My mind is whirling with the possibilities as a reaction to the blog post of 14yrold Arthus Erea of Vermont. His articulation is astounding, but it is the far-sightedness of his content that has me hooked! In this blog he discusses his view of the ‘global village’ and the effects his entry into it have had on his emotional, social, and intellectual development. His comment that he lives in two places? THAT’S the possible cure for peninsula-itis’ that I will explore with my students.
Arthus came to my attention via a comment on Will Richardson’s blog which describes a ustream TV session in which Arthus led a discussion on the current US presidential race! In our recent Aussie elections I could count on one hand the number of my students who knew much about what was going on and, for that matter, I could stop at the first finger for counting how many of them were able to express an original thought and not something regurgitated from comments made by their parents!
My keen interest comes from my thinking about how to engage my 2008 Core class, who on the surface appear to be a quite disparate group of individuals with a common factor of not having had all that much fun or personal success so far in middle school. (please note that this comment is a generalisation and I more than happy to be proven wrong!!) I have been considering how to make their learning ‘real’; to take the program outlined for all Core classes and immerse them in it in such a way that they have one of their best years at school … in fact, that is one of my year’s revolutions…to have these kids utter those exact words.
It’s a tall order. No doubt about that. But Arthus and his enthusiasm remind me of the myriad possibilities that are at my fingertips to not just ‘engage’ these kids, not even ‘immerse’ them in their learning … its much more a matter of my students bringing their life to their learning and for me to be scaffolding for their life and their learning to journey together.
A treasured friend of mine, who knows me very well, periodically reminds me of the question: “How do you eat an elephant?”
Do you know?
How many ‘problems’ of elephantine proportions await you in 2008?
Why do I mention this now?
Primarily because I need to remind myself that the answer to this question about a gargantuan meal … is to take my time and eat it one bite at a time….
To that end, I try to slow my whirling thoughts and get them into some semblance of order. I try to frame them in the cold harsh reality of the light of day. I really do try to be realistic about what I have to work with and what I can expect … but then the twist takes over and …
… my first steps in bringing life to my classroom is to get the kids to redesign, redecorate, refurbish the box, oops, I meant to say classroom, box just slipped out then, totally accidentally ;-) And this idea will be the topic for my next blog……
Tags: 21st century learning, 21st century skills, classroom design, programming, Student 2.O, students, the twist, ustream TV, Will Richardson
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