Spark, Whimsy -- Learning simply to Learn

Space Models at Brick Fest, Flickr via Creative Commons

Young children are encouraged to be whimsical and imaginative and to always ask why. Students in younger grades look with awe upon the lifecycle of a butterfly and draw endless pictures of colorful circles that they truly believe resemble their parents.

Then a few years pass. Times tables are memorized and we increase the content we teach and begin to instill a sense of conformity and pressure in our students that focuses on attaining success measured by society. It is no surprise that the imagination of our students changes to reflect a stale, stagnant state because they are learning what others want them to learn. Yet, our students are still creative underneath a shell of academic standards. However, we don't give them the opportunities to show the whimsical, inquisitive nature deep within them.

As teachers, we suffer from much the same ill-fated trajectory our students do. Believing we can change the world as a young teacher, we come to the first year of our teaching careers with an energy that feeds into our innovative lessons. Years pass and we are met with more strict standards, more programs to teach, less time to teach them, and more students, many of whom are bored and unengaged with the curriculum since they are being told what to learn and how to learn it.

Think of topics that you find interesting. Think of what you'd want to learn in school. Now think of what you teach. Think of how you teach it. Ask yourself, would I want to learn that way? Would I want to spend my afternoons at home doing that? A recent article came out about a revolutionary way of learning that focuses on engaging students with what they are interested in. Joshua Davis writes for Wired, "How a radical new teaching method could unleash a generation of geniuses." In it he explores a variety of progressive philosophies on learning.

Peter Gray, research professor at Boston college, is quoted by Joshua Davis as stating, " 'We’re teaching the child that his questions don’t matter, that what matters are the questions of the curriculum. That’s just not the way natural selection designed us to learn. It designed us to solve problems and figure things out that are part of our real lives, ' " which raises some key issues of institutionalized schooling. The whole purpose of school should be to teach kids a love of learning, a desire to understand the unknown, and the ability to apply what they know to questions they have. Ultimately its about the spark that fires up their curiosity thus raising their engagement in the classroom. It should not be about what other people think they need to know.

So, what if homework was filled with activities that truly sparked the curiosity of our children, thus supporting that their questions matter. What if students rushed to school the next day asking why, why, why? What if students eagerly awaited the next lesson rather than day dreaming through it?

A simple task like watching a video about space could be that spark for a child. A spark that could change the trajectory of a student's life, assisting them in realizing dreams they have. Take a look at these amazing videos on the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Here are two class work or homework documents I’ve put together, one for primary grades and one for upper grades.

Take on the challenge of giving assignments that you’d want to spend time on. If you wouldn’t want to do it, why would your kids?

Inspired and want more? Additional resources can be found at Ramsey Musallam’s Cycles of Learning blog that discusses in depth the use of video as a curiosity spark for initializing a love for learning.

Candles

We noticed that one of the candles almost always went out sooner than the other.  

The one that was higher went out even if it was the longer burning candle.

When the two candles were in two separate jars, they went out at the same time.

We wondered if it was the way the candles were made.  We were puzzled.

Candle experiment

Candle experiment

We discovered that the top candle went out first followed by the shorter candle. The tall candle went out in 4 seconds. The short candle went out in 12 seconds. We think oxygen is forced to the bottom as the smoke/heat rose. We talked about stopping and dropping when there is a fire. Also to not open a door that would allow more oxygen into the room that has a fire. The procedures for a fire makes more sense since oxygen is heavier than the gas produced by fire.


Sent from my iPad

The handwriting dilemma

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eethompson/2143724448/sizes/z/in/photolist-4gr9Am-4gr9Y3-4gs649-4gs68d-4gziVf-4qc5EB-4C7kQe-4Crr1f-4HAhxX-4Jrx5R-4Jrxa6-4JvL3o-4QhtyV-4Qpa9k-4SDoRa-57DUxE-5cz5PN-5eRFEU-5hUDRR-5kDyD9-5weuAr-5zbkKW-5EGj3c-5HvZoM-5HAjrQ-5HAkj3-5TCFZY-61nQq5-68oPVo-6nobb5-6K7SWF-6K7TqH-6KbeKG-6KxXj4-6LoTe8-73JFK4-776vPa-77arAs-7u6vxg-7uapM9-8a2fw8-b9Fppr-bpUTSM-8rVDfK-7Tnjp9-8qyy7j-fVqVCP-fb8wgd-aUiJcr-d8NhyJ-9jb1Wh/

The cycle of typing and tapping on the phone, keyboard, etc. As I settle into bed, I realize I haven't "written" anything with a pen and paper, all day. My gut races from excitement to terror as I realize there is simply no need to put pen to paper.

With the rapid increase of communication through digital devices, does it matter if we write or not? Is the future of a penned signature a fingerprint?

Common Core has removed the mandatory teaching of cursive.  A few articles highlight the importance of teaching cursive in school, In Defense of Cursive and Should Schools Still Teach Cursive. Yet, hardly anyone uses cursive as a primary form of writing. The opposite argument can be raised. If no one uses cursive anymore, then we shouldn’t teach it (clearly that is why CCSS removed it). So, with the disbandment of third graders’ write of passage, the future of penmanship as a whole appears to be misty and murky.

If writing with a pen is no longer typical, then do we even need to teach it in schools? Rather than writing in kindergarten, should kids just learn to type? Can we even extend that to touch typing on a screen rather than keyboarding?

Historically, penmanship was an art. From the Constitution, to love letters, penmanship was and still is a way to physically connect with a person by knowing that his or her hand penned the words.

Email has rapidly replaced telegrams and letters. E-cards are the new birthday notes.

The word write means to mark (letters, words, or other symbols) on a surface, typically paper, with a pen, pencil, or similar implement. Lets think about that word, “typically”, and understand that we are at a crossroads of typical and mainstream. If write means to mark, then as we type we mark the computer screen and as we write with a pen we mark paper. Yes, typically we write on paper, but in mainstream we mark on the computer. So the work write really should now include the mainstream devices we use to write which are computers.

And on the subject of writing, why do we still teach a “friendly letter” format when adults hardly send handwritten letters anymore? What we should be emphasizing is how to craft simplistic email subject lines, digital signatures, and text messages.

Communication has dramatically shifted from physical to digital. I don’t even know what ringtone is on my phone because my primary way of communicating is via text. Phone messages go forgotten because I don’t know anyone who actually leaves me messages, so when someone does I don’t even remember to check them.

Writing in school needs to keep up with the culture of communication. If we are preparing students for life, then we need to think about how they will be communicating in the world when they are adults, and thus we need to teach foundational skills that will help them in that arena.

Yet, on the flip side, there is deep historical and personal value to the physical connection between hand, pen, and paper. Productivity expert David Allen states in the New York Times article by Phyllis Korkki In Defense of Paper, “ Its physical presence can be a goad to completing tasks, whereas computer files can easily be hidden and thus forgotten, he said. Some of his clients are returning to paper planners for this very reason, he added.”

Beautifully stated, co-founder of Levenger, Steve Leveen expresses to the New York Times, “ ‘Paper reminds us that ‘we’re physical beings, despite having to contend with an increasingly virtual world,’ he said. People complain that writing by hand is slow, but that can be good for thinking and creating, he said: ‘It slows us down to think and to contemplate and to revise and recast,’ " (In Defense of Paper by Phyllis Korkki, New York Times).

The crossroads are here. Handwriting is real and physical, ideas spring to life with effort. Typing is quick, efficient, and productive. We accomplish more with less, and neatness is automatic. Handwriting connects us to the historical past, and typing pushes us forward.

Kids will rely upon texting more than email in the future. Maybe the business deals they make will be artfully crafted with emojis and Vines.

Where does handwriting stand? Where does communication stand? And how do we teach our students and children to expertly use the communication tools available to them if we ourselves stick to the tools we know?