I have (at least) three things that are percolating in my head from last week. Believe it or not, the ideas/events can be united under the title of "breaking things".
1) Breaking Apart A Couch Can Be Very Informative
My last media/library unit was about authority. My current focus is on furniture. Initially I was sad to learn that my old leather couch and chair needed to be removed from the library. In 2017, the hard-working and helpful Dean Roberts helped me cart the couch to the school - it was one of three comfortable areas with cozy furniture for students to use, but by far the most popular due to its size, stuffing, and relative durability. I didn't want to get rid of the couch but the cloud had a silver lining - my admin has promised to fund a replacement AND another teacher had a brilliant idea that we were able to use.
 |
| Old Photo (2017) of couch and chair |
After seeing our wonderful caretaking team hauling the old furniture out of the library, Grade 2 teacher Kerri Commisso said to me, (paraphrased) "You're studying furniture ... are you going to take the furniture apart? The students would be really interested to see what's inside and how it's made."
That was an AMAZING idea. Problem was, the caretakers had already removed the chair and couch from the library. It was already in the huge bin and the bin was slated to be taken away the next day. Thankfully, our caretakers are accommodating and very flexible. I asked Dave about the possibility of making a video of us cutting apart the chair in the bin. He talked to Michael, our new head caretaker, who agreed! They took time out of their busy schedules to come outside with me and allow themselves to be video taped as we cut open the bottom of the couch. The weather was miserable and the couch was big but they made the effort so that our students could learn more about how furniture is assembled. My STEAM classes seem to think that the best way to attach anything is with either tape or glue. This video demonstrates that tape and glue are rarely used when building something you want to keep together. I also discovered that there were a lot more things inside a couch than I realized!
Here is the video!
My next steps (after getting the students to finish their Goldilocks / 3 Bears drawings to match furniture to users, showing the above video and reading "A Chair For My Mother") are to do some research on what would be the characteristics of a good sofa for the library and shop online. (I originally had a plan to go to Ikea with the students to see about the messages that furniture can give to a room but the work-to-rule has paused that plan.)
2) Breaking Loose Parts Can Be Risky But Creative
On Wednesday, January 15, 2020, I attended my first session of my York University Additional Qualification course. It's Kindergarten (part 1 for me) and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. One of the things our instructors, Gail and Kenisha, did during the first in-person class was to set out several provocations and allow us to interact with the objects, play and explore.
I don't *mean* to be troublesome, but as a learner I can be a bit unconventional. I thought about C, who wrote all over my library shelves with crayon. I thought about R, who tried to take ALL the trains for himself. I thought about E, who had to be sent back to the library to return the toys smuggled out in pockets. So, I grabbed as many things as I wanted to examine and I hid in the play structure to explore them at my leisure without having to share. (More on the play structure later.) There were tiles that you could write on with black marker, and it looks quite striking. I decided to try and use the black marker on other things I had collected. I drew on mini-tiles. I drew on big jewels. I drew on feathers. I didn't draw on the wood because I knew for certain that it wouldn't come out and I didn't want my instructors to despise me on the first day. I peeked briefly at what others were doing (and I wish I took a picture of the beautiful mannequin that someone else clothed and then stacked mini-tiles in their hands) but mostly stayed in my tent-like enclosure. I overheard conversations about explaining to students how they could draw on mirrors at school but not at home, but I didn't partake in the talk. When it was time to tidy up, I thought I better start cleaning all the marker I had put on the loose parts. Big tile? No problem. Jewels? Uh-oh. I used the "mommy trick" of applying saliva, but that wasn't working. Thank goodness, hand sanitizer seemed to work, but not until I had spit all over the jewels I had borrowed. I asked if they still wanted the jewels back, and they did. When my principal asked me the next morning how the course went, I don't think he expected me to say "Well, I licked some of their jewels ..."
Here's the photo of what I made in the tent.
3) Breaking Rules About Centres and Limits Can Be Scary but Liberating
There's lots of room for play in my library space. I try to introduce new objects so that it's not boring and that different items can circulate. I knew that Mr. Tong's class were working in their regular program with the straws and connectors because they were studying shapes and solids in math so early last week, I thought it would be apropos to bring out the play structure I had bought with book fair funds. Together, we looked at the instructions and assembled the house tent. This was very exciting to the students but caused a new problem - everyone wanted to play in the house. I "solved the problem" by declaring that we could only have 4 students in the tent at a time, and for the first little while, they could only remain in the tent for a minute at a time, so that everyone could have a chance inside. I even had a timer so that it would be "fair".
This solution worked, but it didn't feel good. I talked with one of my new York University Kindergarten AQ instructors about it. She asked about the purpose of bringing out the house in the first place (which I was able to justify; I think she might have been concerned about the reduction in free expression because it was a pre-made kit with a set end result) and then suggested some questions that would allow the problem solving to be student-centered. (Her phrases were so good that I wrote them down verbatim.)
Let's think of a way where everyone has a chance to be a part of this learning experience.This was much more invitational and positive than the "How many students should be at the house centre?" or "How long should students get to play here?" I was worried about overcrowding, but once again, there was a student-centered question that demonstrated the belief that children are competent and capable.
If there are a lot of us in the space, what might happen?I liked the approach but I still worried about those super-shy students who might not get an opportunity to use the tent. She suggested that when students were dispersing for centre time that I ask the quiet students:
Where do you want to go?so that they could claim the house area before the more assertive students took the spot. While talking to Gail, it inspired me to bring out more fabric and rods/connectors so that students could experiment with building their own tent / house / structure.
I tried out the suggestions. It didn't work as smoothly - I had already "poisoned the water" so to speak with my pre-made rules. I took off the sticky note with the centre guidelines. I told one of the kindergarten classes that even though it said "4 people" before, it was up to them to decide what was safe (and I had the SNA watch the group carefully). More students were in there but they stayed in longer and exercised their creativity muscles much more than if they only had a minute to explore.
4) Breaking Down Large Atrocities into Individual Stories and Concrete Objects Can Encourage Curiosity and Empathy
I remember my Grade 12 and OAC English teacher, Mr. Sturm, telling us a story about a particular Jewish family and the horrible way one of them died. His point was "6 million people killed in the Holocaust is a big, unfathomable number. Knowing the personal story of one family makes it much more real."
As part of Jewish Heritage Month (and thanks to Indigo and Second Story Press), every Grade 6 student in the Toronto District School Board received their own personal copy of the famous book Hana's Suitcase. My principal encouraged me to ensure that the book had meaning for the students. He didn't want the students to get the book without any sense of what it meant. When my principal was a teacher-librarian, he brought in an actual suitcase for the students to examine and consider. We were provided a teacher's guide to the book, with links to the related film, but I wanted something quicker to capture their interest. I devised a short lesson that, it turns out, packed a punch.
I distributed this to groups of four. Without any explanation, I asked them to look at it and to answer the following:
- What do you notice?
- What do you wonder?
Students were curious. I took photos of one class and recorded comments from the other class because they were both so engaged and focus (but left my paper at school, so the comments are just from memory). They noticed that it was some sort of list, and in a different language. They noticed the writing all over the list, with check marks and a single name encased in a rectangle. They wondered if this was from a residential school. They wondered how the similar names (if they were names) were related. When they were told that the check marks indicated that those people were eliminated/murdered, they were shocked into silence. How were they killed? What happened to Georg Brady, the only name on the list without a check mark? When they were gifted with their books, students immediately opened the books and started to read.
"I found the list!" exclaimed a student, his nose buried in the book.
"Hana, her name was on the list", said a second student.
"Hana was George's sister!" declared another student.
5) Breaking Down Huge Concepts into Doable Definitions Is Worth the Time
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 was also the second part of our critical thinking workshop. Brenda Kim, dedicated Grade 4/5 teacher, and I really struggled with how to get the group to understand some pretty sophisticated concepts and use some critical thinking to make reasoned judgements. Brenda did a lot of the heavy lifting with lessons done in her classroom during social studies time to understand the word "effective" and have enough background knowledge on government and environmental issues. At the second day workshop, I asked Francine about how many terms can be introduced at one time and how to do it in a less-boring way. Francine gave different suggestions. The next day, Brenda and I attempted to finalize our work with the students on their social studies critical thinking question. They read articles, picked the 15 most significant words from the article, and then decided the most compelling argument. Never presume students know what you mean when you use certain words - the previous week, the Grade 4s and I had to review what "public transit" meant because there were some misunderstandings. In this lesson, we had to define significant and compelling. There's only so many times you can look up a word in the dictionary before it starts to get boring, so I tried something weird - I asked the students to define "significant" with their bodies.
Guess what? They ROCKED it! Two volunteers bravely offered their kinesthetic interpretations and they were magnificent. These were their "body definitions" of "significant".
So I broke a lot of things this past week, but all for a good cause - learning!
No comments:
Post a Comment