Bonita I love "Where opinion is welcomed, intellect seems safe." Can I quote you on that? This is important in working with colleagues as well as children...
Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure. Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge. It is thinking that makes what we read ours. -John Locke From: Bonita DeAmicis Sent: Thu 4/3/2008 9:36 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Understand] Understand Digest, Vol 2, Issue 7 Gosh yes, that drive. Child-like inquisitiveness...how to keep it alive? Yikes. Big question, Jennifer. Did Picasso succeed? (I do not believe in all life areas he succeeded.) The combination of wanting to know--curiosity-- followed by doing things to find out, that is what I deem intellectual. How to keep curiosity alive... tough one. Am I alone in thinking my fifth graders come to me quite hardened? I try to re-ignite that earlier curiosity. One thing I try is to find room and space for questioning. I notice that just to be allowed to do that again seems to ignite children (and I get sparked by them, too). The other thing that I think gets curiosity aroused is play--being silly. The third is modeling (no surprise to folks on this list). I model that spark I feel inside on the outside. I ooh and ahh when children bring in bugs and we look them up. I take huge interest in news articles they cut out for me and we talk about them. I show them when I am writing or reading my own aha moments, my giggling, my inside thinking. I am a big believer in using the arts to arouse the intellect, too. When students look at a painting with me, or listen to a piece of music, they know opinion is welcome in that space. We take joy in the way watercolor seeps around the page. We notice the colors we like on the canvas and those we are not so inclined toward. Right answers are not real in that space. I think that helps, too. Where opinion is welcomed, intellect seems to feel safe. Bonita > This is a powerful insight...if we want to keep that child-like > inquisitiveness, what do we need to do differently? And isn't the DRIVE to > know, to > understand in one form or another what it means to live an intellectual life. > It > isn't school learning, nor even always book learning... > Jennifer > In a message dated 4/2/2008 9:40:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > Children are the real scholars, especially three year olds because they have > not had time to have their curiosity squashed by schooling and adults and > they still incessantly ask, "Why?". Since, Bev, you express great interest > and > curiosity in children's minds and learning (I suspect we on this list share > your obsession), you are, in fact, a true intellectual IMHO. > _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
