So I tried posting this a couple of days ago, but apparently the 2nd half of my posts vanished between hitting save and post. Hmmm... Here we go again!
0 Comments
Food is a very powerful thing. Yes, it is a source of nourishment, but it is also a record of our family moments. So many of our family, cultural and religious celebrations revolve around or feature food. Christmas turkeys, feasts at Eid, grandma's lemon pie...food is a powerful source of connection to each other. It is also a way to connect to the past. For the past few years, I have been using food in my classroom as a way to connect to the lives and experiences of others. A number of years ago, I was fortunate enough to hear a gentleman speak at the Holocaust Symposium, an event put on here by the Jewish Community, which brings high school students together with survivors of the Holocaust in an effort to share their stories and to never forget. Alex Buckman shared his story of hiding in a Catholic orphanage in Belgium during the latter half of the war as a small child and he also shared the story of his aunt Rebecca. Rebecca was in Ravensbruck concentration camp, and at great personal risk, she created a small recipe book of her most treasured recipes. She stole the paper and pencil needed to create the book (and could have faced severe punishment if discovered). The book was read and shared throughout the women's barracks as a way to connect the women with their cultural and family heritage. In a place where starvation was a fact of life, talking about food gave them hope for the future. At the end of his talk, Mr. Buckman shared with us a recipe from his aunt's book and encouraged us to go home and make it with our families. To say I was moved is an understatement. To say I was inspired is putting it mildly. I went home and made the cake with my children. But I also made it for my students. Every year I make Rebecca Teitelbaum's Orange Cake and share not only the cake but also her story and that of Alex. I try to connect them with the symbol of hope during what was the darkest period of someone's life. The cake serves as a bridge to another life and for a brief moment give them something to relate to. I shared this cake today with my grade 11 classes. It's a tremendous moment when they realize what it is and what it means. I have seen tears in class, but also gratitude for what it brings them. It creates a sense of community and a shared experience. Food can be so powerful. I love to tell stories in my class. What sold me on history as a student was all the fascinating stories about real people and their real lives. As a teacher, I love to hook my students with a story. More than that, I love to leave them with a cliffhanger at the bell. There's nothing like sharing the tale of Marie Antoinette climbing the scaffold with the crowds there to celebrate her death and as she reaches the top of the steps..... Oh, there's the bell! I love it when the students just want to stay one more minute to hear the next thing. Some stories might last 5 minutes. Some great ones are just 1 or 2. But they engage the students. I like to incorporate their senses...what can they imagine for sight, sound, smell in this story. If you want to make them care about the people in the story, put them into story. Create the picture in their minds. And the best part? Send them out to find their own stories! Make history real and tangible for them. Remind them that the people we are studying were the same as us...just in different clothes and situations. Have students think about their reactions to a particular situation or conversation. How would they handle the event? Some of my favorite stories to share with students are ones that I remember vividly from my own days as a student. My Social Studies teacher, Mr. Campbell, also loved to tell stories and I was fascinated by his tales. My favorite is THE rat story from the WWI trenches, followed by one from my own family history in the lesser known 1940 naval evacuation of the British troops from the west coast of France in St. Nazaire and my grandmother's cousin who was a British soldier on board the Lancastria. The lives of the people trying to escape the oncoming German army suddenly become real when there is someone to identify with. As I tell the story of cousin Fred standing on the deck of the sinking ship madly firing his Bren gun at Luftwaffe planes that were flying overhead, my students are leaning in, rapt with attention. Always, they want to know...did Fred survive? How did he possibly survive the flames, the oil slick and the rapidly sinking ship? WHAT HAPPENED TO FRED???? (He survived and only passed away last year, at age 97). Connecting with my family stories also has the benefit of spurring students to share at home the stories which often results in the discovery of their own family stories. I've had students bring in their great-grandfather's war diaries to share parts of those with us, stories of trans-Atlantic voyages for eager new immigrants, or family stories of near escapes from brutal regimes. Stories are a powerful way of connecting us together and engaging us with the content we study. The facts become more than just facts...they are the influence upon people and the choices they had to make. Make history real and tell the stories of people's lives...famous and not so famous. Some of my favorite stories: The Rat Story. One night I was awakened by stiff whiskers on my face. I opened my eyes to see a large rat scanning me gravely. He backed off a trifle as I looked at him and pushed himself into the palm of my hand. The feel of his feet was revolting and I pitched the thing from me. My revulsion lent strength to the movement. The rat rose in an arc and descended, head down, straight into Thornton’s open mouth. Its weight drove it in and Thornton’s jaws closed convulsively. For a heartbeat there was a picture of the rat’s hind legs, kicking wildly, then Thornton put a hand each side of the rat and threw it across the barn. He sat up and spat furiously, giving me a tug. I was almost strangling myself with mirth but pretended to be stupid. “What’s up?” I asked. “A rat...sfut...jumped...sfut...into my….sfut….mouth!” “You’re crazy,” I said. “They wouldn’t.” “But I’m...sfut...telling you they...sfut...did.” Soon he had everyone awake and was describing, with much spitting, how the horrible thing had jumped into his mouth. All hands asked questions and shook with laughter. Source: W. R. Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands, pp. 120-121 Will Bird served with the 42nd Battalion of the Black Watch of Canada in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces during WWI. He served in both France and Belgium. I tell this story as part of a series meant to shatter the mythology of war as being romantic and glorious. I talk also about lice, gas attacks, trenchfoot, etc. Speaking of Trenchfoot… “The second episode I would remember was the issuing of whale oil to rub on our feet. It came in jugs and was colder than ice. It would prevent trench feet. Orders were that every man should rub in on his feet once in twenty-four hours while we were in those winter trenches. I did so religiously and never had the least trouble. But we had a big chap who had blustered much until we were within sound of the guns. Then he had tried in every way to get from the front, going on sick parade, complaining of blindness, even trying to wound himself slightly. He had been caught in the act and warned of what his punishment would be, so he never used the wail oil, although the sergeant who made the nightly check was told he did. The result was that after two days his feet started to swell. It was learned later he had purposefully walked through wet places and the cold had penetrated. His feet became so bad he could not walk and finally he had to be taken out on a stretcher. The last we heard of him was from a lad who had been to see him in hospital in England. Both feet were huge blobs of mis-shapen flesh. he could only move around on crutches and his feet would never be normal again.” W. R. Bird, Ghosts have Warm Hands, pp 37-38 "I get why this matters." Powerful words from a student to be sure. Sometimes it's easy being a Social Studies teacher as we get to deal with the 'big topics' of social justice, citizenship, responsibility, human rights and the like. These are natural attention grabbers and student often naturally have strong opinions that they are more than willing to share, or they are topics that can create an impetus for action. Other times it can be a bit more challenging. Lets face it...fiscal policies and monetary policies just aren't exciting for a large number of students!
Measuring success has been something I've been thinking about as I read the last section of The Innovator's Mindset. I work in a jurisdiction that has a rigorous Diploma exam for grade 12 students. As it counts for 30% of the student's overall mark and greatly impacts acceptance into post-secondary institutions, success inherently includes the grades. Marks do matter and for me to pretend otherwise is reckless. Much of my assessment is geared around preparation for those exams. We write in a prescribed manner to ensure students are familiar with the expectations of the final and can do well on it. We practice multiple choice tests so that students are able to confidently interpret the sources and write the test. As a school we are constantly trying to find more ways to see that more students are able to earn a score in the excellent category. So I've been thinking about how I balance this. Reading the last section of the book has challenged me. I have traditionally pushed back a bit against change...not because I am scared (but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive at times), but because what I was doing was reflected in solid diploma exam scores. Changing that might cause those scores to drop...impacting not only students who might not get into their program or school or choice, but also impacting me by perhaps suggesting I was ineffective as a teacher. But how many students have I hurt by not incorporating other ideas and approaches? Balance. Yes, we are going to teach and practice the essay as long as it is part of the diploma exam. I think that the ability to present and defend your position is crucial, but there are so many other options than just the essay. To quote George Couros "If you want to see the effectiveness of an educator, you do not look at what the teacher is doing but at the learners whom they serve." (Couros, G. (2015). The innovator's mindset: Empower learning, unleash talent, and lead a culture of creativity (p. 211). San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting). Students don't generally tell me that they 'get it' from writing an essay. But when they are given the freedom to explore ideas and concepts and make deeply personal connections, things start to matter more. Students have greater retention and can connect course content to real world situations. THAT is the measure of a successful learner. They understand why things matter and why it matters to them. How do I serve my learners? How do I make sure that I am doing right by them? How do I ensure they are getting what THEY need? It's scary and daunting but invigorating as well. Yes, I will still need to make sure they have the skills for the diploma exam, but I can't stop there. I've started with more deliberate reflection (not for marks) by the students, but can I push that even more? Can I try to set my grade 12s up with blogs to help them to express their voice and understanding and make those connections. Will it help them to really "get why it matters" and look at the concepts through the eyes of citizens rather than just students? Can I find formats to really challenge and push their thinking as well as my own? I have to say that rather than be intimidated by this (and I am), I'm actually quite excited about it. Being a part of this book study has forced me to confront my own fears and resistance to some kinds of change. It is through my reading here and being a part of the twitter 'verse that I'm pushing my own boundaries of what is comfortable. I still don't like change "just because". Sometimes we do what we do because it DOES work and it IS effective. But we can look critically and honestly at it. Change what needs to be changed and tweak what is good. I find that I am trying new ideas with my students and different approaches to demonstrating understanding and the marks aren't seeming to indicate a detrimental impact. The conversations and de-briefs seem to indicate a deeper understanding. How do I share what I am doing? How do I contribute the cycle of success not only within the IMMOOC group, but among my colleagues here and in my PLN? 1. My class room is an open classroom where everyone is welcome to come in and see what I am doing. Some days are not that exciting (but I'm working on those days). Keeping my door open pushes me to ensure that more days are the days I want to share and want everyone to see. 2. I share ideas with colleagues. When I find something new, I share it. I like seeing how others use a resource, tool, app or idea and it inspires me. I found the tool canva.com a couple of weeks ago and used it for my grade 11 students to create infographics regarding the issues surrounding Arctic sovereignty. A colleague tried the same thing and then had another graphic design teacher use his fancy printer to print off the larger creations to share. We are now looking at how else we can use this tool to open up other ways of creating and evaluating understandings. 3. I try to be active on Twitter (although I could be better) and join in on various conversations regarding our practice. I can't speak enough about the #sstlap group and the many ways they have challenged me, pushed me and inspired me. I often say that if my colleagues think I'm doing innovative stuff, most of it (like almost all of it) comes from ideas and suggestions I got from Twitter. There is a world of innovative practice out there just waiting for us to explore. We want what is best for "our kids" and by our kids we don't just mean the ones that we teach. Our kids are society and we all win when they are successful. Let's share what works! 4. Keep blogging. Reading how George sees himself as a writer now is actually quite inspiring to me. I have to admit that writing is not my forte and I'm not sure I've found MY voice yet. But I will keep blogging and exploring ideas. I tell my students to practice, practice, practice to get better at their own writing. It's time I followed my own advice. Ultimately, my takeaways from this book and book study have been that we need to make sure students are the centre of all that we do. If it is not helping them to be successful, if it is not challenging them, if it is not giving them opportunities to express their learning in a way that makes sense for them, then we need to look critically at why we are still doing it. How am I creating opportunities for my students to become better learners and not just consumers of content? How am I helping to build a culture of reflection within everything that we do as a community of learners (students AND teachers)? Thank you, George, for sharing your passion for learning and for the encouragement found within the book (and your blog) for us to seek out the innovative ideas that we all have and the courage to implement them for the betterment of our students. I'm going to focus on one part of the Week 4 topic for The Innovator's Mindset book study. I really connected with the discussion around the importance of student voice and student choice. This is an area where I have been doing quite a bit of work in the last few years for myself. This bit really caught my attention: For years, this is what I was doing as a teacher. Here is the assignment and here is how you have to do it. Asking that students follow --- no, demanding that students follow -- the directions and all would be well. But what did the students produce? Did they really understand the material, or worse, did they really even care about it? I'm not honestly sure what made me start to change this, but I'm glad I have.
I've come to realize that when students have choice, they produce not only higher quality work, but they also produce work that is richer in meaning, deeper in content and more critical in reflection. They take far greater ownership and pride in their work since they are more likely revealing a deeper part of THEM in the work. Rather than have students create the specific presentation that I wanted, I have started to give students the reins. Here is the topic we need to examine, but for some topics I can open up the perspectives...what angles can we look at this from? What is the most effective way for you, the learner, to explore this and showcase your understanding? When it comes to student voice, I find the hardest part is breaking the cycle of 'what is expected of me'. The students who simply want to tell you what they think you want to hear. Just regurgitate the answer and get the marks and carry on. It's frightening for them to lose those safety nets. They want to be able to simply answer the questions on the worksheet. Sure, it was an easy way to get them to read the textbook, but did they really understand the material? In many cases, no. So, I push them a bit more. Get them to try to look at things from different perspectives and try different ways to respond to the issues. A recent activity with my grade 12s had them examining the basic rules of capitalism and Adam Smith. They needed to find an article that dealt with principles of capitalism and then decide if it showed capitalism as a hero or villain. Students were given a variety of options for ways to demonstrate their ideas...blogs, podcasts, video rants, written paragraph, art or anything else. Students came up with some incredible responses once the shackles of the old "write a paragraph explaining your position" were removed. They were able to better incorporate personal reflection and grapple with some of the deeper content. Students who are super quiet in class get all fired up when they can create a Rick Mercer style video rant on their cell phones and get their points across that way. Voice came through loud and clear thanks to choice. Now, I won't lie and say that I do this every time for every activity. But I AM doing more and more of it. Each success encourages me to go after more success! I'm excited about the possibilities of opening that door a little wider. It's week 3 in The Innovator's Mindset book study and I've been thinking about relationships. Relationship building between teachers and students and between teaching colleagues. How does fostering solid relationship help to cultivate an innovative mindset? I'm a huge believer in trying to develop solid relationships with my students. I welcome them to my class the first day with a smile and a handshake the first day. I try to learn their names within 3 days so they start to feel like I'm paying attention. I spend the first few minutes as they filter into class chatting with various students, trying to make sure each one gets some time each week (can be challenging in a class of 40). I feel that by getting to know the students and by them feeling like they matter to me (and they do!), they are more willing to try new kinds of activities within the classroom. They are willing to go out on a limb and take some risks because they believe I am there with that safety net.
The same goes for colleagues. I am fortunate in that I've been in my school for a good many years and have developed some very strong working relationships within my department. Having that type of bond allows me to feel like I can try new ideas or bounce them off of my colleagues and will get supportive feedback. It helps that a number of my department colleagues have been with me for 10 years so we know each other and our strengths and weaknesses really well. I know I can take an idea to them and get honest feedback that doesn't feel like judging. I can admit to weaknesses or flaws in my idea and they will help improve. It is so important that we all can do this. Building strong work relationships only helps our students to have stronger learning opportunities. I had the pleasure recently to attend a book talk from a wonderfully warm and engaging author named David Johnston. Now, for Canadians that will mean something, but for anyone else, it will probably be a "who?" type of response. Let me rephrase that...I went to a book talk from Canada's Head of State, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston (our Governor-General)! He wrote a book entitled "The Idea of Canada: Letters to a Nation". It is a series of letter written to Canadian, past and present, reflecting on a wide variety of topics that he sees as being central to his understanding of Canada and who we are as a people. Perfect for a Social Studies teacher!
Reflection has been strongly on my mind these days as I work through a book study with the #IMMOOC regarding "The Innovator's Mindset". I find myself spending much of my drive to and from school reflecting on reflecting and ways in which I do it and ways in which I want to help my students do it. So here I am, at this talk, and the resounding theme seems to be reflection. The Governor General talked at length about why he is such a prolific letter writer (he can write between 1 and 3 letters a day). He felt that writing letters (even if he never sends them, as is often the case) helps to crystalize his thoughts and put him in a different frame of mind. I found myself thinking deeply about that as the talk went on (and it was fascinating!). How could I apply this technique to my students? My curriculum in grade 11 revolves around the ideas of nationalism and to some degree the issues regarding Canada's national identity (always an ongoing issue here in the North). Can I have my students read one of the letters the Governor-General wrote and then write their own to a Canadian of their choosing, reflecting on a specific value or idea that relates to the Canadian and national identity? The more I think about it, the more I like it. Better yet, what if I have the students actually send the letters? Authentic, reflective, critical and hopefully engaging. As for the book? It is wonderful (so far) and puts me in a far more reflective mood as I read it. Perhaps it is time for me to write some letters. After all, if it is good for the Governor-General of Canada, it must be good for the rest of us! I tried a new app last week for my Social 30-2 students as a way to review the main concepts of ideology before their unit exam. After doing a bit of questioning on Twitter, the GooseChase app was recommended so after looking into it, I went with it.
The purpose of the activity was to put my students into 5 teams (the free version of GooseChase only allows for 5 teams) and to get them going around the building looking for people/objects/action that represented the values of individualism and collectivism. They had 12 missions to complete (one for each value). By working in teams, I wanted them to work together to share and build knowledge. I teach the values using the mnemonic of PRICES and PRINCE. PRICES represents the values of individualism (Private property, Rule of law, Individual Rights and Freedoms, Competition, Economic Freedom, and Self interest). Their missions were simply " PRICES -- P". As a group they had to determine what the P stood for and then what in the school might best represent that concept. Using their phones, they then had to take photos or short videos (or even write some text) and upload them to the app. What I really like about it: 1. Instant formative feedback. There is a live feed on the teacher side of the app so I can see instantly what the students are uploading and determine which students completely understand the concepts and which ones need more help. 2. Creativity. The students were able to look outside the box and find some very creative ways to demonstrate their understanding. 3. Ability to roam. Students spend so much of their day sitting and the ability to move about is powerful. If I can move my classes outside my classroom walls I will. 4. Ease of use. The app is very easy to use. It didn't take me very long to set up a game and the students were logging in and uploading photos right away. 5. Share learning. The students are able to share their photos and see what other teams have done so after the the game is complete we can look at all the entries and discuss them. Drawback: 1. Limited on teams. By using the free version (no budget here for the paid site), I can only have 5 teams and with class sizes approaching 40 students it can get a bit tricky to give everyone a voice. 8 team members often mean some are simply following and not contributing to the understanding. That was really the only major drawback to it. I would absolutely use it again as a review tool. The students were highly engaged and I overheard many groups explaining concepts to fellow group members throughout the game which empowered them as teacher-learners. What does it mean to be truly innovative in the classroom? I think that I tend to downplay what I do with my students and generally don't consider it to be innovative. BUT...looking at The Innovator's Mindset has pushed me to rethink this. I want to share one of my grade 11 projects as an example of innovation.
One of the topics in my grade 11 course is genocide. We look at it as a result of ultranationalism and do an in depth study of the Holocaust and then look at other 20th/21st century genocides. The initial approach was to present the Holocaust as a case study and then have the students choose other examples to present to the whole class. While this covered curriculum content, it was pretty dry and students tended to focus on details without any kind of real understanding or meaningful reflection. They were focused on the powerpoint more than the content. A few years ago I got the idea of approaching this from the question of WHY we let genocide happen. We (the global "we") say 'never again', but it seems to happen again and again. So why not explore genocides from this angle. I created a project called "Not My Brother's Keeper" which still explored the various genocides and the ties to ultranationalism, but delved deeper into the role of the bystander. I opened it with the poem "The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden (schoolwires.henry.k12.ga.us/cms/lib08/GA01000549/Centricity/Domain/8286/The%20Hangman_Full%20Text%20and%20TPCASTT.pdf) Why do some people collaborate and others stand up to say no. Why do some look away and others actively participate? It's not about placing blame, but trying to make sense of the variety of forces at work in these kinds of situations. By switching the framework the students were asking better questions and taking their research into different directions. They became more involved in their work and were able to make stronger connections to other parts of the course. And rather than a traditional presentation, I asked the students to create some type of museum display that would serve to answer the guiding questions. The students came up with visual art, computer displays, created videos to play, wrote diaries from the perspective of victims and perpetrators, composed music and often evoked multiple senses (sight, sound, touch, etc) to stir a response in the viewer. It was incredible. Last year I had the students build their museum displays in the main hallway of the school for others to see and react to. The students walked through the displays and learned of the personal connections that some of their classmates had to events in Croatia, Bosnia and the Holocaust. We held a seminar type discussion afterwards and the questions and insight the students had quite simply blew me away. To me, they created deeper and more personal understanding of not only the curriculum content, but also made connections that went far beyond. I'm a huge fan of Dave Burgess and his "Teach Like A Pirate" book/philosophy. The last 2 years have seen me incorporating some of his techniques in the first few days of classes. Get the students involved in out of the box thinking, developing rapport and relationships and unleashing their inner creativity. Because of a suggestion in his book, I've had my high school students using play dough to create small works of art to describe themselves (or to create an object that best defines a philosopher/political thinker). My absolute favorite one is his 3rd day activity...Survivor Island. The basic premise is that you have been involved in an at-sea plane crash, and have managed to pull 10 survivors into one of the life rafts and made it to a deserted island. As luck would have it, a rescue helicopter arrives but can only take you and 5 other people. Your job (and that of my students) is to decide which 5 people will make it back home and which 5 will remain on the island, perhaps never to be rescued. As a starting point, I used the file created by Ben Brazeau on his website (timetravelingteach.weebly.com/blog/teach-like-a-pirate-days-2-and-3) . I tweaked it a little bit and used it to focus on ideology (our topic for Grade 12 Social here). How did students justify their decisions? Were they more focused on what was best for those who had to remain or who "deserved" to go home? How did they decide what 'deserving' meant? Like Ben mentions in his blog post, the murderer often causes quite a bit discussion. Does leaving him behind presume that he is going to murder those remaining with him? (I have to wonder though why I made the murderer a him...would it matter if I had put no gender, or used a female gender?) I saw students engage in deep conversations about the nature of human beings (nature vs nurture, primarily good vs primarily bad). Students bring their own life experiences and perspectives to this kind of activity which often takes the reasoning into territory I hadn't thought of. This ends up being a student centered conversation, and for the most part I find I blend into the background as the students have passionate (although respectful) arguments on the merits of their choices. The really fantastic part is how this spills over into subsequent lessons. Once I started using this as an opening day activity, I found that students generally become more willing to open up and discuss their ideas in future classes. They learn the skills of compromise, how to really listen to each other and how to defend their position while remaining open to new ideas and perspectives. Other staff members have seen this in use and incorporate it into their lessons. One teacher walked into my room and saw our giant chart on the board and was intrigued. He took a copy of the list home and did some more tweaking and thinking on it. I love it! Thank you Dave Burgess for sharing this idea in the first place and thank you to Ben Brazeau for putting his version of the survivor list out there.
|
AuthorI wear many hats...Alberta high school Social Studies teacher, Debate coach, mom to 4, wife, and now blogger. ArchivesCategories |