Old Chinese Proverb
“Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”
I once attended a break out session at a conference for school principals that addressed adding gardening to the school curriculum. I entered the room with great interest and enthusiasm for the subject.
But I balked when I realized that the presenter was instructing us in how to teach a lesson about gardening rather than how to garden at school. For each grade there was a curriculum in which the student read about gardening and answered three questions for homework and then had a test at the end of the week.
Shielding Children From The Culture They Live In
I listened to an exhausted mother telling me about her relentless efforts to protect her child from the “dangers” of our culture. When she left my office I had to take stock of what she said. She didn’t want her son playing with action toys, eating fast food, watching most television shows, celebrating Halloween, being in the sun without sunscreen, no military play, no video games, no scary movies, no game boys and on and on. For her, parenting was an exhausting series of NO’s.
Read more...
Fabulous Fables
I can hear my mother admonish me, “Don’t cry wolf, Ellen.” I tended toward the dramatic when it came to announcing the cuts and scrapes of childhood. With four brothers, I had to do something to get attention. “Someday it really will be serious and no one will pay any attention to you,” she warned.
I’d never seen a wolf; they didn’t have any in California. As far as I knew they were from olden times, like in Little Red Riding Hood. But I knew what “crying wolf” meant from reading Aesop’s Fables.
Read more...
I’d never seen a wolf; they didn’t have any in California. As far as I knew they were from olden times, like in Little Red Riding Hood. But I knew what “crying wolf” meant from reading Aesop’s Fables.
Celebrate Mistakes?
“Education is about making mistakes.” That statement was a little hard for me to swallow at first. But clarification came from a student.
A fourth grader told me, “If you are perfect and know everything and never make a mistake, you have nothing to learn and don’t need to go to school.” He learned from his teacher to celebrate every mistake as a “mistake adventure.”
Read more...
A fourth grader told me, “If you are perfect and know everything and never make a mistake, you have nothing to learn and don’t need to go to school.” He learned from his teacher to celebrate every mistake as a “mistake adventure.”
What to do When Good Kids Blow It
Two twelve year old girls went into the school bathroom and wrote on the wall with a magic marker. You would never suspect that these two lovely, bright students would do such a thing. Their teacher discovered the graffiti and thought it would be a great chance for them to learn something from their actions.
Read more...
More Articles...
Page 1 of 4
