William Roberts
Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:42:07 -0800
Hi, Haven't been saying much lately, but I had to add my thoughts about the question "If we think we need to create life-long learners, how do we get our students to know that they can learn and to get our students to want to learn? Not only when they are in our classes, but years later?"
I give my middle school students research projects where they can pick their own topic. I ask them as bellwork, "If you could learn anything in school, what 3 things would they be?" Then once they finish, I tell them they will learn one of those 3 items as their project. What many of them find is that they really enjoy learning more about the topics they select. Others discover that it isn't school that's the problem, it's their work ethic. With a chance to learn something they want to learn, many still fail to try. It's an eye-opener for some. But most learn something new when they get to present the topic to the class for a 5 minute lesson they have to design. I also spend an inordinate amount of time with making connections. The key to learning is being able to make connections (e.g. Marco Polo started trading with Asia, European countries needed a safer and cheaper route, Columbus sailed the Atlantic and invaded the new world, slavery grew and grew with the growth of farms and plantations, etc....). When they are taught that EVERYTHING is connected to everything else, they discover themselves making connections to new ideas and learning. We read about Football players taking ballet, and I showed them clips of Mikail Baryshnikov dancing and asked them to imagine him with a basketball. Many of the boys were amazed at his leaps and were impressed. More importantly, they made a connection between football and dance. Then we discussed music and read an article about jazz, I then taught them the connection between blues music (which started as slave songs) and connected every style of music up to hip hop and pop including heavy metal, Elvis, and the Beatles. Their current project is to present their favorite (appropriate for school) song to the class. They had to write a short essay explaining the lyrics of the song and why the song is important to them. Then they have to interpret the song in a new way to the class. I showed clips from YouTube where people have reinterpreted their favorite songs by making their own music videos, or re-enacting the songs with puppets or animation. I did a powerpoint presentation with Natasha Bedingfield's song "Happy" using pictures of my office, family, and pictures downloaded from the internet. I think it comes down to connecting our world and the world around them to their small limited worlds. If you show them how to make connections, you show them how to learn. Bill _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org