Comment on this chapter using the following format:
1.a salient sentence or passage, and why it stood out for you
2. a question you would like to ask the author
3. one or two key ideas you got from this reading, and why you believe it/they are important
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"You learn from your experience of doing something and from your analysis of that experience" (p. 115)
ReplyDeleteI've learned some of my best life lessons living by this quote. I'm the type of person who will listen to other people's experiences, but I would rather experience it myself and draw my own conclusions before I make any assessment of the situation. Based on my experience, I judge whether or not the experience was worth the consequences or not. This is authentic learning. It truly means more to you when it happens directly to you. When you analyze your experience, you find whether or not the learning was significant for you.
Question:
How much actual class time do students spend in your school and how is that time used? What are students doing in your classroom if there is one teacher and 12 students studying 12 different careers?
Key Ideas:
It is so sad to me that at the time when kids have the most energy and excitement, they spend most of their days in a boring, nothing place.
It is so true that teenagers are full of energy and excitement so we should be trying to feed that energy not suppress it. We should channel this energy to their learning. A teenager also has a greater capacity for learning than an adult so why are educators not taking full advantage of this opportunity?
Every time we get a kid an internship, we are adding a new teacher to our staff. By teaching kids through their interests, the advisor is constantly being exposed to new ideas, people, and knowledge.
I love this concept of making learning real. It also provides the student with even more opportunities to learn and open more connections within the community. Not to mention it is teaching for free!
Quote(s):
ReplyDelete“Every child should use his or her hands and mind while learning. An educator’s goal is to help kids think, not to teach them to be an architect or a filmmaker or an auto mechanic.” (p. 123)
I think the ultimate goal is to have students gain the capacity to learn to learn. This quote captures that, because students need to be able to think through problems, and information in order to learn it. Studies have also shown that students learn more when they participate in hands-on activities, because it engages students. But it is difficult to engage them when there is not a point to these activities.
Question(s):
Out of the experience with students, and advisors at your schools, do you think this method is the best way to educate students and teaching them how to learn to learn?
Key Idea(s):
An important key idea I picked up on from the reading was reaching out to the community to educate our students. There are hundreds, thousands of job positions who would be willing to teach and mentor someone interested in his or her work. The question is how we could integrate this in with the classes we teach, and include it as part of the curriculum. Incorporating students and involving them in projects in the community demonstrates they are a part of something bigger than themselves, and their input and work matters. What they do is worth it’s weight in gold, to them, and their community.
QUOTE: “One of my dreams has always been to have these signs reading “The Met High School” that our kids could carry with them wherever they go. Then, they would hang them up wherever they are—at a conference, a poetry reading, their internship, the city library, a hiking trip to the top of a mountain—anywhere. And that sign would say that, wherever they are, they are learning, and that place is our school.” Page, 132.
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool just because it’s a really clever way to describe the learning through doing, anytime, anywhere scenario.
QUESTION: I’m sure there are sometimes students who have difficulty deciding on an LTI or finding a place for the student to do their desired LTI. How do you handle those situations?
KEY IDEA: I think the biggest thing in this chapter is the whole concept of turning experiences into learning, instead of the other way around.
A personally significant sentence or passage, and why it stood out for you:
ReplyDelete“Another way that connections enrich learning is incredibly obvious, yet it rarely happens in the right way. It's when subjects are connected or when different classes work together and integrate different skills and knowledge” (119) This is the portion that interests me the most, since I'm a cross-major. I love finding the connections between disciplines, but I also realize that this is the portion that is virtually impossible in a traditional school. No matter how “real world” I am able to make my own classroom, and I will try to do this, getting other teachers to work with me is, realistically, little more than a dream. Without the student-based curriculum that naturally touches on other fields, this just isn't going to happen. Their will always be teachers insecure enough to try to dictate the curriculum to everyone, defeating the purpose. Of all of the ideas in the big picture schools, this is the one that I am least likely to encounter in a traditional school. It is also the idea that I find the most intriguing. That sucks!
A question you would like to ask the author: How often does an advisor have to reject a proposal for research, and how is this handled?
One or two key ideas you got from this reading, and why you believe it/they are important:
This chapter focuses on showing that LTI projects and self-made curricula really do provide learning experiences for the student that extend into all of the necessary disciplines. The student might be studying an art or construction form, but they will also use science, mathematics, writing skills, and so on. It would appear at first glance that students following their own curriculum go out into the real world without the necessary education to succeed in any field other than the narrow area of study they have followed. This chapter shows that this is not the case, but that instead students are better equipped in every field because they have learned with a purpose that is important to them.
"His excitement just reinforced it for me: THAT was real learning. And that's how you get kids to do stuff, to stop going through the motions to stop sitting around and staring into space. You let them follow their hearts to something that is real and has meaning for them." p. 115
ReplyDeleteThis quote captures the basic idea behind the MET for me. I really liked the quote Starla picked too.
I want to know how to make things real for younger students, or if it is possible. I love this curriculum, but I can't quite make it younger in my mind. I also am curious about the math curriculum at the MET. Dennis told us that it is something they struggle with, so I would like to know what they have accomplished so far.
The notion of a truly real curriculum is something I took away from this chapter. We talked about making things real in all of my content area classes, but at times it seemed "fake real." I think that this may be more challenging to get away from in a middle school because of the age of the students. I would like to read some more about the middle school that Dennis started to see if his philosophy of real world education is brought to light.
QUOTE:
ReplyDelete“A lot of the time, though, like with the travel unit, the work that is done in schools looks like real work, but is not real enough. I have always thought it’s hysterical that inside the school building we work really hard to make lessons that look and feel real, when all the while, the real world is going on outside-and it’s filled with history, social issues, work issues, scientific exploration, math, writing, technology, and everything else. Why don’t we just step back outside? The world is this huge resource, and schools have to start taking advantage of it.” (pp. 112-3)
The teachers and schools do need to take advantage of the real world and plan experiences in the world into the curriculum. Students would be more involved and more likely to actually learn something instead of just memorizing something. Like for a history class, especially in the northeast and the south going to different battle fields and having the students reenact a battle and putting the students into the mindset of the soldiers back than. Or taking the students to where protests during the Civil Rights Movement occurred and having them sit there and try and understand why the protesters did what they did.
QUESTION:
Do students ever get into an internship that they find they are not really interested in within a few weeks? Are they required to stay with that internship for a certain amount of time or can they switch to something else?
KEY IDEA:
A key idea that I picked up on in this chapter is the three Rs: relationships, relevance, and rigorousness. The relationships that are established between the teacher, student, parents, and administration is very important to the quality of learning that takes place at a school according to Littky. It is true if there are not good relations between each party there will be tension and no real effective learning going on. Lessons should always be made relevant to students’ lives. If you can connect a concept in a lesson the life of a student, that student is going to grasp that concept better than if no relevance had been made at all. Rigor, like Littky says, is not about how many students can’t meet the standard or pass a standardized test. It really is about how intensely the student wants to get into the subject. The three Rs are definitely something that every teacher needs to keep in mind when he or she is coming up with lesson plans.
“The world is this huge resource and schools have to start taking advantage of it.” P113
ReplyDeleteI agree that students need to feel their work is really affecting something larger than their grade. If students begin to understand that they are not the only people in the world and that they can make a difference we will see more responsible adults who care about their community and what happens to it. The world is not broken down into subjects so the idea of students learning broken down into subjects seems ridiculous.
How much time is spent in the classroom and how often do students interact with each other in school?
Key Idea: Student’s can not be prepared for the real world if they are not exposed to the real world. In the real world all the subjects come together no matter what you do in life. Even I will have to use math when I am a teacher. Students learn best when the work they are doing is beneficial to themselves and others. If they do anything in the real world they will not be using one subject, they will be using all the “subjects” and then they will really be learning.
Key Idea: The work that is done in schools looks like real work, but it is not real enough.
ReplyDeleteMany kids in school do not understand why they are doing something or ask why they need to know something that they won't ever use again. Teachers need to find a way to make kids feel like what they are doing is making a difference in the world and is actually worth something. Then they will be committed and devoted to it.
Quote: "They are sitting there because they have to, but they're not involved in what's going on and they're not learning because nobody's reaching their hearts" (115).
Getting kids involved and reaching what they are passionate about is the way to reach them. Building a relationship with them, showing them you care about them, and making the learning relevant to their lives will help in getting kids to love learning.
Q: What if kids are so closed off and won't open up to you that you don't know what their passions are or how to connect with them? Then what?
Pg 131- There is something to be said about having the responsibility and accountability of showing and teaching someone your life's calling. I think there are alot of thankless jobs- they might not see alot of appreciation, or get complacent in the repetition of each day. Having someone to talk to, to teach to, to hold you accountable, will make your job just as worthwhile as the student who pursues phys. therapy who knows that their patients rely on their help for relief.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: In other countries (such as Japan), all jobs are seen as important (even cleaning out public trash receptacles). How do we instill that in these students? That is, I am sure very few students will be interested in being a BFI employee. But it matters.
Key Points: Just as MET asks students to use all their resources, the MET is using all available resources (i.e. mentors in the community) to help the students grow either emotionally or mentally. Also the three R's (relationships relevance, and rigor) are important to allow a student to "survive and succeed in the future." Like the book says, if we prepare students for subjects, they may not be prepared for the future jobs. But if you prepare students for preparing themselves for the future, they will be ready for anything.
Quote: "The world is a huge resource, and schools have to start taking advantage of it."
ReplyDeleteI think this statement is very true. If teachers are trying to make their lessons more real, why not use the REAL world? I think it would make the lessons more relevant for the students because they would be able to see what they were doing put into practice in the every day world. So many times the students say, "I'll never use this once I'm out of here." By using the real world, the techniques they use can be valuable to them later in life.
Quote: How can we fund a school so that all of the experiences outside of school can be taken advantage of?
Key Idea: A key idea from this section is reforming the way we are teaching our students. We need to take advance of all the resources around us much more effectively than we have so far. I think it will create a big increase in student satisfaction in the work they are doing, and will cause the lessons to be more effective.