When you come upon good ideas you want not only to share them but long for them to be immediately accepted and embraced. The Book Holding onto Good Ideas in a Time of Bad ones by Thomas Newkirk gives teachers perspective on maintaining good practice while celebrating the student experience.
Our school has embarked on a new path for development life long learners called Place Based Curriculum. I wonder, what this means for me?
Being a librarian I like things that fit neatly in charts to be checked off and organized. Place Based is not like that, at all. The experience dictates what will be be learned. I am truly excited, but uncomfortable with the openness of this path.
A school in Colorado mentioned in this book has given me form, principles in my head to how this great new path will be directed and I want to share them with you and have you accept and embrace them too. Here they are simple and elegant.
Eight Themes - two categories
Individual
Intellectual discipline
Physical fitness
Spiritual development
Aesthetic expression
Citizenship
Service To Others
Cross-cultural understanding
Democratic governance
Environmental Stewardship
Five Expectations
Developing an expanding knowledge base
Communicating effectively
Creating and making healthy life choices
Participating as an engaged global citizen
Providing leadership for justice
Ten Commandments
Live in respectful harmony with others
Develop mind, body, and spirit
Learn to communicate in speech and writing
Serve the Eagle Rock and other communities
Become a steward of the planet
Make healthy personal choices
Find, nurture and develop the artist within
Increase capacity to exercise leadership for justice
Practice citizenship and democratic living
Devise and enduring moral and ethical code.
We are given the gift to have unhurried learning, to create a playful experiences. How fortunate we are in a time of over cluttered curriculum and abridged experiences. In the library I can encourage students to lounge in their own mental theaters as they read what every they choose. I can promote this idea of building internal movies in writing and allow students to let their imagination out by extending the circle of acceptable writing in multiple digital formats.
Thomas Newkirk has given me this "Aha!" moment I had been looking for.
When you come upon good ideas you want not only to share them but long for them to be immediately accepted and embraced. The Book Holding onto Good Ideas in a Time of Bad ones by Thomas Newkirk gives teachers perspective on maintaining good practice while celebrating the student experience.
Eight Themes - two categories
Individual
Intellectual discipline
Physical fitness
Spiritual development
Aesthetic expression
Citizenship
Service To Others
Cross-cultural understanding
Democratic governance
Environmental Stewardship
Five Expectations
Developing an expanding knowledge base
Communicating effectively
Creating and making healthy life choices
Participating as an engaged global citizen
Providing leadership for justice
Ten Commandments
Live in respectful harmony with others
Develop mind, body, and spirit
Learn to communicate in speech and writing
Serve the Eagle Rock and other communities
Become a steward of the planet
Make healthy personal choices
Find, nurture and develop the artist within
Increase capacity to exercise leadership for justice
Practice citizenship and democratic living
Devise and enduring moral and ethical code.
I was just thinking of how lucky we are to have this time to learn and explore I would never on my own have created this personal narrative. Yet here I am staying up to the wee hours of the morning tinkering with it. The energy of creation must be pretty powerful to keep me up past 10 pm.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm obsessed with figuring out how to recreate this experience for my students.
Wendy,
ReplyDeletePart of being a human that intrigues me is the paradox you allude on early in this post. . .when we're given the space to be free, we're often so accustomed to the structure, so used to allowing it to dictate how we think, that the freedom is in fact frightening. (Cue scenes from Shawshank in my mental theatre.) But you're not scared. . in your words: " I am truly excited, but uncomfortable with the openness of this path." This discomfort is for you a place for a welcomed growth but others would really struggle and be afraid--that you will not "fear" is part of what makes you amazing:)
I love that this new freedom is "troubling" the way you see your job! And it is equally as intriguing to add in the digital component. Not only are the walls of your school nebulous, but so are the walls of the library:) Over these last few weeks getting to know you, I know that you'll embrace the challenge and build their digital and non-digital skills. You'll be amazing & I can't wait to hear about your work this year!
anne
Wendy, I love that you encourage students to use the library as a place where exploring and learning can happen. It's true: you could walk over to any shelf, pull down a book, and that book could possibly become your new favorite book (ever) - and just imagine all of the cool things that could result from that - remixed versions of the book, storyboards or comics of their favorite parts, extensions of their favorite parts. It would be pretty cool if you created a space for them to publish their - maybe a library gallery or blog (or something). Great post, Wendy - really gets the idea juices flowing.
ReplyDelete