The Most Important Thing...

It is now just one week before school starts for the 2011-2012 school year and there is so much to do. A room to decorate, lessons to prepare, changes to implement, collaborations in which to engage, new technologies to try, and the names and faces of new little people to learn. All of this comes at the end of a summer filled with not only relaxing and spending time with family, but also of learning and preparing for teaching. I find as I go through life that often timing is everything, and once again that has happened in my life. Two summer experiences have overlapped this week that will influence my teaching in the coming days. The first is reading Brain Rules, by John Medina. The second is creating a Facebook group for people who grew up in the same small town where I spent my childhood. As my friends and I are all in our 50's and 60's it is interesting to read the memories that our brains recall from those long ago days in that small community. The first recollections posted were all about school. The best and the worst were on the list. Teachers and classroom experiences recalled were all so strikingly similar. That in itself is not so unusual as we all had the same teachers and spent so many years together in classrooms, but out of all those years only certain memories remain for all of us. The common thread to all the memories is emotion.

Beginning a new school year with a classroom full of small children is such a tremendous responsibility. My reading and active recollection of memories from my own childhood and those of my childhood friends just reinforce the importance of taking time in my preparation to realize that each child who enters my room will be an individual person worthy of the best experiences I can provide. Each individual child is the light of someone's life. They all deserve to be treated as such. No two are alike and no two have exactly the same needs. They all learn in different ways and at different rates, but each will grow to be an adult with memories of school. Will I create memories that will last for decades? Our world is changing at a rapid rate as technology evolves to change how we do things, but the needs of people remain the same.

So as I prepare to do my best in presenting curriculum, assessments, and classroom management, incorporating new 21st century methods and technologies, I will slow down and take time to reflect about each child and remember to keep those young lives at the top of the list in priority. They deserve the best and we will, hopefully, build memories to last a lifetime.

The wrong lesson learned the hard way...

A month ago, my class began the most wonderful lesson. We put special bands on 12 trees in our school arboretum to measure tree growth over the next few years. Children in schools all around the world are participating. The project is part of a world-wide program sponsored by Shout Learning and the Smithsonian Institute, to measure the effects of climate change on tree growth around the world. We had to wait a month from the banding to take the first measurement to send to the Smithsonian. A wonderful employee of the BLM helped us identify the trees and is returning tomorrow to teach the students more about each tree as they use the special tool sent by Shout to take the initial reading. What a marvelous opportunity... or so it seemed.

I returned to the arboretum today to take a few photos and make sure everything was ready to go smoothly for our lesson only to discover that most of the tree bands had been removed. Many were destroyed and found in pieces. Some were missing altogether. The arboretum is a fenced area attached to our playground. It is locked from the school side and has a gate on the other side that leads into the yard of a senior housing complex. One of the residents of the complex was walking this morning when I made my sad discovery. She said they frequently watch older kids in the arboretum breaking branches and destroying projects placed there by scout troops and students. They have called the police, but no has ever been caught.

Several years ago, my class participated in a project to place informational signs on a nature trail in a local park. The night before the kids were to take a field trip to enjoy their finished work, we took the signs to the trail. By morning, one was missing, one was in the river, and many others were smashed and broken. I swore never to try another project like that one again.

I am saddened, angry, and disappointed. My students will be devastated. We will still have our tree lesson, but instead of taking measurements with our dendrometer, we will talk about vandalism and respect. A sad day...

Why I Teach...

Today I read the story Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney to my second graders. The beautiful story encourages readers to find a way to make the world more beautiful. Miss Rumphius does so by planting lupines everywhere. As we finished the story, I told my students that I hope each of them will find a way in their own life to make the world more beautiful. "We've already started, Mrs. Arnett," stated one of my children. I asked what he meant. "We are helping the orangutans and helping make less trash in the lunchroom. All of our projects this year..." His comment gave me the shivers and I felt a lump in my throat as another child said, "You planted the seed."
I could have scooped them all up and hugged them at that moment. This is why I teach...

The Most Powerful Teaching Site on the Internet

Yesterday was an AH-HA day like no other in my second grade classroom. If you will read through my ramblings about that day, you will discover at the end of my blog, a resource to create many days like this one in any classroom!

We began the day discovering that after only five students returned orders for our DVD called LearningFrom the Past - The Elder Project, we had already raised $175 in donations for the local charity called Christmas for Seniors. The students interviewed their grandparents and great-grandparents over the past months. We made videos of the interviews and added student created digital stories of tales from their grandparents to create the DVD.

A trip to our school arboretum followed. The kids worked along with a visitor from the Bureau of Land Management to identify and band trees for the Shout Learning project. They will take measurements of tree growth to add to a data base from students around the world to study the impact of climate change on trees for the next three years. The local expert was so pleased with the project that she asked to return in four weeks to join us when we take the first measurements. She wants to teach the kids more about each tree.

After lunch we discussed our current class project inspired by Interrobang . After studying the problem of school lunchroom trash all week, the kids finalized their plans for making next week a trash free lunch week for our class. There were a couple of obstacles to overcome for the kids having hot lunch at school and the answer came in an email. Earlier in the day the kids emailed the head of food service for our district with concerns about the use of disposable styrofoam trays and the many prepackaged foods served. She responded quickly and positively. The old plastic trays will be delivered to our school this weekend for use next week. She also told the kids she would work toward making that happen for next year as well! She also gave them an update on an issue of palm oil in Uncrustable PBJ sandwiches they have been serving. She is in contact with Smuckers concerning that ingredient and is working on changing lunch choices in the future to make sure no palm oil is served in our school. The reaction to the email: "We did it!!!"

The discussion of palm oil reminded one of my students that he had something in his backpack to share. He had been reading a magazine when he found an article about orangutans. He shared the picture and map from the article and recapped the content for the other kids.

When we finally got ready to complete some more typical schoolwork (math papers) the kids reminded me that we actually had already done math for the day. "Yeah, remember, Mrs. Arnett? We did lots of math in the arbortetum!" And in fact they had as they measured and marked the trees for the bands.

As the kids spent the rest of the afternoon completing unfinished writing, grammar, and math for the week (we call it finish up Friday), I saw something remarkable happening. They were so uplifted by the successes of their day. They had raised more money on the first day of DVD sales than they had anticipated making in all and could see the potential for that project helping many more local elders than they dreamed possible. They felt so important and connected to the world as they participated in a project for the Smithsonian and realized their work would have a global impact. The quick positive response to their request for help from the food service department in reducing trash in our lunchroom was unbelievable and empowering to them. The reaction from the kids for all of the success of the day was total engagement in their work. They sat straighter, worked harder, celebrated personal success in their assignments, and smiled. I did not have to ask a single student to work harder or get back on task.

We MUST make learning real for our students. All of the text book reading and testing in the world cannot inspire the motivation in students that a real project about a real life issue can. With the online connections available to our students right in our classrooms there is no reason not to involve them and empower them in the world. My ah-ha was how doing so engages and builds confidence and motivation. We ended our day singing along with a song written by our friend, John Farrell. It is called "It's the Little Things" and sums up perfectly the projects we have been doing in class.

I have had a year filled with personal and professional successes. The result of that for me has been an increase in my motivation and effort to improve my teaching. I am engaged and constantly learning to better myself. My students are equally motivated by meaningful successes. It is my job to present them with opportunities.

I titled this blog "The Most Powerful Teaching Site on the Internet" because I have discovered a wonderful site that will help me continue involving my students in real learning. Any teacher can go to the site to find ideas for project and problem based learning. Making changes in the way we teach is not easy, but this site will help any teacher at any grade level get things moving in the right direction. The site? Interrobang . It is filled with opportunities and possibilities. Check it out and engage your kids!

Assessing the Gingerbread Village....

The Gingerbread Village stands complete in my classroom. The children did it their way, working together and totally engaged for about 45 minutes a day throughout the week. The next step is time to simply "play" (although they would tell you that is what they did all week). Before I turn them loose to enjoy their creation for the sake of simple play, however, I want to assess their learning to see if the time spent on the project was worthwhile.



As I reflected on their dialogue during the assessment I had only one thought for the next time I do this activity. Rather than limiting my students to boxes, construction paper, and a city on the floor, I hope that the next time I am able to allow them to create the town in the way they choose. Perhaps it will be a virtual town on the computer that they can all access and interact with. Who knows? I'm learning new things along with my students everyday.

Lessons From the Gingerbread Man...

For the past two weeks I have been encouraging my students to bring empty half gallon milk cartons to school for a project that I have always done during our fairy tale unit. They have not brought in nearly enough cartons for our project. In fact, they have brought in only four or five total. The 15 or so that I had saved made enough for us to begin the project last week, but we are faced with the inability to complete it at all if they do not show up with quite a few on Monday. The fact that I am still in the process of changing my teaching is probably the reason the solution to this problem was slow in coming, but today while reading blog posts from Twitter, I had another ah-ha moment!

The project I am using comes from a wonderful book of what were at one time innovative ways to teach math. It is spelled out in specific steps and even has "The Rules of the Kingdom". Guess who the ruler is? Why me, of course! I don't know how many times I will have to learn this lesson before it becomes instinctive, but I don't have to be the ruler and I don't have to set the rules for my students to learn something worthwhile!

Our project is based on the story of The Gingerbread Man. With a simple change to the ending of the story, he escapes from the fox and finds himself on the other side of the river where he meets other Gingerbread people who are building a village in the forest. The project is a set of activities that incorporate math skills and social studies. Everything is based on half gallon cartons so that the pieces of the village fit together as planned. Well.... we can learn a great deal by venturing away from the prescribed lesson and turning the kingdom over to the Gingerbread people rather than the "king"!

The Gingerbread families have been created. Each family has an elaborately designed milk carton home. Now all they need is floor space and an opportunity to work together to create a village that will meet their needs. They don't need me to tell them what to do or how to do it. I only need to pose a question that will guide their learning. "How can the Gingerbread people build a village that will meet their basic needs and provide a safe environment in which to live?" It occurs to me that they will learn so much more by working together and figuring that out as a class. I plan to show up at school with a variety of boxes and materials for them to use and to see where our project goes when led by the students rather than a book. Will it involve math? Maybe. Will it involve social studies? Definitely! Will the kids be engaged and learning? Certainly!

I can't wait to see what happens!

Lessons From Palm Oil

My second grade students watched a live broadcast from Borneo via TakingItGlobal earlier this week. They learned about the destruction of the rainforest and the orangutan habitat for the production of palm oil. A reflective discussion following the event generated a list of ideas for how seven and eight year old children can help with the problem. "We can speak for the trees!" suggested one student. They went on to suggest writing letters to the companies that are responsible, writing a blog about the issue, and starting a campaign against the use of palm oil. The kids were not, however, exactly sure what products contained palm oil. In an effort to transfer the responsibility for gathering information from myself to my students, I suggested that they go home that night and begin searching labels to find out. A wonderful lesson for children! But... the lesson had a twist I had not foreseen...

The next morning the children arrived ready for a new day. One of the first little girls through the door enthusiastically exclaimed that she had found a product containing palm oil! As she announced her finding, sugar wafer cookies, my eyes traveled quickly to a Walmart bag sitting on the table. With a sinking heart, I opened the bag which contained brownies I had purchased for a reward I owed the kids. They squealed with delight as I lifted them from the bag, only to dissolve in dismay as I turned them over and read from the ingredient label: palm oil! A tiny voice rose from the class asking the question they were all thinking, "Do we still get to eat them?" There was a collective sigh of relief as I said, "Of course you can, but I just learned a huge lesson from you! Next time I will look at the label before I buy things! Even better, perhaps baking from scratch rather than buying ready made would be best!" I don't think a single child in my class will ever forget the lesson I learned that day.

As we lined up to go home, I reminded them that over the weekend they should look for more products that contain palm oil to report back to the class. My favorite question of the day was, "Would it be cheating to look on the internet?"

We are learning together, keeping it real, and making a difference!