Summer Learning

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

Well, I'm not at school now, but I'm still learning.

It never stops.

I interact with kids. I visited my school where I will be doing my first practicum. I think. I read. I think some more.

So... some of my thoughts from the summer:

• upon visiting my upcoming practicum school: I am so excited for this opportunity.The school isn't perfect. I'm sure my experience won't be perfect, and I won't be a perfect student teacher, but the possibilities, the hope of the experience, is so much fun to look forward to. I so much enjoyed talking to the principal and my teacher. We talked about character education - my school board is focusing on character traits again (something that is more and more neglected in schools now), we talked about playing to teachers' strengths, and we talked about cultivating unity in a school as opposed to individualism. 

My take away - these people that I had the opportunity to interact with have so much experience, and I have an incredible opportunity to learn from. I am blessed.

• upon ... reading my Bible, listening to a sermon, and thinking. Something really on my mind has been the command to love the least of these. It's a topic that will probably appear on my other blog as well at some point, but for now I'll relate it just to my future vocation. The Bible talks a lot about 'the least of these. Jesus, specifically, uses the term. He talks about not making them stumble. About not forbidding them to come to Him. About how loving them is like loving Him ("For whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me.") What an opportunity we have, as future educators, to do this? To love those that are seen as not old enough, not mature enough, not smart enough... Jesus takes the treatment of kids seriously I think - What you have done for these, you have done for me. Wow. Big responsibility. Big opportunity. 

My take away - God takes this seriously. As teachers, not only do we teach them their ABC's and their 1,2,3's, but we learn their family life, their view of themselves, if they are bullied, if they are popular...  We have the opportunity to not only teach them 'academia,' but to speak truth into their lives about who they are and how God has made them. Wow.

I think this constantly-learning-thing is something I love most about how God created life. I never know everything. Frustrating sometimes, but also beautiful. Life is only ever boring then if I allow it to be. I must keep my heart and mind open to what God wants to teach me. This includes in my future vocation, as I will never know everything there is to know about teaching or about children or about learning, but I will always be learning more - even in the summer when my brain seems to want to say 'adios!'

Writing Curriculum

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

Writing curriculum is hard. The end.

Just kidding. Not quite the end.

I just finished creating a Grade 4 Science Unit for my Curriculum Foundations class. So much fun, but an intense amount of work (especially since this unit-planning thing was a first for  our class). I did it on habitats and humans: ten lessons=one hundred pages, give or take a few.

I think it is worth it though. I could have grabbed a textbook, had the teacher teach out of that and photocopied the worksheets. It would have been easier. Maybe that is why the method is so prevalent in schools. It's easy, and teachers are busy.

But is that really teaching? Are the students really learning?

For me, I would like to think that the time I spent thinking of just the right hook, or how to get the students out of their seat, or what to give them to manipulate with their hands actually means something. That it leads to a valuable experience and a memorable experience. That it leads to true, authentic learning.

Excitement

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

I'm sure this won't be my only post like this, but at this moment, I am especially filled with excitement for my chosen profession.

I have to write a curriculum unit for class and I am doing a Grade 4 unit on habitats and humans. I have gotten through planning Lesson 7, and I am enjoying myself tremendously (despite the late nights of lesson planning). All I keep thinking was, "I wish I could be using this with real students instead of filing it into a binder and handing it in for a mark."

I had a similar feeling with my Learning Center, created for the same class, pictured below. It's time to be in a classroom with children! At the same time, I know that these sorts of assignments are preparing me for the moment that I do step in front of a class.

In class, our professor was telling a story about a teacher candidate who just liked to lecture - that was his preferred teaching style. He then said that the majority of teachers have a preferred instruction method. At first, I was thinking "Hmmm... I don't have one. Is that bad?" but by the time I got to my sixth lesson, I discovered it. I love kinesthetic, active learning. I love having students out of their seats; I love assigning them characters to play in a demonstration, or taking them outside! I want to make learning fun and exciting and intriguing. This spurs me on through these assignments, to develop my skills and abilities to lead students in learning.

Redemption

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

For my Curriculum Foundations class, we were asked to read and respond to a chapter of Wolter's book Creation Regained. It was thought-provoking, encouraging, and sobering.

One favorite quote (of many) in this chapter is that “...in the name of Christ and his kingdom Christians must now employ all their God-given means in opposing the sickness and demonization of creation – and thus in restoring creation – in anticipation of its final 'regeneration' at the second coming....This directive holds for our private lives... but also for such public endeavors as work in advertising, labor-management relations, education, and international affairs. Christ lays his claim upon it all; nothing is exclude from the scope of his kingship.”

I think this is an integral part of living out faith in a secular world – being in the world but not of it. Many times, the secularization of the world in general and perhaps North American education in specific can seem quite complete – however, Christ still lays his claim upon it all. Based on that premise, how do we as Christian teachers go forward? Not to indoctrinate but to live our hearts and our lives in a way that reflects our relationship with him? Especially in the public system? Wolters also says that “restoration will not necessarily oppose literacy or urbanization... Instead, the coming of of the kingdom of God demands that these developments be reformed, that they be made answerable to their creational structure, and that they be subjected to the ordinances of the Creator.”

This gives us a new perspective – our classrooms are places where God's restoration comes. Our curriculum is not just curriculum, but the opportunity to reveal God's glory and redemption. Moments of difficult behavior by students can be more than that – it can be an opportunity for restoration of relationships and learning life lessons (restorative justice!). Our mandate then, more than fulfilling Ontario Curriculum Guidelines and more than maintaining classroom management, is to acknowledge God's kingship over our classrooms and be instruments of His kingdom where ever He places us.

Keeping Curiosity

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

I firmly believe that God gave children an inborn love of learning. It is innate. That exploration, that desire to know, that curiosity is God-given.

Do we kill that in schools?

I'm at home on Reading Break right now, and I looked again at the book that my placement class last semester gave to me. It is a kindergarten class, and as I flipped through the pictures, the art, and the notes they wrote me, I was reminded of their enthusiasm. These students dove into their learning with enthusiasm. They asked questions; they explored. They made connections between what they did, what they learned, and their life away from school.

That is kindergarten. By high school, students seem to be lacking that. Many don't try, and those who do are often motivated by external factors like getting into university instead of being motivated by interest in learning. One of those things that makes you go "Hmmmm."

However, I can't complain about that unless I'm willing to be part of the solution. So I am, with the information I've gleaned so far, a proponent of things like individualized instruction, of project-based learning, and of experiential learning. I think as the Canadian education system moves towards this, it will be harder for a bit as things are reworked, but rewarding. As I go through my classes and learn curriculum and theory, it will be with the full intention to take what I am learning now (even as I am bogged down with papers and theory can seem irrelevant or at the very least a lower priority) and apply it in a very practical way - how do I get children excited about learning, and then how do I guide them toward authentic learning?

I also do have to add that while it seems as if the system in general is failing a significant amount of children, there are many, many exceptions to this in the form of teachers who give their best to their students, year after year, to make learning meaningful. Your students may not know it, but they are blessed.

About Children

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

This blog is basically for any thoughts education-related. Like the "about me" says, I'm an education student, and I have a passion for children. I feel as though working with children is a unique opportunity to shape the future, for to have the opportunity to work with a child is to have a great opportunity for good and a great opportunity for harm. Childhood is so formative.

Carl Sandburg once said “A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.” 

The children in my future classrooms will be the doctors, nurses, farmers, janitors, and politicians of the world. That sounds awfully cliched, but it is true. 

God has given me a passion to work with children, to bless even one in some small way, or to bless a bunch in a big way. Whatever it looks like, He has a purpose for me here, which makes it part of my story. Hopefully, I can be a guide to some little people who are just starting to write their own story and point them towards the Author who holds the pen.