Bonita, ? I think you've shared this before - but what is a mainline source for reading about the Japanese experience that you are describing? ? Thanks, ? Patty Walters
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 8:39 am Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] passion and emotion in teaching Lori, It is funny you should say this as it taps into a bit of noodling I have been doing recently. This idea of passion (always been important to me) and the role emotion plays in our learning is undeniable to experienced teachers and already quite supported by brain research. When I was researching lesson study, one of the things I learned about Japanese national education standards was that they were written by teachers (gotta love that respect) and the teachers included emotional goals as part of their standards. Get this-their standards include things like: Students will express awe and excitement about the complexity of plant life. Isn't that a great goal? And then teachers would look for those results in their lessons. I cannot remember the word for it right now, but they have a word for uttered gasping and wide eyed response that they actually look for in their student reaction to lessons. I just LOVED that when I first read it. The reason I have been thinking about this recently is my husband sent me an op-ed from a scientist talking about the importance of including excitement and inspiration in a science curriculum. Finally, I have been thinking about this because of Ellin's new book, To Understand. I think she is telling us that strategy instruction is not fulfilling enough if students do not connect mentally and EMOTIONALLY with how rockin' it is to actually understand--with the "feelings" of understanding. So now, the question is, how do we make that feeling (passion) occur for all children? :)Bonita > Joy's comments push my thinking. Yes, we are a landlocked bit of the world > and many, many of our young students live very, very close to home. Yet, > year after year a topic that inspired many was sharks and sea animals. Go > figure! But with viewing experiences, the availability of books rich both > in image and information and that special passion that only six and seven > year olds can have, these language deficient landlubbers can suddenly become > walking, talking experts in their fields. > > Funny how so much comes back to passion. > > Lori > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
