Your Classroom: Collecting Wood? Or Longing for the Sea?

A Twitterfriend shared this one last week...

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

— Lynn Swaner (@LynnSwaner1) October 23, 2018

I love this word picture.

And doesn't it just capture teaching? Both the good parts, as well as the struggles?

There are some lessons that just feel like collecting wood. (I've had a couple of those in my Geography class lately, to be honest.) The discussions are halting and stilted. The students are going through the motions, doing the tasks and work assigned to them. But it feels like just drumming up people to show up and do it.

And then, there are lessons that feel like longing for the sea. (Thankfully, I've had a few of these this semester too!) The joy of learning is so obvious, so real...it's like you can smell the salt air and feel the wind in your face! And when we shove off from shore, we have a real sense of the immensity of the ocean of content we can explore!

What ships are you building in your classroom? And how are you approaching the shipbuilding? Do students feel that sense of longing, wonder, and excitement for the voyage? Or are they just looking for the next log to drag toward the beach?

Image by Alberto Jaspe [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 20

An empty baggie?

I have this baggie in my desk. It is empty. I can't remember when I put it in there either. But it's a sign of my frugality, and my packrat nature. Because I'm sure I'll find some use for it!

I remember one of my education professors--nearly 20 years ago--telling us that "good teachers are 'scroungers'...they are always on the look out for things that could be used for teaching a lesson." I guess I embody that. I have so much stuff that has made it's way into my desk drawers "because I might use it someday," it's almost ridiculous.

I've been writing each day this month about something I have in my desk. Usually there is a story involved. Almost always there is something I can connect to some part of my teaching practice. Rarely are things just..."there."

I have a bunch more junk I could keep writing about, but all good things must come to an end. This series of posts has been an awful lot of fun for me, and it was a different twist on what I usually do on the blog; this is normally just a place for me to work out my thinking on whatever it is I've been reading about, or researching, or doing in my teaching practice lately. Thanks to those of you who have commented, or interacted with me on Twitter or Facebook, or even stopped me in the hallway to share your reactions to this series. That is the best part of all for me: when I get feedback from you folks on the things I'm putting into pixels here.

So as a thank you, here are eight more weird things I have in my desk, just to keep you wondering...

Do you clip your nails in class? Ewww! (I don't...)

A finger-flinger rocket...that has potential for lots of lessons!

Mmmmm...freeze dried coffee crystals... (I don't drink this stuff.)

Because everyone should have a rubber ear in their desk...

Sometimes pliers come in handy.

A bag of shredded cash...approximately $165 in this bag...

An inflatable microphone should be part of every teacher's bag of tricks. 

Looney Tunes are the best! That Coyote and Roadrunner...physics lessons!

So there you go, teachers. Consider becoming a "scrounger," if you aren't one already. Start stashing that weird junk someplace in your classroom. You never know when a rubber ear, or a bag of shredded cash, or a recycled sandwich bag will be just the thing you need for that lesson.

Keep it weird, my friends.




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(This post is part of a series about the weird stuff teachers have in their desk drawers. You can read more about this project here, and I hope you'll share the stories of the weird stuff you have in your desk too!)

On Innovation: An Idea from Piaget

The eminent developmental psychologist Jean Piaget has had a tremendous impact on teaching and learning over the past 50+ years and wrote prolifically about child development.

I recently came across this quote from his book Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child:

"Education means making creators...You have to make inventors, innovators--not conformists."

This got me thinking again about creativity and it's role in learning. And while I don't have a lot of answers, I have a lot of questions...

Jean Piaget
Public domain image via Cbl62

What would school look like if we tried to foster creativity?

What would school look like if we gave students room to invent?

What would school look like if we prized innovation over conformity?

What would school look like if we made deliberate physical and mental spaces for students to play with ideas and create contraptions and solve authentic problems?

Would students be more engaged? Would teachers be more engaged?

What structures would have to change? What policies might have to be modified?

How would we assess teaching and learning in this sort of environment?

How do content standards fit into this approach?

What would we be giving up by incorporating more innovation? What would we gain?

Are there places already creating innovative spaces like these? And if so, what are the results? What is working well? What should be modified? Can this approach be transplanted into other schools? Or is it organically situated and contextualized?

So much of contemporary school culture seems bent on conformity. If we made innovation and creativity the norm...would that be trying make everyone conform to innovation?

Limiting Creativity With the "Correct" Answer

My friend and classmate, Susan Shannon, shared this with me the other day. She was at a session presented by creativity guru Ken Robinson and he shared this video with the group. It is stunning, and I think the video speaks for itself...so I'm not going to say any more. If you are a teacher or if you have kids in school, please watch this.

Minecraft: Boosting Creativity in Education?

My kids love Minecraft. Have you played it at all? I put the "pocket edition" on my iPad, and now they fight over who gets to play it. You can download the free version (there are iOS and Android versions) to at least give it a whirl.

The best description I can give for the game is virtual Legos, generated in blocky, pixelated graphics, with zombies. (Who wouldn't want to play that??) The game can be played in two modes: "survival," in which the goal is...survival (the zombies are coming!), and "creative," which is all about creating your own unique world. The name comes from the two main tasks you undertake in the game: "mining" for picking up resources, and "crafting" structures and objects from those resources. The game has been around for a few years now--there are PC/Mac and Xbox versions too--and the folks who create the game are always adding updates. On the pocket edition my kids play it's a one-player game, but the other versions allow for multi-player interaction, and you should see some of the amazing things teams of players build!

A few screenshots from my kids' games, so you get the idea of what it's like:

In creative mode, players can fly over their world to see it from many perspectives.

Out on the boardwalk...Notice the treehouse on the tiny island.

Are You Creative?

I've been supervising student teachers this semester, which is one of the best parts of my job as a teacher educator. There are various aspects to this role, including coaching, encouraging, providing ideas and resources, and...of course...evaluation. One part of the multifaceted evaluation I do for each student teacher is to complete a form reflecting on their "dispositions for teaching"--how well do they exhibit the qualities and attitudes our department has identified as crucial for excellent teaching: professionalism, flexibility, resilience, cultural sensitivity, reflectiveness, and the like.

Among the dispositions we look for is creativity.

Via Patrick Johanneson
CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0

It seems to me that this is one of the dispositions student teachers most struggle with--for a variety of reasons. Some struggle with the pacing guides imposed upon them, feeling that these squash any creative ideas they might have for teaching. (They have to keep on pace with the other sections of 3rd grade, etc.) Others struggle with the content they have to teach, feeling like it's challenging enough for them--let along their students!--that it's better to just "tell 'em" than try to do anything creative in conveying the content. Others struggle with their philosophies of education, feeling that there may be a mismatch between their ideas of teaching and those of their cooperating teacher. And some simply struggle, feeling that they are "just not creative."

I try to be empathetic with them in any of these cases, but the last one I mentioned above is the most challenging for me to work with. Because I believe that everyone is creative!

I believe that we are created to create! And I have a feeling we often misconstrue being "creative" with being "artistic." But maybe I'm wrong about this. Just what is creativity anyway? Can we develop creativity? Or is it some inborn quality? I'm hoping to gain further clarity on this, so I post this question to you:

Are you creative? 

 The HaikuDeck below gets at some of my thinking about this. I'd love to hear your response.

The Brilliant and the Obvious

Do you ever talk with colleagues or friends and feel like they are so profound and brilliant that you feel like a slobbering fool beside them? Maybe I'll just confess it: sometimes I wish I had brilliant ideas, because a lot of my ideas just don't seem that profound. A lot of my ideas seem...obvious.

If you've ever felt that way (or even if you haven't), please take two minutes to watch this clip... (thanks to @gcouros for sharing.)

Interesting idea raised here, isn't it?

Maybe you do have brilliant ideas. They just don't seem brilliant to you, because they're your thoughts.

What difference does this make for you?

Do you feel creative? Do you think of your work as brilliant? Innovative? Interesting? Outside-the-box?

Maybe others do, or would if you'd share your ideas. Something to think about...

Created to Create

My twitterfriend, Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) tweeted a great image tonight: "I WAS CREATED TO CREATE."

I've been thinking a lot about creativity and giftedness and the uniqueness of students and teachers and how that all holds together. Or maybe, how it ought to hold together. If I say that I believe all of my students are uniquely talented individuals, that should show up in my teaching practice, right? This is something I continue to work on in my own teaching practice.

I've blogged some of my thoughts on this before. But this graphic captured the idea so well: created to create. That sums up much of what I believe to be true about the nature of students.

That should make a difference for the way we organize our classrooms, right fellow educators? What opportunities do we give our students to practice their creativity and continue to develop their gifts?

After all, "creating" is the top of Bloom's Taxonomy... Something worth thinking about!

By Xristina la  [CC-BY-SA-3.0] via Wikimedia Commons