Teaching Paradox.

I wrote last week about how student excitement and nervousness made us jump into exhibition and brainstorm ideas. They had some great results, and their minds are spinning and reeling with ideas. I thought that we had done well, and that we were ready to keep plowing forward.

Then....

As a week long writing task, I asked them to write a 4 paragraph response to the question; what is exhibition? Some of the responses I received were revealing:

Its a big project where we get a really important gradeI excited to see what my grade is, I hope a get an AIf we don't do well, we cannot go to grade 6It is for us to prove to the grade 6 teachers that we are ready for middle schoolThe exhibition is a night where we have to stand in front of a bunch of people and wear nice clothes and give a really long presentation It seems that the ideas for what to do for exhibition are starting to grow, but the actual understanding of the purpose of exhibition is lacking. The why is missing, and that is som…

This was a fun little activity that really helped the kids see the power of descriptive words. I stole this from a workshop with Kath Murdoch, and re-applied it to descriptive writing and meta-cognitive reflection. It is iterative, meaning that each stage is repeated and added onto. I have been playing with a lot of iterative activities. They are powerful, make thinking visible, and allow for constant reflection. Our ideas are constantly changing and evolving, and with iterative activities, you can see and trace those changes. Iteration is something that I am playing with at the moment, kind of like my own personal inquiry this year, and I hope to have more to say about this in the future.

What is under the cloth?

Step One: With your eyes

Describe what you see under the cloth. What words come to mind? What do you know to be true? What are your initial predictions? Write down your ideas and descriptive words.



Step Two: With the palms of your hands (no fingers)

Describe what you feel. What…

Well, not really, but kind of.

In a grade 5 class in a PYP school, you can hardly avoid the topic. The kids were talking about it on the first day. The parents were asking about it at "Back to School" night. I am anxious and excited about it.

Several of the kids in my class have been expressing their nervousness and anxiety about the process. Several others have brainstorming ideas for what they can do. I saw two options before me; a) do I reassure them that we will talk about all this later?, or b) do we dive in right now and get our brains working?

I chose b) to dive in.

The first thing I did was get my head around the school outlines regarding the Exhibition. It seems that the Central Idea is set, as well as the Lines of Inquiry, and trans-disciplinary theme. This is something that will have to be addressed before we get into any more detail, as I think it should be much more child directed and student generated. For the time being, I took these ideas and used them as a b…

I asked the kids their thoughts and feelings on this quote. Immediately, the conversation turned to work, and how school prepares you to get a job and make money. One girl disagreed. This was her response:

“Education is not something you do so that you can get some kind of result, it is just a part of everything. It’s like you’re in a play has already started, you can’t prepare because the play is already going on, it is real, you just have to do it.”

What a wonderful metaphor for learning and life!

This was an interesting little strategy that kind of happened without any plans.

As we begin our inquiry into Peace and Conflict, I had the students create a table on their page with the headings Who, Where, How, Why.

I asked them Who has conflicts, and they wrote a list of people.

I asked them Where do they have conflicts, and they wrote a list of places.

I asked How do they have conflicts, and I got a bunch of verbs.

I asked them Why they have conflicts, and I got some reasons.

Everything was in place, and all the data had been collected, but I still didn't know what to do with it all. I noticed a child tracing his finger horizontally along the table, connecting the boxes, and I realized that these boxes can tell us stories. The information is built into, all we have to do is join the dots, and then let the story take over.



I asked them to connect the dots, and then to let the story take over. As a group, they wrote out their short stories, including as much detail relating to t…

I am still settling into my new life in Germany. Our new home is scattered with boxes, packages, and piles of various sizes. There is furniture to put together, a long to do list of items to check off, pictures to put up, organizing to do, etc. During all this time, we are still trying to just get out the place and enjoy life. Yet, the mess is distracting, and the mind fades back to it. Excitement sprinkled with frustration.

It has me thinking about the classroom. How do our students feel when entering a new room? It is all new, their are different routines, new people to get to know, everything is in different places, pre-assessments, and different styles to cope with. How long does it take our students to get into a rhythm? How long until they are comfortable enough to focus on learning? Do we expect to much during the first few weeks of school? Do those pre-assessments give us an accurate picture of the child, or are they giving us a picture of a child who has yet to find their com…