Development
Paragraph Six - Pelicans
I’m asking myself two questions in this last blog of the school year. How many students are celebrating the ideas that have inspired them throughout the year, along with the skills they’ve developed? Conversely, how many are feeling the sting or the exhilaration (or, worse, the indifference) of their standardized test scores?
I suspect the latter number is far higher. John Dewey, who I mentioned in an earlier post for his concern about...
Paragraph Six - Let Us Now Continue to Praise Freewriting
Last week I was politely interrupted by my word monitor Gina while giving evidence for the benefits of freewriting. I promised to move beyond the dry research to hear the more liquid anecdotes this week. And so I will deliver.
First a spanking fresh one, from a workshop last week. I had planned a session to introduce the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme to the staff of PS 201 in Queens. My task was to promote questioning, inquiry, connections – all hallmarks of the...
Paragraph Six - An Art and A Talent
I was facilitating a session at a retreat for the staff and a sprinkling of students from a Bronx high school. I was modeling the process of “open freewriting.” A teacher timed me while I wrote, for one minute, what came to my mind:
Go. What will I write? Blackbird. I saw one this morning. Blackbird, fly! And how many ways are...
Paragraph Six - The Golden Thread to the Wolves of Long Island
“These so-called ‘golden threads’ are very nice, and probably what education should be all about, but if I followed any in my classroom, I can guarantee my students wouldn’t pass the ________ (insert name of any high stakes test),” wail the skeptics. On the contrary, as we discussed in Paragraph Six, #15, students who make connections “across life,” as Judith Langer put it in her study of schools that beat the odds, actually do better on...
Through the Classroom Door: An Inside Look at Differentiation
Outstanding, Creative, Beneficial, Informative, Motivating, Recommendable, Inspirational, Awesome, Wonderful, Insightful, Useful, Excellent, Helpful, and Educational were just a few words to describe last week’s AUSSIE workshop Through the Classroom Door: An Inside Look at Differentiation.
Paragraph Six - Students' Questions and Planning for Surprises
Update on “The Question that Fed My Writing Unit.” You noticed the title change, didn’t you? From “The Question that Ate My Writing Unit” to “The Question that Fed My Writing Unit?” I may be jumping the gun, but my hope is only growing that teacher Tom McMurrer’s second grade writing unit on letter writing is becoming more meaningful in response to the students’ unexpected questions: (“Where do you get a stamp?” “What happens...
Paragraph Six - Living with Questions
Promised update on The Question that Ate My Writing Unit: Tom McMurrer, the second grade teacher at PS 124 whose unit was in peril, has decided to contact the United States Postal Service to see if he can organize a class trip to answer the students’ questions. We have trepidation. What if the recession has caused the USPS to cut back its...
Paragraph Six - The Question of Questions
Last blog post, I settled on the piñata as a metaphor for how big ideas work in the classroom. You whack it hard enough, and out bursts a hailstorm of essential and guiding questions.
Essential questions are the crown jewels of the curriculum. They dazzle us with their value and beauty at the front of the classroom, posted above blackboards (or whiteboards, or smartboards.) They are a constant point of reference during the year’s, the unit’s, the week’s, the day’s lessons. They inspire and...
