I have this class.
They are a puzzle to me.
They have been since the first day.
They are so hard to “read”—I get very few non-verbal cues to know if something is working, failing, or somewhere in the middle.
Things aren’t going bad, but I want to bump up to the spectacular zone. It’s where we should be and I can’t quite figure out how to get there.
I have been wondering all year what I have to offer them. They are incredible writers. I think each one is writing the best they can. They just wrote inaugural speeches last week that Obama SHOULD have read. What will improve their writing is time, experiences, and wisdom. My teacher edition worksheet on how to support a topic sentence will not make them better writers. They can all follow directions to complete multi-step abstract problems. They can all take any directions I give them and complete the assignment perfectly. They don’t need a lesson on comparing and contrasting. They don’t need a lesson on cause and effect, or how to graph the number of immigrants in 19th Century America. So I have been searching for something I can give them that will change them, something that they need, something that they could use right now. I keep coming up with only one answer.
Freedom.
That is what I can give them. Freedom from their self-imposed rules. Freedom to live outside of their protective “box.” Freedom to imagine, dream, create, experiment, make mistakes, and to take a chance on doing something that might possibly fail. I feel like doing the same thing a college professor once did to me. He simply said turn in your final exam. No topic, questions, ideas, or guidelines. I was forced to think “outside my box.” I was forced to free myself from rules that I did not even know I was following to be able to imagine, dream, and create something using my own guidelines and steps that I discovered on my own. That was in my 14th year of school. I don’t want them to wait that long.
John Holt, wrote in his 1983 edition of ‘How Children Learn’. He said: “Fish swim, birds fly; man thinks and learns. Therefore, we do not need to ‘motivate’ children into learning, by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do, is bring as much of the world as we can into the school and the classroom; give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest.” http://steveshann.wordpress.com
I believe John Holt. I also believe that school tends to take kids who think and learn naturally and make them dependent on teachers for what to think and how to learn. This year I am really struggling to un-school them, or maybe I am just a bit more anxious for them to break out of their safety zone earlier than students normally do. Each time this year I have given them some freedom and space to run, for the most part they have run right back into their “boxes.”
9 responses so far ↓
Paul, I want to caution you not to remove the “box” entirely, but instead perhaps simply move the box’s established boundaries. I’ve discovered that creativity requires some limitations. There’s nothing more daunting to an artist than a blank white canvas, and I imagine the open ended final exam your professor gave was a bust for many of his students. You have to provide a framework from which to build.
But your thinking is in the right place for sure. You want your students to really soar, and to achieve this they need to be encouraged to move far beyond what they believe is possible.
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Ya know Bill I was thinking about what you wrote in your comment as I was writing this post. We have been moving the boundaries all year–but no one has crossed them yet. I was a little rebel to break through and disrespect the boundaries and limits that I set
I think I also ended up mixing metaphors in my post. The “box” that I was referring to is a place of safety and routine, rather than a creative zone.
They also just finished a blog post in which they had to describe what they would first have to change about themselves before creating change in the world. So many kids wrote about staying in their own safe space out of fear of being wrong or what others would say.
I did write this post with certain personalities in mind…it reminds me of a story about an eagle and a chicken(link below). I think they are eagles, but they are either just too chicken to fly–or just need to be knocked out of the nest.
I also wonder if this post might come from more of an irrational frustration rather than a logical examination of their progress.
I don’t like not having the answers.
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Link to the Chicken/Eagle story:
http://blogush.edublogs.org/2008/04/20/how-do-you-convince-a-kid-that-they-are-an-eagle/
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I think what makes our class difficult and hard to read is that in the “creative world” our class has “boxes” scattered all around. I think in some of your other classes they all have a similar comfort zone while our class has many different comfort zones. That is what makes us diverse and difficult to read.
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OH. Sorry.=[ Tell Emma that wasn't right. But it was a very good guess. I would have never thought of that.=] The correct answer is…….I love you watts and watts!!=*xoxox
-Cameron
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One of the most frustrating things for me as a middle school maths teacher is the lack of willingness for my students to risk and to “think outside the box”
But I have come to realize that it is (among other factors) a personality thing. I have Myers-Briggs in mind as I write. Something like 3/4 of the population need to be told what to do. These are the Sensory types. As an Intuitive type I find this so frustrating.
Actually, not providing enough structure is me getting in the road of my students. I don’t want structure. It annoys me. But most of my kids need structure.
Anyway. Structure is important. Its something that I am determined to do better with this year.
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hey Mr.B
thank you for cheking out my blog and just because you havent seen my ego dosen’t mean it is there, and i do have a really big ego. Cool blog=]
-herky-
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That’s the best part about learning, there is always more to learn. And that’s the best part about teaching, there is always more to teach.
You should be very proud of the work they have done so far and after a nice pat on the back, push them to make their writing a little more creative, a little deeper, a little better. I think its great you can’t just be happy with them, it means you want them to excel.
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@ Paul
Great post. I can’t say I put much faith in the Meyers Brigg take given that the mother and daughter pair who created it have no training in psychological evaluations nor do people who repeat the test score in the same category on their subsequent attempts.
If you figure our how to get this group into the spectacular range be sure and post about it. I’d love to see what worked.
Be well!
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