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100 Day Project – Day 39 – Quality

October 15th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Children, College students, Education, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 39 – the next day at 6:34…..

“It is important to ask and answer this question:  What do students need to know and be able to do “out there” as a result of their work in our classrooms.”     Ruth Stiehls   The Outcomes Primer

Exactly!  I ask myself this constantly.  At times this is the source of the reason I work for such long hours.  A standardized multiple choice test is about content, not about application.  In caring for young children, very rarely is there a multiple choice in the moment when a small person needs her/his needs met immediately.  Although the consequences for me are long hours, and exhaustion, as I create new scenarios, new applications in the classroom, new ways to write and think about the content, the payoff is quality care of young children.  This is what my students need to know and be able to do “out there:”  care for the leaders of tomorrow.  Today I’m thinking about one aspect of quality.

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100 Day Project – Day 38 – Light bulbs

October 13th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Children, College students, Musings, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project – Day 38 – 8:56 pm

There were two lightbulb moments today: one for a student, and one for me.   An Introduction to Early Childhood Student had a really obvious lightbulb moment.  I ask students to have Reading Talks.  They have read an assignment, responded to it in writing and come prepared to discuss in a small group in class.   This student really did the light up moment — got very excited and shared that moment with the small group.  And wonderful, for me the teacher, she was willing to repeat it to the whole group.  Her moment involved really thinking for the first time about the reality of “teaching” versus “facilitating a child’s learning.”  It was a wonderful moment for her – and for me.

My lightbulb is a little harder to explain, having to do with how I redirect a student’s idea of interacting with a child.  It was the Creative Experiences in the Arts for Young Children class and in playing “Where is Thumbkin” together, a student expressed concern that children would know what holding up the middle finger would mean and we shouldn’t use the song because of that.  It would be too complicated to figure out how to write up the exchange in class around this issue completely.  It was a great discussion.  The lightbulb moment had to do with my watching myself try to support a student’s thinking but at the same time “correcting” that thinking. Really, one cannot give up singing or exposing children to everything just because we decide it has some message or is “inapproprite” – and in my opinion, mostly because the teacher finds it uncomfortable.  So it’s not easy to explain, but I know that I need to watch my responses to students in these moments and figure out if they are okay, too light, or too heavy handed.

Two light bulbs on a Thursday – a long dreary weather Thursday is a good thing.  Today I’m think about the light.

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100 Day Project – Day 37 – Mark Twain

October 12th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Important People, Musings, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning

Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.
– The Prince and the Pauper

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.
– Mark Twain in Eruption; Mark Twain’s Autobiography

 

That’s all I have to say today.  It’s been a day of deep learning, excitement over the transformation that learning brings, and the thrill of the hunt of new learning possibilities.  Thank you Mark Twain for summing it up so nicely.

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100 Day Project – Day 36 – Regurgitate

October 12th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, College students, Education, Musings, Teaching & Learning

100 Day Project – Day 36 – 9:55   (This is yesterday’s posting.)

This afternoon on a walk with my five-year-old granddaughter, we stopped to admire a few ants — we were already carrying a Wooly Bear caterpillar in a jar with us (doesn’t everyone know that even caterpillars need afternoon exercise?) — and she informed me that she was learning about bugs in school and knew what regurgitate means.   She explained in excellent detail.

It was an interesting conversation to me as it related perfectly to a subject I covered earlier in class with my first-year students.  Reviewing Bloom’s Taxonomy and asking them, in small groups, to apply it to a task they had to learn is always interesting.  We then talk about decision making and it’s relationship to Bloom’s and this is where it gets interesting to me.   These first year students did not know what regurgitate meant when I used the word to mean “recall” in discussing the taxonomy.  I’m always flabbergasted each year by what knowledge is not there for young students.  This really took me aback.   There are so many facets to education, that it’s difficult to even state that there’s something wrong with the system, that’s obvious I think to all of us.  Exactly what it is, I work on figuring it out with others in the system.  For now let’s not regurgitate old mistakes – let’s fix the obvious disparity.  Today I am thinking about regurgitate.

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100 Day Project – Day 35 – Einstein

October 10th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Books, Important People, Musings, Reading

100 Day Project – Day 35 – 9:20 p.m.

Yes, that is right.  Today I’m thinking about Einstein.  I’m reading his biography.  I really enjoy biographies.  It’s a really great way to learn so much about a lot of things; not just the person the book is written about.  Of course, this assumes, a well-written biography.  My hubbie has been reading one about Sir Richard Frances Burton written by his niece — he has been reading it for about ten years!  Apparently it’s very poorly written.  I have less patience for the poorly written biography.

This is a brilliant book about a brilliant man.  The challenge is that the math and science that is absolutely necessary to cover in the book has me totally baffled!  I’m reminded how poor my math and science education was:  when I was a young girl the only science I needed to know was the biology of babies; and we won’t even consider the math I was(n’t) taught.    It’s not often I find a book that has me in my dictionary this often.  And,  I’m not sure how I’m going to figure out how to understand the science involved.  I keep reading and try to understand the jist of the subject matter.  Einstein was an interesting person – well worth the challenge.

 

It’s a great read.  Add it to your list.  Be baffled.  Be amazed.

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