Feb 10, 2010
Students create rather than consume
There was such a response to Gary Stager that I thought I would post something a little lighter but to the point. As we discuss our faculty and students it is critical to keep in mind the questions about the “getting there.” We still talk about collaboration and empowering students but we still call their work “assignments”. Gary calls them learning adventures. It sets the stage for a learning community within our schools.
In many of the articles in this blog I discuss the ability for students to create their own content, be active participants in learning, drive what they need to know. This is a life long skill that should be instilled everywhere so our students leave our schools with actual skills to learn not just rote memorization. If we give them too much they won’t know what to do when we aren’t there.
Have you seen the amount of organized sports our kids are in. They aren’t even given the freedom to make their own decisions.
We need to let go and we aren’t! What are we afraid of????
“We need to let go and we aren’t! What are we afraid of????”
I would really like to agree with the idea that we need to let go. We do need to stop being afraid. We should not fear the world in which we live. We should not fear that our students must live in the same world. We need to stop this fear. I think that the first thing we could do to stop indulging ourselves in our fear is to stop lying to the kids. My suggestion is to begin by ending the fantasy that failure has no real consequences. I think that the last place trophy idea should be permanently banned from any competition. I think that coming in last place for anything should go back to being what it always was, very undesirable. As it happens in real life last place is not a happy place. There is only pain and humiliation that is earned by the total lack of desire to even try to succeed.
Every student should be challenged on a daily bases. Every child should be encouraged to be the best that they can be. All children should be taught that choosing to be a loser is not an option. Choosing to always try and learning to understand that the word “can’t” only means” I don’t want to” is necessary for everyone to stop making excuses for all the whining that we have come to accept. Learning to play to our strengths is what education must lead everyone toward. If we truly want to be free from being afraid then we all must come to understand that no job is too small and that everyone can learn to be really good at doing something.
There are times when it is not “popular” to not give kids the last place trophy. I have to add awards in general. There has to be specific compentencies one has to achieve in order to gain recognition. For example: my son got lots of academic awards -science and math olympiads etc. but if you asked him he didn’t even know what he did to get them. He was just smart. I got him involved in Odyssey of the Mind for that very reason. This was a place where working as a team and working hard was evident in what was produced. It was directly related to what someone puts in. When he went off to college many of his books were still shrink wrapped as he graduated at the top of his class. But it didn’t teach him anything. He was fortunate to be smart and be in a family where we valued traveling, intellectual time and conversation. Odyssey I think helped him.
People once persecuted Native Americans, stole their lands, and tried to destroy thousands of years of cultural traditions because it was the popular thing to do. Today thousands of young men go to prison because immediate gratification has become a popular mind set leading to illegal activities that have become the popular thing to do. In too many middle schools being intelligent and actively achieving academic greatness makes a student feel like an outcast because being dumb and behaving poorly is the popular thing to do. Life is not a popularity contest although the media screams otherwise. When will the power of education become popular enough so that everyone can understand its message? When will earning an education become more popular than funding political nonsense and selfishness? When will it cost $70,000 per year to keep a student in school and only $2,300 per year to keep a man in prison? When will the National Education Budget exceed that of the National Defense Budget? When will it become popular to end the manufacture of all instruments of death and violence? When will it become popular to educate everyone equally? Will the truth ever become a popular topic? Popularity is an interesting idea.
My son is at the top of his class, as a senior in high school. It has always been difficult to challenge him in the classroom. We used to be involved in the SCIL program, and it was a great way for the top students to be challenged. It is unfortunate that the program got cut, as it is one of the few programs for the top students.
I don’t believe it’s a matter of being afraid as it is a question of the student’s ability to be independent thinkers. There are many factors involved here. The most common I’ve seen (from a mathematical point of view) is the student’s ability level. Often I am confronted with students who are way below where they should be in their math abilities. How can we as teachers expect them to be active and independent learners when their prerequisite skills are well below the current grade level? I often ask questions about the content and am greeted by an awkward silence. Now what? I can call on a student, who typically answers, “I don’t know” or will take a wild guess which clearly illustrates their lack of understanding.
In this time of data driven, state exams, NCLB era it is virtually impossible to spend time trying to play “catch-up” with these students while at the same time teach new content. Perhaps in mathematics more so then any other subject area it is critical that students have a firm foundation moving forward in order to succeed in math.
To answer your question, “what are we afraid of?” It’s not relevant (at least not in my classes) but why are we pushing kids ahead when clearly they are not ready? This idea of social promotion sends the message to the student that it’s okay if you don’t know the content, move on! Unfortunately the door gets slammed in their faces in high school when it comes time to pass regents exams. By that time it is often too late for those students, they have been conditioned throughout their academic careers that they are not responsible for their learning. As one 8th grade student told me last year, “I don’t have to do any work; I’m moving on to 9th grade next year.” What do I say to that? Speechless!
Don’t worry about the regents. It’ll be ok. New York’s board of Regents is now debating suspending many of the regents exams due to budget constraints. All will work out beautifully for Social Promotion. Other than that, we are damned if we have regents exams (limit teacher creativity claims) and we are damned if we don’t (regents exams can hold teachers and students accountable).
It all sounds so real but why do we go back to the way we feel comfortable teaching. I think it is fear!
I agree that every child should be challenged and encouraged to do their best. The question is how do we get those to do work when they don’t want to? I have students in my class that chose not to work because their friends around them do not want to do any work. They all jump on the bandwagon and refuse to do anything. It is not until after school, if they come for help, do they want to do the work.
I wonder if they are truly being challenged or are they in anyway engaged. Do they understand the value. If they are surrounded by those that won’t work then they will always make choices to do what everyone else is doing. Working through that now is more of a learning experience for them than the content or any state test.
I think this is a very interesting idea. I agree that students need to be creating things on their own. They need to be given broad “learning adventures” in order to figure out and learn how to go about getting information or know where to start. Like the example Stager gave of the students composing music. Some of them had no idea where to begin. They did not understand the terminology or software. What ended up happening is the students went out and explored online to find out how to use the software and to find answers to their questions. They asked classmates for help and joined social networking sites. This not only helped them complete the assignment but gave them skills that they could apply on other assignment or to a real life situation.
I agree with what Stager is saying but I’m not always sure how to apply it in my classroom. I know it is always a battle between giving students the opportunity to learn and create on their own with guidance from the teacher and giving students all the information they need to know for the course. Then they just have to memorize it but have not really gotten any other skills out of this learning. This is what happens so often because students are expected to pass Regents exams and teachers are expected to prepare their students and get them to pass the exam. Teachers often feel pressure to “get through” the curriculum so students are exposed to all the information. But how much are they really learning? Are we just teaching to a test? Are students really prepared to enter the world after graduating from high school?
I agree with you Melissa. Stager is right in his statements. The question is, how do we take what he uses with his masters classes and apply it to our curriculum, and still be able to get through the required materials in the little bit of time that we have. I would love to be able to do some fantastic projects with my students and allow them to gain a deeper understanding of the materials and at a more reasonable rate of speed. Unfortunately, many times, to be able to get through all of the required curriculum, we cannot do all of the many activities that are available. Hopefully, with this push for a more integrated curriculum with deeper understanding of the required materials, they will change the way in which we ‘test’ our students for their knowledge.
I think, in Gary Stager’s example of the music assignment the students learned a lot more than just how to create the music or run the program.
The students learned how to learn. They learned how to find the information they needed to solve the problem. Each student probably sought information in a way that was comfortable for them. Some joined groups, maybe some read the information. What I see is so important is that the students are learning how to seek and find the answers on their own. This is an essential skill for life. No one can be there all the time to give you answers. I have even learned that my parents don’t always have the answers, so if they don’t then I have to figure it out on my own. I see in my class so often that students just want me to tell them the answer and don’t want to go through the process of reaching the answer.
I admit I am afraid of “letting go”. This is only because I have a regents exam. There is so much pressure for students to pass or get a 98 on a regents exam. I have to prepare them for this. To the students, their parents, the school, this is success. I don’t agree that the test is everything, yet I still feel forced to teach to it. There is so much information on this test. I am afraid if I let go the students will miss something they must know.
I thought that Gary Stager’s article was pretty interesting. I liked his approach to learning and I felt like his students got so much more out of the assignment rather than merely learning the content of creating the music. While, yes, that is important, it is more important that they learned how to go about making their own discoveries, and learning how to approach things without being told specifically how to do it. These are important life skills that can be applied to the rest of their lives. They need to understand that mom and dad aren’t going to be there to tell them how to do things for the rest of their lives. The same goes for their teachers. We know what we want them to learn, but it would be interesting to see how they would approach it if we didn’t tell them exactly how we want them to learn it. In Stager’s case, I would definitely say this was a “learning adventure” rather than just an “assignment”. The students took the learning into their own hands and explored alternatives and found new avenues for reaching their answers. Instead of Stager telling the students “You’re going to create a piece of music, and this is how I want you to do it…”, he gave them the oppoertunity to really use their brains, be creative, be hands on, and make thier own discoveries. I think this is great because as I tell my students almost on a daily basis, they need to learn to help themselves. In the classes I teach, I dont know that I could gie my students the open range to do some of the exploring without set boundaries because I dont know that they are mature enough to handle it. I don’t give too much room for exploring and making discoveries, especially in my SC Algebra class, because there is just so much content and a regents at the end of the year. it’s sad and its unfortunate because I would love to take Stager’s approach to learning in this class, but for time’s sake, it seems unreasonable. I know this is a battle most teachers face, and its very unfortunate.
My comments will be focusing on the below statement, “students to create their own content, be active participants in learning, drive what they need to know. This is a life long skill that should be instilled everywhere so our students leave our schools with actual skills to learn not just rote memorization.”
I think in theory having students create their own content would be very engaging for them. The students that I work with wouldn’t cover anything in the curriculum that challenges them or makes them think. If they had it their way they wouldn’t cover half the material that is required to cover.
As far as being an active participant in their learning, they have to demonstrate responsibility in able to do so. Most of my students can’t even remember to bring their math textbook to class every day even though we have math the same day every time.
I think taking part in their learning comes with maturity. Everything sounds good in theory but it all depends on the demographics of your students in your district. If they don’t value their education then how can they be an active participant in their learning or create their own curriculum?
I agree but it is the chicken or the egg. If they were engaged and connected to the content would that make a difference in their maturity and responsibility
I liked this video. It could be because I am a music teacher and he is promoting the two things I love; music and technology! The question “What are we afraid of?” is simple for the core curriculum and administrative types and it is STATE EXAMS. I think most people are afraid that if we gravitate away from “traditional” teaching then students will not learn the content needed to pass the regents. The great thing about this video is that it demonstrates the power of discovery and the value of having the students learn for themselves.
With the assignment that Gary gave his students, “download finale notepad and compose a piece of music.” He forced them to learn for themselves, just as we once did before we knew all the answers. This “learning adventure” forced the students become engaged learners and decide the best way to solve the problem. I like him knows the “deer caught in the headlight” look the students give when there are no specific guidelines and I like him will give an answer when asked, but prefer it when the students realize the answer. “How long should the assignment be?” As long as it needs to be until it’s done. I also really liked how he mentioned that one particular student just put in random notes which led to the discover of the composer Schoenberg. This also demonstrates the value of this assignment and “learning adventures.” What did he want the students to gain from this assignment? He wished for them to communicate and solve a problem. This certainly worked and while they might not have seen this as the teachers main goal, in the end they still learned the skills needed and will remember them.
Give a Man a Fish and feed him for a day…..teach a man to Fish and feed him for a lifetime.
I think that says it all!
Stager’s point is that the process is not to learn, the process is to learn HOW to learn. Students will not achieve success in future endeavors if we only teach memorization and the subsequent VOMITING of that information back on a bubble sheet. We are doing them a disservice if we do not teach them HOW to learn. Similar to the Scientific method, there is a learning method and it takes time to digest that because it is different for each learner. I remember when I “Learned how to Learn”, it was in my first year in college. I actually discovered how to filter out material that does not apply and focus on what does. Once I was able to eliminate the excess, my ability to absorb and actually UNDERSTAND the material was a GRETA deal easier. Why do we not teach how to learn?
I always like to attach my opinion to real world experiences. As a Martial Artist, I was taught over and over how to block a strike to the face, I repeated that block over and over until “Muscle memory” allowed it to be instinctual. The problem was that it meant NOTHING until someone actually threw an attack at my face with the actual INTENT to make contact. At that time I LEARNED how to TRULY block a strike in that I felt the contact on my nose and the subsequant sweeling and bleeding lead me to think about “WhY did that not work?” I then modified my learning to focus on the reality of a block. Moving your arm up is not enough, you must also move your feet and hips and shoulders and head at the same time in a coordinated effort to avoid the blood and pain.
It was at that moment that I ONCE AGAIN “Learned how to learn”.
“Go wipe your nose GRASSHOPPER!”