Spring here in Europe is awesome. A return to colour, smiles on people's faces and an end to the collective Winter grumps. The days get longer and there's time to do things in daylight before and after school. Things become a bit more lighthearted, the way they're supposed to be.
Spring is also a great time at work. By this time of the school year, my kids and I know each other well and we have built a strong rapport. We know each others' limits and expectations and generally, the classroom is a pretty comfortable place to be. The cool part of this is that by this time of year I also know the things that make individuals in the class really excited; I have a much better idea of how to tap in to what it is that the children are passionate about, or more likely to be passionate about.
For whatever reason, Spring is when I'm at my most creative. I'm feeling good and wherever I look, there's inspiration for something to write, make, think or talk about. Spring is when I want to try fun new things, play, make big messes and go where our questions take us.
The killer is that this is also the time of year that we teachers are hurriedly reviewing the curriculum to make sure that we have 'covered' all the stuff, and are on track to 'cover' all the rest of the stuff before the Summer. A small part of me dies every time I think 'outcomes'. And 'data'! Conversations about
data make me want to stick a fork in my eye.
Yes, data is valuable. It's useful. It helps to inform my teaching. I gather it every day, in various forms. But I did not become a teacher because I had a passion for data. Nor do I think that a data-obsessed culture is going to produce critical, creative, passionate lifelong learners. And it ain't a recipe for inquiry learning.
All these are perfect ingredients for my 'Argh! I'm doing something awesome' soup. I'm going rogue. And I'm taking the iPads with me.
(...and yes, I'll get the report writing done as well...) Sigh.
About Me
- Louise Kemp
- I'm a dedicated Australian educator living and working in Austria. I love to innovate - technology integration and children's literature are my two current passions! @LouMKemp
Showing posts with label what kids want. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what kids want. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Friday, 27 September 2013
This teaching thing is HARD
Sadly, my best intentions to write regular posts (full to the brim with reflections on our amazing, inspired, wonderful classroom experiences) have not really come to fruition. The real world of being a teacher can very quickly smack those best intentions down. Fact: only crazy people think that teachers have an 'easy' job. To be honest, at this stage, I can't remember which week of school we're in. 4? 5? It has been nuts.
I spent a lot of time over the summer researching and dreaming about wonderful things to do with my class - coming back to work has entailed a not-so-nice reintroduction to the reality that there is not as much available space for fitting in these well-researched-and-dreamed-of dreams as one would hope. I want to reflect on some of what has passed so far.
Most difficult so far is the return to Earth - remembering that this job involves so much more than working with the children in class. So many pies, so few fingers to stick in them... Day-to-day teaching, learning and assessment, keeping track of emails, website creation and maintenance, liaising with other class teachers, ESL teachers, learning support teachers, other specialist teachers, the school counsellor, staff meetings, professional development courses, preparing for parent-teacher conferences, short-term, mid-range and long-term planning, home learning, steering committees, parent meetings, team meetings, staff meetings, developing goals, author visits, excursions, filling out various forms blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Another downer is that I've decided to postpone using Twitter with my class. Those 140 characters a day turned out to be more than I could cram in from the beginning. I thought that parents would be all over it, but it looks like they're not so into tweeting. This is a bit sad for me as I hoped that using Twitter to communicate with parents would be a good starting-point for Twitter use in our class. I'll have to rethink it. This is fine for now - blogging has provided plenty of fodder for teaching and learning thus far.
After that little whine, I need to write here that my students are amazing. I have a great bunch of lively, interested and hilarious kids to work with every single day. You can see from our class blog that they are a highly talented bunch. I like them all a lot.
I am also very excited by the blogging work the children have done in the last weeks. We started off with a few weeks of working intensively to learn about blogs through reading and writing. This group began the school year with very little to no idea about what a blog is. By week 4, they are writing their own posts and commenting on each others', as well as on other blogs, responding to comments and beginning to insert their own photographs and hyperlinks. The secret of our success thus far, I think, has been that the children made their own choices about the structure and content of their posts. Post titles include 'If you are a noob at Minecraft read this', 'The day in the Aquarium', 'What is an atom?' and 'How to make kids interested in math (for teachers).' It makes for interesting reading and has been a winner for keeping the children motivated to blog. Sadly, it's time to move on now, and while we will continue to blog throughout the year, it is no longer our focus genre.
Remembering to give credit where it's due, I should add that something else that has worked really well has been our involvement in Quadblogging - if you blog (or are thinking about blogging) with your class, check it out.
The children are also learning to use google Drive - at this stage for simple word processing, but very soon they'll be into sharing docs, commenting and embedding work from Drive on their own blogs for portfolios (or blogfolios, if you will, which I won't, because it is an AWFUL word).
Meanwhile, in Maths, we've been hammering away at Number with as many games and hands-on activities as we can fit in, while still making sure we spend plenty of time working on our sums. Last year, I learned to love maths very much but I can't wait to move beyond this beginning-of-the-year intensive focus on place value and number consolidation. At this stage, pattern and the really cool problem-solving stuff is a wistful dream.. That said, this week we've had a brief respite in a couple of wonderful sessions working with symmetry. After weeks of slogging away at digits, sums and symbols, we broke out the paints, pastels, scissors and glue and remembered that Maths is beautiful. I'm looking forward to inquiring into the places we can find symmetry in real life..
Image from flickr: http://flic.kr/p/fQzwPZ Sourced: 27/09/13
Enjoy the wildlife! Happy Friday to everyone!
I spent a lot of time over the summer researching and dreaming about wonderful things to do with my class - coming back to work has entailed a not-so-nice reintroduction to the reality that there is not as much available space for fitting in these well-researched-and-dreamed-of dreams as one would hope. I want to reflect on some of what has passed so far.
Most difficult so far is the return to Earth - remembering that this job involves so much more than working with the children in class. So many pies, so few fingers to stick in them... Day-to-day teaching, learning and assessment, keeping track of emails, website creation and maintenance, liaising with other class teachers, ESL teachers, learning support teachers, other specialist teachers, the school counsellor, staff meetings, professional development courses, preparing for parent-teacher conferences, short-term, mid-range and long-term planning, home learning, steering committees, parent meetings, team meetings, staff meetings, developing goals, author visits, excursions, filling out various forms blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Another downer is that I've decided to postpone using Twitter with my class. Those 140 characters a day turned out to be more than I could cram in from the beginning. I thought that parents would be all over it, but it looks like they're not so into tweeting. This is a bit sad for me as I hoped that using Twitter to communicate with parents would be a good starting-point for Twitter use in our class. I'll have to rethink it. This is fine for now - blogging has provided plenty of fodder for teaching and learning thus far.
After that little whine, I need to write here that my students are amazing. I have a great bunch of lively, interested and hilarious kids to work with every single day. You can see from our class blog that they are a highly talented bunch. I like them all a lot.
I am also very excited by the blogging work the children have done in the last weeks. We started off with a few weeks of working intensively to learn about blogs through reading and writing. This group began the school year with very little to no idea about what a blog is. By week 4, they are writing their own posts and commenting on each others', as well as on other blogs, responding to comments and beginning to insert their own photographs and hyperlinks. The secret of our success thus far, I think, has been that the children made their own choices about the structure and content of their posts. Post titles include 'If you are a noob at Minecraft read this', 'The day in the Aquarium', 'What is an atom?' and 'How to make kids interested in math (for teachers).' It makes for interesting reading and has been a winner for keeping the children motivated to blog. Sadly, it's time to move on now, and while we will continue to blog throughout the year, it is no longer our focus genre.
Remembering to give credit where it's due, I should add that something else that has worked really well has been our involvement in Quadblogging - if you blog (or are thinking about blogging) with your class, check it out.
The children are also learning to use google Drive - at this stage for simple word processing, but very soon they'll be into sharing docs, commenting and embedding work from Drive on their own blogs for portfolios (or blogfolios, if you will, which I won't, because it is an AWFUL word).
Meanwhile, in Maths, we've been hammering away at Number with as many games and hands-on activities as we can fit in, while still making sure we spend plenty of time working on our sums. Last year, I learned to love maths very much but I can't wait to move beyond this beginning-of-the-year intensive focus on place value and number consolidation. At this stage, pattern and the really cool problem-solving stuff is a wistful dream.. That said, this week we've had a brief respite in a couple of wonderful sessions working with symmetry. After weeks of slogging away at digits, sums and symbols, we broke out the paints, pastels, scissors and glue and remembered that Maths is beautiful. I'm looking forward to inquiring into the places we can find symmetry in real life..
Image from flickr: http://flic.kr/p/fQzwPZ Sourced: 27/09/13
Enjoy the wildlife! Happy Friday to everyone!
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Redefining Awesome
We are almost halfway through week 2 of the school year and I can tell you already what my greatest challenge this year is going to be: helping my kids to redefine Awesome.
Inspired by Kid President, I decided that this year should be an 'Awesome Year' for my class. We watched and laughed along with the video.
Then we brainstormed.
'What could we do in class this year to make sure that Grade 4 is an awesome year? What kinds of things would you like to try?' I asked.
In planning, I knew this was a great hook activity. Inspired by Kid President's energy, enthusiasm, humour and ideas, and because we all know that all nine-year-olds are bursting with exciting and creative ideas, my kids were going to lay the foundations for a learning-packed, student-driven year of amazingness.
I didn't have the heart to take a photo of it at the time, but here are a few ideas from our first brainstorm, entitled 'Our Ideas for an Awesome Year':
Inspired by Kid President, I decided that this year should be an 'Awesome Year' for my class. We watched and laughed along with the video.
Then we brainstormed.
'What could we do in class this year to make sure that Grade 4 is an awesome year? What kinds of things would you like to try?' I asked.
In planning, I knew this was a great hook activity. Inspired by Kid President's energy, enthusiasm, humour and ideas, and because we all know that all nine-year-olds are bursting with exciting and creative ideas, my kids were going to lay the foundations for a learning-packed, student-driven year of amazingness.
I didn't have the heart to take a photo of it at the time, but here are a few ideas from our first brainstorm, entitled 'Our Ideas for an Awesome Year':
- reading
- writing stories
- maths games
- free time
There is definitely potential for fun and enjoyment here, but... Honestly, does your inner 9-year-old scream 'Awesome!' at this list? Why are these the limits of their expectations?
Don't get me wrong - I value that they love to read and write and do maths.
Don't get me wrong - I value that they love to read and write and do maths.
But what about inquiry learning? And 21st century skills and tools? As well as the myriad other tools and resources for inquiring and creating and presenting we are so lucky to have at our school?
On our second try, this is what we came up with:
Reading and writing and maths games are still there, but so are baking, listening to music, programming, building and creating new games.
Obviously, I learned from this exercise. Kids DO have exciting and creative ideas. Sometimes (often?) it takes a bit of work and ingenuity for grown-ups to access them, is all. Next time, I will plan for this :).
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