A few short weeks ago, I found myself being moved to a new school after the school year had begun. I had a great group of students and the new school year looked promising, but then this opportunity arose. We had to lose a teacher, and one of the options was to move to a school pioneering inquiry based learning. What an opportunity. So I left my comfort zone and opted for an adventure.
This will be a year of learning and growing. I'm sure there will be successes, but also failures. While I am excited, I am also afraid. My ambivalence and excitement got me thinking - I should keep track of this journey. In a year from now, will I look back on this post and be surprised at how far I've come? I don't know.
I can't imagine that anyone but me will ever read this blog, but if you find yourself here, know this: This is a blog about an elementary school teacher on a journey to become a better and more effective teacher. I will post my successes and failures, and I will attempt to figure out what I could have done differently.
So, what is inquiry? I'm not even sure that I have that all figured out yet. My limited understanding of inquiry is that it is student driven. I brought the idea of Human Rights to my students through a website called www.youthforhumanrights.org. This amazing website has 30 unique short videos - one for each of the Universal United Nations Declared Human Rights. After viewing the videos as well as a history of human rights video, we began work on determining the difference between a need and a want. We ranked our needs and wants as individuals, in groups, and as a class from a list of ten needs/wants that I had made up. After that step, the students began work on our classroom rights. The great learning that I wanted them to obtain from all of this is that we give each other the right to _____ whatever we agree to. Students give each other the right to be respected or listened to, and if you want that right for yourself, you have to give it to others. During these lessons I had the students fill out Before/During/After pages. When they watched the videos they had to fill out a viewing guide. We did some phys. ed. stuff exploring rules - dodge-ball with no rules, rules for some, and rules for all. When we returned from the gym, students displayed their thoughts and feelings in an open-mind portrait.
After this point, I felt a little lost. Now what? Where do I want to go with this? The social studies curriculum requires that we explore power and authority. I know that I want to have students discover the various ways that people exert power and control over others. (Limiting education, food supplies, communication...) I also want them to become aware of their own ability to use their power for good. I know that sounds hokey, but it's true. We all have the enormous power to makes someones day wonderful or miserable. We also have the power to make change.
The next place I went was to google. I printed off dozens of pictures of child laborers working. I gave each student a photo to look at, and a pile of sticky notes in the middle of their groups. Their task was to ask questions or make statements on the post-it notes and stick them to the photos. We passed the photos around a bit. This was highly motivating - but I did worry to what end. I also worried that if we explore child slavery, child labour, or child soldiers what we'll uncover. Could there be any more motivating way to learn about power and control? I watched my students look at those photos with shock, outrage, and sadness. They had so many questions. These questions will now be the driving force for their own learning.
Yesterday we watched the Kony 2012 video. I know there is a lot of controversy over that video and its purpose, but I wanted to use it because it documents one man's domination over children. It also documents a group of people trying to make change. This is where I hope my students go - I want them to formulate a big questions about a Human Rights violation. Then I want them to research that violation (it may be the history, graphing the change in numbers, comparing one country to another...) Once they've researched and represented their learning, I hope to incorporate an element of writing. I want the students to use their voices to urge change. I'm not sure what form this will take. I guess it depends where the students go with their research.
I think the hardest part of this whole inquiry is the letting go. I have to let go of my control over where this takes us. There will be learning - tones of it, and I guess I will document it as we go.
No comments:
Post a Comment