Today we are finishing up comparisons between the office of Pharaoh in Egypt and Hobbes' Leviathan. Students are looking for the shared characteristics of the two as political offices. Today we will briefly *discuss* the role of a citizen in these two systems and will then move on to Locke, Jefferson, the Declaration and Mandate of Heaven; students will once again search for common themes.
* I feel compelled to asterisk the discuss because I find it to be an overused word. Often teachers say we will discuss ________. In reality, is it a discussion or a lecture? Discussion means conversation and conversation means give and take. In order for students to discuss they have to come up with ideas and they will be wrong. Being wrong isnt a bad thing as it leaves grounds for comparison and growth. The only error is if you leave without recognizing the difference between wrong information and right information. Is it WRONG of me to think that i would rather see a student create wrong information than LEARN right information? At least using the former we get to build the connections to strengthen their logic and make them right more often.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Handshake
I shook the hand of a holocaust survivor today, it was a moment in my life that I will never forget.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Posting
I dont know an appropriate post for today... I am just going to put this and leave it--
It isnt time yet but when it is we need to be stronger together, we need to be better for each other and we need to come together. The greatest struggles are the biggest opportunities, we cant replace what we lost and we cant make the hole go away. What we can do is heap in love for each other and bond as a community. Staff, students, faculty, community members, religious affiliations, I dont care who... we need to make this community one and be there for the people who need us when they need us. I can think of one family that should be the center of our community right now, not that we should be in their faces or in their lives but we should be there for them every instant they need us when they are ready for us. Most of that piece of advice came from a 7th grader today...
It isnt time yet but when it is we need to be stronger together, we need to be better for each other and we need to come together. The greatest struggles are the biggest opportunities, we cant replace what we lost and we cant make the hole go away. What we can do is heap in love for each other and bond as a community. Staff, students, faculty, community members, religious affiliations, I dont care who... we need to make this community one and be there for the people who need us when they need us. I can think of one family that should be the center of our community right now, not that we should be in their faces or in their lives but we should be there for them every instant they need us when they are ready for us. Most of that piece of advice came from a 7th grader today...
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
6 Goals
We came up with 6 big goals during the last two inservice days and i must say... I LOVE them! Furthermore we have discussed converting our grade 7-8 history courses into a broad based exploration in the social studies and making it about skills as opposed to purely content. Students would do a survey of things like how to units on critical thinking and studying history, anthropology, economics, political science and geography. Building these skills would make them more successful in later years and would facilitate growth in the big 6 we came up with.
If you are wondering the 6 skills are listed below. This is the way they are written for seniors leaving KHS. We tiered them back through kindergarten and are hoping to improve and adapt them throughout the rest of our training. I think these are a great start. Of course this list must be infinitely adaptable and remain a living document.
A Senior leaving KHS WILL be able to...
- Make logical decisions based on individual research.
- Evaluate the purpose of bias.
- Judge the causes and impact of personal and group decisions on worldwide issues and events.
- Evaluate the cause and effect of changes in society based on historical events.
- Make logical decisions based on primary source documents.
- Evaluate the impact of worldwide cooperation and conflict on historical and current events.
If you are wondering the 6 skills are listed below. This is the way they are written for seniors leaving KHS. We tiered them back through kindergarten and are hoping to improve and adapt them throughout the rest of our training. I think these are a great start. Of course this list must be infinitely adaptable and remain a living document.
A Senior leaving KHS WILL be able to...
- Make logical decisions based on individual research.
- Evaluate the purpose of bias.
- Judge the causes and impact of personal and group decisions on worldwide issues and events.
- Evaluate the cause and effect of changes in society based on historical events.
- Make logical decisions based on primary source documents.
- Evaluate the impact of worldwide cooperation and conflict on historical and current events.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Learning... With a purpose
I was glancing at a colleagues blog regarding relevance and thought, since I do not blog regularly enough anymore... why cant I steal his topic?
In the social studies I feel that we are often thought of as a content course. The concern is generally centered around whether or not students know the material as opposed to the skills they use in order to analyze, interpret, apply and connect it... even more infrequently do I hear discussion about students ability to CREATE or EVALUATE using it. What do I mean?
Students in my classes often inform me that when we study material they shouldn't form opinions on it-- they seem to feel that information needs to be studied entirely objectively. As our own history, I am of the belief that we MUST have a deep emotional as well as logical connection to material in order to truly consider it. Is it wrong to judge a people or an action and feel it is wrong? No, as long as you support it with material and show your opinions make sense. In the end, isnt that a big part of why we are here? Think of the real world implications of social studies in a democratic system-- Voting thats the big one. Your vote is a means of voicing your opinion... we need to be sure students know how to develop opinions that can combine their emotional feelings and apply logical thought. Combine the reptilian and the mammalian, use more of the full capacity of the brain, develop meaningful personal connections with a basis in deep understandings; if we can do this in class and in life i think we are doing something valid.
How? Well, make students develop connections, rather than a 1 day lesson in which they are presented the 7 similarities of river valley civilizations, spend weeks covering them and allow students to create... less knowledge? Quite the opposite (the knowledge is deeper) -- More creating? Absolutely.
The traditional answer?
History repeats itself-- I know a lot of history and yet I am hardly Nostradamus... For some reason that answer just isnt good enough any more...
In the social studies I feel that we are often thought of as a content course. The concern is generally centered around whether or not students know the material as opposed to the skills they use in order to analyze, interpret, apply and connect it... even more infrequently do I hear discussion about students ability to CREATE or EVALUATE using it. What do I mean?
Students in my classes often inform me that when we study material they shouldn't form opinions on it-- they seem to feel that information needs to be studied entirely objectively. As our own history, I am of the belief that we MUST have a deep emotional as well as logical connection to material in order to truly consider it. Is it wrong to judge a people or an action and feel it is wrong? No, as long as you support it with material and show your opinions make sense. In the end, isnt that a big part of why we are here? Think of the real world implications of social studies in a democratic system-- Voting thats the big one. Your vote is a means of voicing your opinion... we need to be sure students know how to develop opinions that can combine their emotional feelings and apply logical thought. Combine the reptilian and the mammalian, use more of the full capacity of the brain, develop meaningful personal connections with a basis in deep understandings; if we can do this in class and in life i think we are doing something valid.
How? Well, make students develop connections, rather than a 1 day lesson in which they are presented the 7 similarities of river valley civilizations, spend weeks covering them and allow students to create... less knowledge? Quite the opposite (the knowledge is deeper) -- More creating? Absolutely.
The traditional answer?
History repeats itself-- I know a lot of history and yet I am hardly Nostradamus... For some reason that answer just isnt good enough any more...
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Im Baaaa-aaaack!
Hello World!
Well, yes, I have slacked terribly on the blogging; its been a tremendously busy past few weeks. The team taught unit with Mrs. Coursen went tremendously well. Students made connections between the material in both our classes and spent several days discussing how to solve poverty in our community. Not only did this benefit them in terms of higher order thinking skills, it also opened students eyes to the fact that poverty is a large problem in our area. Students tend not to recognize that we HAVE homeless students, we HAVE students whose families aren't able to put food on the table, we NEED to recognize the diversity in our school and work to make sure everyone succeeds.
They say every journey begins with a single step. When people talk about this cliche they tend to focus on taking on challenges a piece at a time. While this is a worthwhile statement, I think its imperative that we note that no journey(barring the shortest journey ever) has been completed in a single step. Classes in the first quarter went well but we have a LONG way to go together. The first quarter is just that, a quarter. No sport has ever been won in the first quarter and no challenge has over been overcome just by starting a solution. We need to keep it up. As the year goes on the level of difficulty will increase, the skills we have worked on will be applied to more complex solutions and the knowledge we have gained will be applied to everything else we study. It is necessary that we approach these coming challenge with the same vigor we have shown thus far. I believe we can and will do it.
Well, yes, I have slacked terribly on the blogging; its been a tremendously busy past few weeks. The team taught unit with Mrs. Coursen went tremendously well. Students made connections between the material in both our classes and spent several days discussing how to solve poverty in our community. Not only did this benefit them in terms of higher order thinking skills, it also opened students eyes to the fact that poverty is a large problem in our area. Students tend not to recognize that we HAVE homeless students, we HAVE students whose families aren't able to put food on the table, we NEED to recognize the diversity in our school and work to make sure everyone succeeds.
They say every journey begins with a single step. When people talk about this cliche they tend to focus on taking on challenges a piece at a time. While this is a worthwhile statement, I think its imperative that we note that no journey(barring the shortest journey ever) has been completed in a single step. Classes in the first quarter went well but we have a LONG way to go together. The first quarter is just that, a quarter. No sport has ever been won in the first quarter and no challenge has over been overcome just by starting a solution. We need to keep it up. As the year goes on the level of difficulty will increase, the skills we have worked on will be applied to more complex solutions and the knowledge we have gained will be applied to everything else we study. It is necessary that we approach these coming challenge with the same vigor we have shown thus far. I believe we can and will do it.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Doing "Hard" Things
Do hard things is a book. I know this to be true. I haven't read it yet, but I absolutely cant wait to. --Dear Amazon, please hurry my kindle here-- I know this isnt normally how I start a blog but I feel it will make a point later.
I had a fabulous discussion with a colleague at the end of the day today about what students consider "hard" work in a class. She told me about a students comments regarding what he thought was a difficult class and his views that all classes should be hard like the class he mentioned. Now, I say this not to offend anyone, and i feel safe discussing it as I can say the course was not taught by a teacher at our school, but what the students considered hard was having to make work "perfect" in terms of grammar and spelling, having to "know so many things" and the importance of remembering "details" from readings. As we discussed this we talked about how easy students tend to think our classes are.
According to the student's definition value, I could make class harder and better if I simply made them know more. In other words If i adjust ID paragraphs to require 18-20 pieces of information instead of 16-18 I am now a better teacher. In that case... 24-26! More students would fail, exceptional students would continue to succeed. This may seem hard and would make the extremely successful feel better than in a class where many students achieve highly buy let me be honest... It wouldn't be better. I am a believer that difficulty is not equal to value. Rigor isnt achieved by adding more. Knowing isnt the same as thinking... I can know what a book is about, know events from history, know definitions but it isnt the same as thinking about them. I guess the point I am making is don't necessarily do hard things, do valuable things. Grow.
What I would ask of students is, demand to think. If there is ever a day at which I haven't forced you to consider things, make connections, assess value, create, pick apart, problem solve or answer why then I haven't gotten my job done. Now, I don't think I "know it all" and I most certainly don't look at myself as a good teacher; I think I am a work in progress but I certainly want to get there. I see myself as a learner and a thinker, at least thats what I want to be and its all I ask of students.
Today was one of, what I would consider, the best days of my young career because I saw top to bottom, left to right critical, detailed, creative, connective thinking. Got to see discussion and writing that gave me evidence of the high level of thought, AND got data that students had analyzed a primary source in 2 different class periods yesterday and today. Four periods on one paragraph? GREAT!
So students, do things that matter, make yourself think, assess value on what really matters. Don't be a quantitative being, be qualitative.
I had a fabulous discussion with a colleague at the end of the day today about what students consider "hard" work in a class. She told me about a students comments regarding what he thought was a difficult class and his views that all classes should be hard like the class he mentioned. Now, I say this not to offend anyone, and i feel safe discussing it as I can say the course was not taught by a teacher at our school, but what the students considered hard was having to make work "perfect" in terms of grammar and spelling, having to "know so many things" and the importance of remembering "details" from readings. As we discussed this we talked about how easy students tend to think our classes are.
According to the student's definition value, I could make class harder and better if I simply made them know more. In other words If i adjust ID paragraphs to require 18-20 pieces of information instead of 16-18 I am now a better teacher. In that case... 24-26! More students would fail, exceptional students would continue to succeed. This may seem hard and would make the extremely successful feel better than in a class where many students achieve highly buy let me be honest... It wouldn't be better. I am a believer that difficulty is not equal to value. Rigor isnt achieved by adding more. Knowing isnt the same as thinking... I can know what a book is about, know events from history, know definitions but it isnt the same as thinking about them. I guess the point I am making is don't necessarily do hard things, do valuable things. Grow.
What I would ask of students is, demand to think. If there is ever a day at which I haven't forced you to consider things, make connections, assess value, create, pick apart, problem solve or answer why then I haven't gotten my job done. Now, I don't think I "know it all" and I most certainly don't look at myself as a good teacher; I think I am a work in progress but I certainly want to get there. I see myself as a learner and a thinker, at least thats what I want to be and its all I ask of students.
Today was one of, what I would consider, the best days of my young career because I saw top to bottom, left to right critical, detailed, creative, connective thinking. Got to see discussion and writing that gave me evidence of the high level of thought, AND got data that students had analyzed a primary source in 2 different class periods yesterday and today. Four periods on one paragraph? GREAT!
So students, do things that matter, make yourself think, assess value on what really matters. Don't be a quantitative being, be qualitative.
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