How can I teach leadership skills to all my students? Read Teaching Leadership to All
How can I create a culture of inclusion in my classroom? Read In Pursuit of the Multicultural Curriculum
How can I develop my own creativity so I can model it for students? Read Embracing our Creativity
What is innovation and why does/should it matter to me and my classroom? Read The Innovation Imperative
This TED talk by Sherry Turkle is worth the listen and the thought-time. As we model for our students and children how to engage meaningfully in community, navigate emotions and relationships with friends and loved ones, and balance increasing demands on our time and attention as a result of this digital age: reflecting on Sherry Turkle’s words will not be a waste.
“We seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things…and the end result is we expect more from technology and less from each other…When Thoreau considered “where I live and what I live for,” he tied together location and values. Where we live doesn’t just change how we live; it informs who we become. Most recently, technology promises us lives on the screen. What values, Thoreau would ask, follow from this new location? Immersed in simulation, where do we live, and what do we live for?” – Sherry Turkle
Pedagogy wheel for technology integration using the SAMR model
The SAMR Model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redesign) offers some insight into different ways that technology can support the engagement of learners, as well as a description of the process through which educators (who are generally digital immigrants versus the digital natives they teach) grow as they broaden and deepen their facility and comfort with new tools.
Substitution: Substituting technology for former tools with no functional change
Augmentation: Substituting technology with some functional improvement
Modification: Using technology for significant task redesign
Redesign: Using technology for new tasks that were previously inconceivable with former tools
The picture above uses common programs and apps to illustrate how these different descriptors of technology use play out in the classroom.
In his compelling blog post titled “The 21st Century Skills Students Really Lack” Daniel Willingham, cognitive scientist who focuses on the brain basis of learning and memory, writes:
If we are concerned that students today are too quick to allow their attention to be yanked to the brightest object (or to willfully redirect it once their very low threshold of boredom is surpassed), we need to consider ways that we can bring home to them the potential reward of sustained attention.
Willingham argues that attention disorders may not be on the rise, rather…the need for and valuation of sustained attention in our culture may be on a dramatic decline. As digital natives (a term coined by Marc Prensky) – students can largely avoid the experience of even mild boredom in their daily lives…but also miss out on some of the rewards of patience, perseverance, and waiting it out.
How do we, instead of trying to wrest attention from the disengaged, inspire it through a little healthy boredom that has powerful rewards?
Recently at Tuxedo Park School we had the privilege of learning about wildlife conservation efforts for big cats around the world (jaguars, tigers, lions, snow leopards, and cougars). The Vice President of the wildlife conservation organization Panthera, Andrea Heydlauff, shared the story of these secretive, majestic animals. Panthera’s mission is “to ensure the future of wild cats through scientific leadership and global conservation action.”
At TPS part of our mission is to – from our earliest years in the Pre-Kindergarten – train and inspire learners who are knowledgeable, skilled, and driven agents of change in their local and globally communities. Ms. Heydlauff shared information about four of the worlds “big cats”, threats to their survival, the science behind world-wide conservation efforts, and things we can do – at all ages – to join these efforts.
As our students grow and develop in a world that looks very different from the one in which we were educated, we work to prepare them for their future, not our past. Ms. Heydlauff’s visit was a perfect opportunity to give students an additional snapshot of the broad array of career paths that are available to them. When you ask a student what they would like to be when they grow up, you know you are asking a question the answer to which will likely shift and change many times throughout their lives. That said, you are also likely to get one of these answers: doctor, veterinarian, musician, movie star, pro-athlete, or something to do with Legos. We hope that in drawing attention to professional adults who have followed the passions of their hearts and strengths of their minds – to careers that many of us aren’t even aware of – that we can continue to train children for their future, one in which they live the mission of TPS as adults.
Take a moment to to watch the video below, an award-winning video telling the story of one of Panthera’s projects. In it, the narrator is a young boy who lives on a ranch in the Brazilian Pantanal learning how cows, people, and jaguars can all live together. It serves as a shining example of the work they do in local communities.
Surely you’ve seen the Ford Focus commercials where two people are driving in the car and talking about how “and” is better than “or” (for example: sweet OR sour chick, black OR white, protect OR serve, going to a bed OR breakfast). They have a point.
As I was reading the other day in Because We Can Change The World by Maria Sapon-Shavin, I took note of how this same principal applies to the idea of being – as Pat Bassett says – schools and educators that strive to grow students who are “smart AND good”. Maria Sapon-Shavin writes:
“Educators are realizing that we need not dichotomize or choose between teaching skills and teaching students to be caring and responsible human beings. We need not sacrifice reading to teach sharing or abandon math goals in favor of teaching mutual support and help. Rather, the classroom community can be structure so that students learn reading through sharing, and work on math goals with teacher and peer support.”
We strive for excellence of skills AND excellence of heart because, as with the Ford Focus, AND is better.
Check out some of the great things that are happening at Tuxedo Park School on the NAIS Inspiration Lab website!
Everything I Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Read HERE to learn about the service learning project third graders implemented this year in connection with students at a school in Moblomong, South Africa. As with many projects in life, results are sometimes immediate and sometimes they take time to take tangible shape. We just recently received photos and letters from children who attend the school in Mablomong sharing images and stories of the books they are now enjoying.
One of the most moving elements of a service learning project such as this is that impact and growth is experienced on both sides of the shared connection. Today children reflected on some of the things they read and saw, recognizing both extreme differences and comforting similarities between things as simple as individual’s names, favorite foods, siblings, favorite activities, and feelings about school to realities as complex as lifestyles, family structure, and living conditions.
“No one knows everything. But together, we know a whole lot. This is the reason the Why community exists – to bring people together to listen, to speak, to give, to take…to share.” – Simon Sinek
K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Schilly) 