together to gather in the main basin that is blocked by a large wall. Backup systems have been put in place in case the main wall should break under the pressure. A pulley system is created and an assembly line forms to retrieve water from the lake and fill the pool with the highest altitude. Excitement ensues as the water flows downward through the veins and accumulates in the large basin. Success, the wall has held strong. Celebrations occur. 12 boys, who 4 hours ago were strangers, have come together to successfully create one of the greatest engineering feats the campground has borne witness to. No adult intervention was required. Hmmmm, doesn’t really sound like at-risk learners at all. Note: To really grasp the metaphor I am attempting here it would be beneficial to read my previous post.
For so many years we the teachers, in the interest of public education, plough through the curriculum and accumulate grades. Our focus: to fill the kids up with information that someone from a different place has deemed essential for them to know. We force them to memorize facts that mean nothing to them and then regurgitate this information onto a quiz which will accumulate into a mark that will be displayed proudly on their report card connected to a comment that makes no sense to parents, students or other teachers. Here's the issue: ask the same students 2 months later one of the quiz questions and see if they know the answer. Astoundingly, they won't even remember learning the information. This must be why we need to teach them what an adjective is every year only to have them look at us as though they never knew such a commodity existed. I tell you, the "youth of today"... Every year the same thing, blame it on short attention spans caused by video games, kids who lack motivation, violence on tv, and parents who don't support the education system. It could not possibly be our method of teaching. We could not possibly be that bee, stubbornly continuing on the same unsuccessful path only to feel we are not making any progress no matter how hard we try. Here enters the heroine, in her long blond braids and Abercrombie shirt and capris. Let's listen to her for a moment and really hear what she is saying, as she is the "youth of today". She hates math because it doesn't make sense. She is bored in science since it requires a lot of note taking and then memorization for an end of unit test. She once loved to read, but now finds it a tedious, clinical procedure where dissection of a story has taken over the enjoyment of the plot. Yet, after a one hour nature hike in a provincial park she is able to recite for her parents every plant and animal scat they encountered, the life cycle of a frog and how a forest develops through the stages of succession. What if we are the bee? What if we stop focusing on the same unsuccessful strategies used in years gone by? What if we teach the curriculum through essential life skills instead of overheads and worksheets? What if we assess the students learning on meaningful tasks that apply the facts instead of quizzes that test the memory capability? What if we stop blaming the students of today and instead focus on finding the open hatch? While camping, a week or so ago, an unfortunate incident occurred. A curious bee, investigating the world, managed to get itself trapped within the confines of my car. Because we were camping, and when camping time ceases to exist, I took a few moments to sit back and observe the behaviour of the bee. The bee, now realizing it has flown into a closed tunnel became panic stricken and desperately tried to escape through a closed window. It could see the world outside, it knew the places it wanted to fly to, and the goals it wanted to reach. Yet, regardless of all of its good intentions, it continued to hit a block and can go no further. The interesting part of this scenario is that the hatchback to the car was wide open. The entire back end of the vehicle was an open pathway to freedom. Yet the bee, only centimetres away from this opening was oblivious to it and continued relentlessly to search for a way out of a closed window. It was so focused on only this one pathway that was proving to be unsuccessful at each attempt, that it was missing other opportunities. Time passed and the bee continued to push against every corner of the closed window thinking this might be its opportunity, this might be the moment of success. No Luck. If only the bee would have backed up and looked around it would have seen a clear, safe path out the back hatch. But stubborn, it continued to use the same method until exhaustion overtook it and it gave up. A heroine with long blonde braids, capris and an Abercrombie shirt entered the scene with the plastic dixie cup of salvation. Trapping the bee between the cup and the window, the bee's fear escalated and it frantically flew and stumbled. One sudden movement by the girl and the bee's nightmares were over. It was free and sailed high into the trees, relishing its reborn spirit and continued on with its purpose in life.
In the moments that followed the bee's escape, I came to the startling realization that the bee is a metaphor to what the teaching profession has become. |
AuthorRhonda Hergott Archives
March 2014
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