Showing posts with label possibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label possibility. Show all posts

Monday, January 31, 2011

I was a closet optimist...

Wrong Way
Flickr photo via KungPaoCajun
 I am grateful for those who set me straight on why we can't get things done.

Their wisdom informs me that we must see the negative side of issues before the positive.

I've learned not to think too much to avoid possibility.      

The pessimism they share keeps me from taking risks that lead down unfamiliar paths.

After all, learning and living should be safe and predictable. Cognitive dissonance makes people feel uncomfortable so we shouldn't cram too many conflicting ideas into our heads.

We don't want to think differently; we just need to stay our course- no extras.

Things are way too intangible outside the box.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

We lose our dreams, and that's a bad thing...


Young kids know dreams implicitly. I have spoken to so many social workers that consider this fact a hindrance to determining the appropriateness of a child's home environment because it's hard for kids to articulate reality when they are young. On the contrary, I think it's a blessing. If kids who grow up in environments that place them at risk had to also be vividly aware of this fact, it would be overwhelming.

I remember a therapist asking me a question once during a family counseling session when I was about 7 years old, and all hell was breaking loose in my home... "Sean, what is your biggest problem at home- the problem you would like to change if it were possible?" My answer was that I wished that the clothes I wanted to wear on any particular day were clean; because they weren't always. Amidst the violence, battery and alcoholism that was prevalent in my home during that time, this was a peculiar response, I must say. I can only guess that at the tender age of seven, it just wasn't possible for me to perceive anything more serious than that particular problem from my child's perspective... even though some really bad things were happening. Perhaps I was dreaming, (and for a child I daresay, that just means living,) in a world of my creation; a world where bad things didn't happen and only good things were justified.

As a counselor in a middle school, and at various times in my teaching experience when I have encountered kids who were really down and out, one of my more effective strategies was to pull out their cumulative file and show them their school pictures from their first years in school. I have yet to look at one that didn't represent hope and happiness in the bright face and glowing smile of each child. This could be called a re-framing strategy that I consider to be a version of the crystal ball technique. The questions that accompany this strategy attempt to revisit the state of mind of these kids when the picture was taken seeking understanding about why things have changed. Questions like, "why were you so happy back then?" and "if you could be as happy now as you were then, what would have to change to get that way?"... are the type I would ask, and believe me, the tears flowed quickly and inadvertently many, many times.

What are the circumstances that create the child's dream state of mind? I think it's actually the child's state of mind that creates the circumstances. Children live in a visceral and fascinating world inside their heads that allows them to see the world they believe; not believe the world they see... the world of their dreams, and I think there is tremendous possibility in extending this perspective beyond childhood along the growth spectrum; even into adulthood. At some point we lose our dreams, and that's just profoundly sad because losing our dreams in adult terms is synonymous with lost purpose and possibility. The only thing worse than losing our dreams is losing our tears, but that's another post for another time.

I have noticed that the incident often occurs in middle school. At this point kids are placed in a broader social spectrum; they become more aware of the other kids and how they live their lives. They may be more exposed to the others through visits to their house, playing on sports teams with them or some other extracurricular activity. In whatever context though, the maturation process and expanded awareness of the world around them makes kids reflect on their own reality, and sometimes they don't like what they see, and it's devastating.

What can teachers do? I think we can ensure that our learning spaces are the type that will be adored by kids; magical places in their eyes that provide opportunities to discover, question and explore without fear of scrutiny or failure. They should be places where mistakes are welcome elements of the learning process. After all, if mistakes were the end of the world, nobody would ever learn how to ride a bike. I have been in many classrooms like this, and each one was physically different. It's about the way a place makes you feel, not what the place looks like. We need to make the zeitgeist of our classrooms viscerally endearing to kids; intellectually stimulating from their perspective as opposed perhaps, to ours. We need to tap into their instinctive learning tendencies and not let them fade over time. Is this easy?

No.

When I sit and talk to kids who have been jerked away from their sense of wonderment and possibility so much sooner than most, and they feel helpless and hopeless, it's been a very effective strategy to suggest they return to their place of dreams seeking the purpose and enthusiasm they once realized.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Calling All Experts- What is Authentic Learning?

flickr CC image via mzagor

Learning should be an organic, concentric process, not a linear one. The world surrounds us; it's not a point to point path. However, our education system is set up as a from here to there journey- not a great reflection of the broader world we are a part of. Enter authentic learning.

There is a debate brewing over what authentic learning looks, sounds and feels like, I just know it. I'm hearing people make reference to the term, but I'm not sure if people know what it means. I'm not even sure if I know what it means. I have my point of view on the concept, but I haven't actually heard a definitive explanation. Sad it would be if the potential value of what authentic learning has to offer kids were to be diminished as a result of teachers bantering the term about without actually creating authentic learning in their classrooms. (Reminds me of what's happened with PLC's. Alarmingly, many teachers claim to be involved within a professional learning community, but they have no idea what Richard DuFour intended that to actually mean... I know because I've asked them.)

So what is an authentic learning environment? Here's some examples of what I think an authentic learning environment might look, sound or feel like:
  • Kids who go home at the end of the day and do homework that I didn't assign, but that is totally related to what we did in class that day
  • Unit and lesson plans that adjust for the unforeseen possibilities that crop up in an organic learning environment (a.k.a. teachers who aren't slaves to their well-thought out plans for instruction; those that think on their feet)
  • Evaluation and assessment practices that reflect student's progress against his/her personal goals and aspirations, and that are relative to where the student jumped off at the beginning of the learning journey
  • Learning activities that provide multiple formats and opportunities to display learning
  • Learning that stimulates all modalities; that draws the whole person into the process... there's more to learning than just what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears
  • Learning in three dimensions (can you say paperless teaching?)
  • Kids suggesting what we should do next in whatever class to extend the learning objective we just met
  • Parents knowing what their kids are doing at school because the kids are so darned excited that they can't wait to tell them every day
  • Teaching and learning that understands we are emotional beings; that we need to reach people on personal levels before we can reach them on cognitive levels (and that by doing so, we can go so much further in the cognitive domain)
  • Teaching that exploits all degrees and variations of student strengths without apology with the understanding that there is no limit to what can be learned
  • Teaching from a perspective that doesn't recognize or validate failure, only relative degrees of success
  • Teaching that utilizes various forms of technology as critical tools toward creating authentic learning when the lived experience isn't possible (field trip to the moon)
  • Teaching and learning that incorporates the fine arts and physical movement into all learning activities as opposed to the traditional practise of conducting classes for these as separate 'subjects'
  • Teaching and learning that incorporates the issues, challenges, contexts and mysteries that the broader world provides
  • Teaching and learning that perceives mistakes as critical and valuable elements within the process of searching for understanding
  • Teaching and learning that accepts the connectivity we enjoy in our global environment not as a novelty, but a necessity
  • Teaching and learning that exudes creativity and takes risks understanding that the two mixed together equal opportunity 
OK you experts, how am I doing? I swear I have not looked up authentic learning on Wikipedia, nor have I done research anywhere else on the topic whatsoever. I'm just throwing this out there hoping I'm close to the mark because I sure like the thought of teaching in a class that looks, sounds and feels like what I describe.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Black Swans...


The "Black Swan"  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of the most thought provoking and brilliant books I have ever read. Taleb uses the term 'black swan' to describe a highly unpredictable event that, having occurred, is treated as if it was highly predictable. Often we will say about this sort of occurence that "we saw that one coming," or "it was bound to happen sooner or later." We seem to have an intense need to justify, predict and control everything that happens in our chaotic world. If contemporary, western society was to make a summative statement intended to describe our point of view within the realm of science, our scientific raison d'etre, I believe the statement would read something like, "control; that is our science."

 Random Thoughts on Randomness:
  • The perpetual urgency we feel to understand, rationalize, analyze and manipulate our world may very-well be the element of our consciousness that is preventing us from truly and deeply understanding our world.
  • Re. the "order" of our world... what if disorder is actually the natural order and our compulsion toward control and manipulation of everything is what drives us further and further away from this naturally occurring "disordered" state?
  • Releasing our compulsion toward controlling everything may very well create an environment where we are open to possibilities previously considered impossible.
  • Transformation is possible, however, change that transforms is impossible when we operate in a context of right and wrong... true intellect is the willingess to admit that we know little, and that we have everything to learn. The space between right and wrong, and perhaps even more importantly, the space beyond right and wrong contain the undiscovered truths I'm interested in finding.
  • Assuming the world exists in a random and disordered state, positing that this is actually the natural order of our world elicits a cosmic irony.
I'm a teacher, and my intent with this post is to initiate a dialogue exploring the spectrum from randomness to order.

Traditional educational models include many practices designed to control outcomes of the teaching and learning continuum. This is our 'order.' Every day I'm confronted with the responsibility and necessity to evaluate student progress. This may very well be the ultimate challenge for teachers. We continually ask ourselves what our students know, and how they can prove it to us so we may make a statement about what they have achieved; how much knowledge they have absorbed. All of this is juxtapositioned against the standards we have established for this knowledge; our curriculum. By doing so we're essentially establishing control over what students learn, how they learn it and how they display their learning. What if this particular form of order and control process is the wrong way to do it? What would be the alternative? I don't have the answers to either of these questions, but perhaps you do...


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