Dream Projects in Progress

This last week, students had several days to work on their dream projects. I snapped a few photos of examples below, but one that really stands out to me is Megan's. She took the bull by the horns and called up an auto shop to see if she could job shadow for a day. They were happy to have her come, and when she came back to school the next day, she was so excited about everything she'd seen, learned, and worked on. She anxiously showed me the pictures she took and explained her experiences and the differences between automatic and manual transmissions.

Unfortunately, to balance out Megan's awesome experience and the examples below, there are a handful of students who are choosing to be disengaged from the project. They are meandering through the steps of finding information they're kind of interested in and making a basic poster or PowerPoint. It just seems like another box to check for them, and it makes me wonder what I did wrong about my presentation or design of the project. Perhaps these are students who would've struggled regardless of what kind of project we did last week, but I wish I could've reached them better. Hopefully, I can engage a few more next year.

Researching Aids/HIV in Africa.

Designing 3-D models of everyday objects.

Building his 3rd model to demonstrate design principles.

Making a suit of cardboard armor.

Dream Symposium Project

To match the new-found physical freedom and choice we've provided to students in our classroom's furniture and arrangement, we started a new project this week that has students pursuing one of their dreams and sharing it with others.

We spent several days explaining the project and having students fill out their proposal for the it on this sheet. Essentially, we're trying to leave the gate wide open in an attempt to get them to roam more. They'll have several days to complete an activity of their choosing, then a day to reflect on that activity, and then some time to work on a visual representation of their activity and dream to use when they set up a small booth for the symposium we're having at the end. This final day will be a time when students will stand by what they've done and explain it to parents, administrators, students, and others, all of whom will be receiving a form to give feedback to the presentations they see.

Some students have elected to get permission to take a day off of school and job shadow someone. Other students are building models, welding things, writing and recording songs, constructing magazines, creating computer programs, and doing sundry other things that I couldn't begin to engage in competently at this point. Of course, there are some students who are dragging their feet, saying "this is dumb," and otherwise being unengaged. We're working on that.

I'm excited to see how it all goes!

New Classroom Setup

Before spring break, the teacher I share my classroom with and I gave a survey to students to see what changes they would like to make to the classroom. Our goal was to give them more control and voice over the physical space of the classroom to mirror the increased degree of control and voice we're working to give them over the curriculum at the end of the school year.

Overall, students wanted to have more comfortable seating (we have a couch and more options for seating), softer lighting (we have several lamps), and background noise (we have a small water feature). For our part, we wanted to make the space more student friendly by getting rid of our special (and very cluttered) teacher corner and making the teacher computer more of a kiosk for anyone to use.

Also, one of the most requested changes was... a pet. So, we will now add two hermit crabs to our class.

I'm not sure how this whole experiment with the classroom setup will go, but I'm excited to find out!

The Life of the Mind: Discusing "The Man With the Hoe"

Recently, I've been coming to the end of Ellin Oliver Keene's "To Understand," and one of my big take-aways has been to help students dwell in, appreciate, and develop the ability to access the life of the mind - to help them learn how to experience the joy and intellectual awakening that comes from discussing art, music, writing, and other art forms in depth.

So, the other day in class, we spent a whole period just talking about the painting below - "The Man With the Hoe" - and the poem Edwin Markham wrote as a reaction to it (see both here). At the end of one of my at-risk classes, a student came up to me and asked, "Can I call my study hall teacher to see if I can stay here for 7th period to see what the next class has to say? I really want to understand the picture and the poem better."

I was floored and of course let her call; thankfully the study hall teacher let her stay. Upon talking with her about it later, I discovered she didn't feel she got a whole lot from 7th period's discussion, but I was still amazed at what she must have felt and been thinking during her class's discussion to make her want to stay and discuss it more.

That has to have been one of the best lessons of my teaching career, at least for her, and it makes me wonder how I can replicate it more in the future. Please leave any thoughts below.

Source here.