Last night wmchamberlain sent out a link to an exemplar student blog about learning. I agree with Wilt that commenting on student writing is an important practice for teachers who preach the powers of blogging, and I was about to comment on the post, when I stopped myself and felt the need to hash out my ideas out on my bog first, tone them down a bit, and then perhaps, send off the filtered version for this young writer.
I know her intentions are in the right place, but reading her points, I felt that she was missing the entire point of her “school” experience. She is not alone. Many students, teachers, and parents are still caught up in the “success/ achievement” model of school. I wanted to shed some light on other possible models.
I will write as if I am commenting on her blog, but I did not publish these thoughts there for fear of confusing her. I will allow her teacher to share these ides should he so wish.
I Promise to be a better learner by starting to dedicate more of my free time to school-related things.
What are these school related things? Are they subjects? Are they ideas? Do you like them? Do they excite you? Are you curious? Will forcing yourself to spend more of your precious free time on math exercises making you a better learner? How about you spend more of your school time on free time related things. Search for what interests you at school and do it on your own. Ask questions. Explore. Are you interested in art, dance, science? How can you use your time away from the classroom to further learn about these topics? Learning can and should be done all the time. Do not separate free time and school time. Try to learn about what interests you all the time.
By doing so, I could get a better chance of actually fully understanding what they’re teaching me at school than by not making any use of what I’m being taught if I don’t really understand the material.
Don’t worry so much about material but focus on ideas. Your school is not trying to teach you material, but help you find out how to learn about what you love.
I Promise to be a better learner by having a more one on one relationship with my teachers. This way, when I have a question over my school work or need some help, I could have the confidence to ask one of my teachers for help instead of being afraid, and not ask at all, which could cause me to not understand what I’m learning and probably fail in that class.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Make use of your teachers. Let them help you. You should never be afraid to ask questions. That is what teachers want. We live off of questions.
I Promise to be a better learner by taking school a little more seriously. Using this strategy, I could have a way better chance of being successful in the future than by wasting my free time messing around an not caring that much over school, knowing I could give a little more effort in my school work for a better future.
Here is a suggestion: Let’s not think about the future and how school will help you down the road. Let’s think about right now. Your life! Will taking school more seriously help you right now? If not? Why not? How can we make a plan to have what you learn in school be important to your daily life now? That way you have no choice but to take school seriously. You will love what you learn, because you see it effect your life now, not in some distant future shaded with ideas of college and success.
I Promise to be a better learner by really making an effort to actually understand the material I’m learning in every class. This way, I could actually get something out of what my teachers are teaching me, and I could use that knowledge later on in life when I actually need to use it.
Again, you can use that knowledge now! Ask your teachers why learning biology will help you now! If they don’t have an answer, keep pushing them. You should come up with an answer together. Don’t let them tell you that you will need it in college; that is not good enough.
I Promise to be a better learner by getting more involved in class activities. I will participate in class activities so not only could I share what I learned on the subject, but so I could also hear the other different ways that the same question was answered and that way maybe I could change my way of thinking on that particular question.
There you go! You got it now! Use your friends and classmates and tools for your learning. Share what you learn. Do science experiments at home, design maps write books, create a magazine, make films…bring your school “work” home and make it play, share what you find and you will see that you are learning more than you ever knew possible.
I will leave it to wmchamberlain to see if he wants to share this post with the writer. I don’t want to over step my bounds, but we need to start guiding kids away from “school work” and learning. They are two very different things. In my humble opinion.Let me end by saying great assignment. I love the idea of metacognitive view of learning, and I thinking allowing kids to be reflective learners is crucial to their growth.
Let me give you a little background on this assignment. I have decided this year that I am going to require my students to be reflective with their learning. The idea behind this activity was to get them to think critically for the first time about how they can improve their learning. These are 12 and 13 year old students that (as far as I know) have never been asked to do anything like this before.
I understand your points, but I wonder if they apply universally to all students. Almost all of my students are poor and most of the parents work at our local chicken processing plant. Most of my students’ families have been poor for generations and most will continue to be poor for generations to come. This does not necessarily describe this student, but it does give some insight into the beliefs and attitudes of the student body.
While I agree that all of us need to have a love of learning that should be nurtured and developed at school, the reality is my students really do need to focus on playing the education game. They just don’t have any other options to escape the poverty they live in. Unlike a Disney movie, there are no princes or princesses coming to rescue them.
We both know the education system is broken. We both know that the success/achievement model is less than ideal. Unfortunately the reality is if my students do not excel at school they will have no chance at a college education and no real chance to escape another generation of poverty. I truly believe that the students in my town will not escape poverty without a degree from a college or technical school.
How can I reconcile the knowledge that the system is broken and I need to opt my students out when that same broken system is their only hope of making a better life for themselves? If I have to choose between ideals and students, the students will win every time.
I will share your post with my student. I believe she can take away a lot from your observations. With luck I will be able to get her to write her own response as well. Thanks, Jabiz.
Wow! I had goosebumps. I know where you are coming from I taught for two years in the Bronx, and was just speaking with a friend who teaches in Brooklyn about the vicious cycle of poverty which shackles students to the school game. It is a shell game they seldom understand. There are so many issues of class and cultural baggage that are being hidden from them, that they have no idea but to believe that there are a few options for them to escape, college, military maybe?
I do not want to belittle your points, but I couldn’t help my cringe when I read:
If I have to choose between ideals and students, the students will win every time.
But do they win? If we continue to push them through the system clinging to the status quo ideal of what education is, a passport out of class poverty, are we not selling them short. No revolution, whether political or of thought was cast in anything but idealism. The very notion of education must to be idealistic. That is the point. Am I wrong?
I see where you are coming from though, and I have felt the pressure and pain of dealing with a system that appears to never budge, but the fact that you are there everyday is a testament to your idealism.
Just think if you conduct business as usual, it is almost certain that most of your students will remain in town work at the plant, a few will go off to die for a nation that didn’t beleuve they could do more, and maybe one or to “success” will go off to college and face further challenges in a crumbling economy. If we ignite their spirit, however, give them hope and faith in what they can do despite their school, their class, their culture but because of their love of learning…then maybe we might just change a nation. A planet.
I hope you have read enough of what I have written to know that I am trying to push the students into becoming more than the system requires. I don’t disagree with anything you say, but these are kids I really care about. How many revolutions led by the poor and outcast actually made their lives better?
I live in a country where the education revolution has to come from the middle class. There is now way the poor can make it happen, they don’t have the money, the political influence, or the free time to make it happen. This revolution will have to start somewhere else.
Maybe my views are a little too narrow. Maybe I do focus too much on my town instead of the big picture, but I can impact my students directly. I am never going to make a lasting impact on a large scale, very few ever do. I can influence a few generations of students that pass through my door. If I have to work in a broken system to make that impact, I will do so. I don’t have to like it.
When I talk honestly with my students about their opportunities I always come back to continuing education. Too many of my former students have already dropped out of high school or graduated and took a job at the chicken plant. They have no options. To have options here, my students must get more education and most importantly a degree. That is the reality they live in. I have plenty of anecdotal stories to prove it, I grew up here.
It is very hard to break the mindset that many of my students have that how they live now is good enough. When I talk to my students about going on to a college after high school they talk about becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and veterinarians. These are all jobs that require more than a love of learning, they require certification through degrees and testing. How can I not emphasis the need for a college education for them?
I definitely don’t continue business as usual in my classroom. I have made a lot of changes over the last few years and I think my class and professional blogs show that. What I can’t ignore is that the old school requirements are not changing any time soon. I guess I have to live in both worlds for the time being.
Wow. This is becoming quite powerful. Let me say that I never intended for you to take my comments as a slight to your style of teaching. A precursory look at your blog proves that you are using every tool at your disposal to bring your kids to the real world. I am often in awe at the level of sophistication which permeates your classroom.
Furthermore, let me say that I have endured the same frustrations and unlike you I chose to move away and try my hand elsewhere. I did not feel I could make any changes in the way the world operates working in a save-a-kid-here-save-a-kid-there approach. Although I do have some great success stories from that era.
So let’s look at some things you have said:
How many revolutions led by the poor and outcast actually made their lives better?
I would say every single one. Yes we can split hairs and bring about the failures of every Marxist revolution world wide, but when poor people say enough is enough things change. When they are educated. Things change. I am sure you have read Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but I also suggest. Howard Zinn’s A History. I also suggest watching The Wire and substituting poor blacks in Baltimore with your kids. Season 4 is especially enlightening.
You say,
I live in a country where the education revolution has to come from the middle class.
This will never happen! It never has and it never will. There may be bourgeoisie dreamers like me that live on out lofts and act like we care about the plight of the poor. Bleeding hearts trying to help, but when push comes to shove most of us will look out for our own. If you want monumental change for your students it must come from them. They may not see it in their life times, but they must see the whole picture. Why are they stuck in a cycle of poverty and ignorance? Who is responsible? How can they escape? These are the question one could raise in History while playing school.
There is now way the poor can make it happen, they don’t have the money, the political influence, or the free time to make it happen. This revolution will have to start somewhere else.
I feel your frustration, but I honestly think that it must come from those places. There has been much deliberate work done to make your community feel powerless. And much work must be done to empower them.
Maybe my views are a little too narrow. Maybe I do focus too much on my town instead of the big picture, but I can impact my students directly. I am never going to make a lasting impact on a large scale, very few ever do. I can influence a few generations of students that pass through my door.
No way! You are right. You work with what you got and you push those kids. When I said in my original post that a love of learning will supersede school, I may have been misunderstood. I meant that a love of learning will give these kids more than college. A student who truly loves to learn will be “successful” in school, but a :successful” student will not always be happy.
When I talk honestly with my students about their opportunities I always come back to continuing education. Too many of my former students have already dropped out of high school or graduated and took a job at the chicken plant. They have no options. To have options here, my students must get more education and most importantly a degree. That is the reality they live in. I have plenty of anecdotal stories to prove it, I grew up here.
How is loving what they learn detrimental to that? If the girl who wrote that post can think about her learning as a tool of empowerment, as a tool that will force the reconstruction of her entire community, then you have done your work. But if she only sees that doing more math exercises is a way to a better job she is doomed. Even introducing concepts like revolution can have lasting effects.
Fascinating conversation. OK. Despite a fairly bizarre and unhappy K-12 experience – see http://www.amazon.com/Drool-Room-Ira-Socol/dp/0615165443 though it is, of course, fiction – I always describe myself as “extremely lucky.”
Why? Well, school did not work for me at all, but because of my family, my community, my culture, and where I lived, school was unnecessary. I lived 11 miles from Times Square, the New York Public Library, the great museums of New York City, Wall Street. I lived in a place where even the city limit signs were artworks – http://s3.amazonaws.com/site.birdview/joan.prucent.com/images/nr_road_sign.jpg – where the library’s children’s room had an original Norman Rockwell painting, where people spoke three or four languages. I cam from a family and culture of storytellers who never “dumbed down” adult vocabulary, and in crowded living (six family members in about 400-600 square feet depending on when) I was never abandoned to kids TV in a “family room” but learned while surrounded by adult culture, at home, when we went out to eat at local pubs, wherever.
Before I was ten I could get to a World’s Fair via subway http://www.nywf64.com/ As a tiny kid I could explore salt water marshes, tidal pools where life begins, city streets, ancient churches.
So I was very lucky. The world was mine.
Most children don’t have that option. Whether they live in wealthy suburbs – shunted off into their own parts of huge houses as if they are unwanted guests or shuttled to kid-centered activities run by others – or whether they are wmchamberlain’s kids, isolated and deprived of global contact in every way, these kids are not at all “part of the world” and their future options are horribly limited either way. Those chicken processors’ kids don’t see big opportunities, and those rich kids don’t see small opportunities (thus panicking if they can’t get themselves to elite colleges). Both are, ultimately, destroyed.
So listen: School should not be work. In my mind, it should be the opposite of work. Because whatever you grow up to do for money, that should not define you, your learning should define you.
One of the reasons I prefer Ireland to the United States (besides the butter and the general work ethic and the social responsibility) is that if I meet someone in the US they will ask “what do you do?” by which they will mean “what is your job?” But if I meet someone in Ireland and they ask, “what do you do?” they will mean, “what books do you read, what music do you listen to, what sport do you love?” which is a much better question.
So learning is lifelong, and learning is fun, and learning should never be “work” but the fundamental human play and purpose, and we embrace that by breaking school walls and helping our students learn that every moment is learning – http://devour.com/video/moments/ – BUT…
Part of that learning is survival. OK, let us call it “the survival game.” I want all kids to know how to check the oil in their car and switch out a broken light switch and re-set their smartphone if it slows down. I want them to know how to cook and how to sew a button on. I also want them to be skilled code-switchers, to know how to “present” at the bank, in court, when stopped by a racist cop, in a job interview. And yes, this is different for different kids – students in Scarsdale, NY or River Forest, IL need to know how to survive with people unlike them. And, of course, so do wmchamberlain’s kids. The difference lies in the entirely different skills which need to be transmitted to these two populations.
Now, what brings this together? We don’t do a very good job at freeing dreams, at allowing kids to be themselves. wmchamberlain’s kids get totally stuck in a society without social mobility, but the rich kids turn toxic through equally constraining pressures. America’s worst violence is more likely to come from rich kids – from Columbine to the Taxi Stabber – than from the underclass, because of (a) pressure and (b) the trained belief that they can “do anything.”
But what separates this is whether “the school” is necessary. In many communities, school is the least safe and most restrictive learning environment – http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2010/05/i-run-one-of-worst-middle-schools-in.html – but in other communities it is the only safe place, and (potentially) the only real window on the world.
As with everything in education, when we generalize from our experience, we miss the essential – that differentiation is always the answer.
So many great points, but this sticks out for me the most:
whatever you grow up to do for money, that should not define you, your learning should define you.
Thanks for that.
i love this conversation. very real. very honest. i feel much the same in so many of these dimensions every moment of the day.
ridiculous sounding perhaps – but we can’t keep waiting for the time when we don’t live in two worlds. meaning – let’s bow out of the one that is crippling us. let’s do it today.
the web is allowing learning that matters yet the market-driven accreditation keeps eating our time. when things eat our time – they eat our soul.
Monika, it is easy for us to take the attitude of forgetting about accreditation and schooliness because we have already received both. Reality (rationality?) requires me to see to the future of my students. Maybe I just don’t have the stomach to tell my students to forget about grades or ACT/SAT scores because it is more important that they learn what makes them happy. My students really have few choices and I won’t be the one to take away the best option they have.
That, of course, does not preclude me from having conversations about learning and loving what they do as adults.
I believe that both sides of this conversation has very strong points. Personally I believe that you will never face the exact same situation twice, this meaning every child is different. Whether they have a different learning style, home-life, IQ, certain disabilities, certain abilities, something will a be different in every child. Therefore it’s important to have a variety of teachers to meet these needs. Teachers are like students in the way that no teaching style is ever the exact same. Obviously there is no right or wrong way to learn, so it sure is a GREAT thing that children get to go to school for atleast 12-13 years and face many different types of teachers and styles and more often than not at least one of these ways to learn will meet their personal need.
Steph,
The problem with what you say is that, for most, or at least the majority of, kids, if they have that moment where they meet a teacher who’s style meets their learning needs, that is never leveraged beyond that.
Research shows that it takes kids 3 to 4 years to recover from a “bad teacher” or a teacher-student mismatch, and that in secondary schools, one bad teacher will, for many kids, undo even a whole rest of the day with “good teachers.”
So for far too many students it is not a great thing at all that they spend 13 years in school. Many of our biggest school districts – after all – have a true dropout rate near 50%, so clearly, kids are speaking clearly on this issue.
I just bring this up because I don’t believe that we can afford to be even slightly complacent. In a system geared (for odd reasons) to send everyone through college, we get about 25% through. In a system focused on reading, about 30% of Americans read above a 6th grade level. In a system which should focus on critical thinking – well, look at the Park51 “mosque” controversy to see how poorly most Americans can evaluate information (or even know about their own nation). In a system supposedly aimed at equality of opportunity, our poor kids have less chance of getting to a middle class life than poor kids in Brazil (according to UNESCO).
We work in a failed system, or, as I’ve said before, in a system designed to fail – http://education.change.org/blog/view/counting_the_origins_of_failure – but either way, it is a societal disaster.
i’m gracefully and respectfully standing my ground here. i think we question act and sat. noting Ira’s stats – add to it that 50% of kids that go to college graduate, add to it that college debt has now surpassed credit card debt. why do we believe that’s the only way…
we live in a reliability oriented society. but it’s no longer working. there’s as much or more evidence of that than that it still is working.
education can be the vehicle for social change. we need to be the vehicle for social change. our kids need digital equity more than high act and sat scores.
i am by no means – not even the least bit intrigued in messing any kids up. my heart wrenches every second of the day over this dilemma.
that’s why i have to be ridiculous.
Jabiz,
I love the idea of learning or being in school (and being at play) all the time. Both situations should be intertwined and constant.
We should always be learning, always trying to find out more about the world and exploring what interests us. With any luck, one thing (one interest) will lead to another.
For example: my 10 year old got into YouTube (you know, watching those time-wasting silly videos that go viral). Then she wanted to make some videos. Then she started writing scripts and directing little skits and filming them. Now, she’s teaching herself stop-motion animation. All on her own (she found a book and is practicing. She just informed me that 30 seconds of video take about four hours of work…but she loves doing it, and so far, so great. She’s doing very cool things).
The point is: kids have this idea, in many cases, that learning is boring. What they mean is that sitting at a desk in school listening to a lecture is boring. They mean that reading textbooks at home and cramming for quizzes is boring. Getting kids excited about learning is the task of the innovative, challenging, rebel teacher, as is helping kids see that school and being-alone-in-their-room-checking-Facebook are not necessarily light years apart, with one being boring and the other a silly timesuck.
Using time productively is a similar issue. How much could we accomplish if we were fully engaged with our work and excited about what we are doing and learning?
Nice post here!
First off, what a great assignment! I believe it is truly unfortunate that we live in a time that school is defined by standards that encourage brief explorations and standardized regurgitation. Why is it that the process of learning has become a monotonous task for students to memorize material just to pass a test? Does this fully allow the student absorb what is meant to be discovered? NO!!!
I think it is important to create assignments that stimulate young minds and get them thinking about more than what they need to attain for a grade on paper. If students can’t think this way, they aren’t truly “learning” anything.
Proof of learning is not tangible. It is something that we, ourselves exemplify by the way we think and process the world around us. Learning is an exercise that should be fun and encourage us to crave learning more and more. Learning should not stop in the classroom, it should be something we strive to do in all aspects of our lives. There is so much world out there to be explored, to not enjoy exploring it and evaluating it to fulfill our own curiosity is a tragedy. I think it is a very important part of being a teacher to be able to instill this in the young minds we influence. To be a teacher is to be a tool. We are there to facilitate the student, and if we are not motivating the students to appreciate the values of learning, then sadly we are failing them.
This is a great conversation. Everyone has some great points. I personally believe learning should be fun and creative. Sometimes it is hard to keep a child’s attention. Children can still learn by exploring. All children are different as well as all teachers. I would not say there is a right or wrong way to teach. Each teacher knows what it takes to get their student’s attention. They know the social environment and the home situation from where the children are from. Yes, what works for one may not work for another. I think the general concept is to see what works in your classroom. If children see that learning can be fun in the classroom, then they will start trying new things on their “free” time. While experimenting with this, they will learn.
This is a great post. It is necessary sometimes for us as students to hear honesty such as this. We have our own opinions, it is just sometimes they are skewed or biased toward one idea of how something should be and we are not open minded to other options. I agree that school shouldnt be considered work, but be thought of as a learning place to find what you love. I like how in your post how as her comments progress down the page she slowly began to understand and open her mind to viewing school as something other than she previously thought. You are obviously a teacher who cares and as students we should use your philosophies as a model for our own educational philosophies. I like how you are trying to get students at a young age to think critically and open their minds so that they have a chance at education to get a degree and escape their poverty stricken town. I believe that is a sign of someone who really cares.
Thanks Cody. Great to see young people taking an interest in what their teachers are doing. Would love to read your work and/or writing if you have a blog or on Twitter or other media. Let me know.
Jabiz,
I enjoyed this blog and you have some very good points. I agree that students should use what they learn during the here and now , and not just think it applies to the future. I’m also glad you said that teachers live off of questions. I was always shy in school and wouldn’t really ask questions unless I got to know the teacher well. I’m glad you said teachers want students to ask questions. I think if more teachers stated that then more students would feel more comfortable approaching them. You made a lot of other good points but that was my favorite one. I’m in Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class and if you would like to see my full comment go to my blog. http://kelleyfrancesedm310.blogspot.com/
I thought about what you have said in your blog and applied it to my own school days and now I remember that my own school life was pretty much the same. I believe that students should have control of their own learning abilities. We all learn differently and some of us are faster learners than others. I strongly believe in an active student participation while they are in school. This not only helps students learn, but makes school more enjoyable for them. Also teachers have a responsibility to assist each and every student with questions and answers. As you said, “we love questions.” One last point is the fact that information should be taught on what, when, and how it is used and not if it will be used. Students learn by tactile and mental capabilities and until we learn this students will have a hard time in school. I’m in Dr. Stranges Edm310 class at the University of South Alabama and my blog post is http://cooperphillipedm310.blogspot.com/
Thanks Phillip
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