by Krissy.Venosdale | Sep 7, 2015 | Reflect, Thoughts on Learning
Every single child in your school is a message to the world. Some speak in writing, some in song, some in code. Others speak in paintings created with their hands. Some have a raw talent for crunching numbers. There’s even a child or ten who has a a deep passion for understanding the stories of our past. There’s a kid making Origami who can’t get enough of engineering with paper. There’s a bunch of students who are on a waiting list at the library for the new book in their favorite series.
There’s a student who struggles to see patterns the way others do. There are kids who see words differently than you or I. There are kids who don’t want to get messy with paint. There is a child who is more bothered by the tag on their shirt than any “consequence” you could impose for their meltdown.
There are kids waiting to be something they are rarely invited to be.
Themselves.
Not the kid described in a teacher’s guide, nor the kid that fits in “Class A” or “Class B.”
The kid that is exactly who they are. What is their message to the world?
You won’t hear it unless you listen. And if you only listen for words, you’ll miss it even more.
We’ve spent forever celebrating a few skills like great handwriting, work completion, memorization. Sure, those things make for nice looking assignments. But do they tell the message?
It’s time for the artists, scientists, engineers, twirlers, hallway-skippers, introverts, doers, thinkers, writers, poets, journalists, problem solvers, Lego builders, deep thinkers, water color painters, paper folding, gadget geeking, history researching, language lovers, creative paper airplane designers… and more… to have a place where their message, in whatever format is their way to share, is not only welcomed, but heard.
Can we honestly say that we’ve honored every kid in every school for exactly who they are? I’m not talking about a gold star or a blue ribbon. I’m talking about the kind of honor where we help them believe in what they can become.
Until we can all answer “Yes,” with total confidence, in every school, in every corner of the world, we have work to do. And it’s probably one of the most important jobs in the world, maybe one of the hardest, but it’s definitely the most rewarding.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Sep 5, 2015 | Reflect
This week was great. Not like, “easy-peasy” great, but like “filled with tiny moments that I saw great things happening” great. You know, like “Saturday morning sleeping in” great.
Technology connecting a student from home into the classroom. To hear the teacher read, connect with classmates, and participate.
Technology connecting students to a research ship off the coast of Canada. To talk to a scientist. To see videos from deep depths of the ocean.
Technology connecting a teacher and her newborn baby to say hello to her class. To say hello and introduce her newest family member to her kids at school.
Technology as a tool to support readers and writers in alternative ways. To remind us that our learning differences are nothing more than that – differences.
Technology to capture that split second of joy in a learning moment when something magical happens that can’t really be explained in words, but sometimes, when we’re lucky, is caught in a photo.
Technology as a way for students to share their story. To capture the good they see in the school. Because their view is from a different perspective and to honor that? We honor who they are.
Technology as a powerful magnet for collaboration, because when you are running a morning news show, you rely on each other in the most authentic way.
Technology as a way for me to know my best friend had signed her closing papers on her new home while I sat in traffic on Friday afternoon.
And while I was lost in all of that? I had technology to tap my wrist and remind me of every single meeting and appointment I needed to rush off to. Thank you, Apple.
Technology is whatever we make of it. I get worried when we see Instagram in education as a place to sell stuff to each other, blogs as a place to advertise the latest packet for our classroom, Twitter as a place to “gain followers,” and “build sales,” or devices in the classroom as “in the way” or something to collect at the door. I can’t stand by and watch education be turned into some sales floor where we trade dollars for helping each other. To me, that’s a mistake. A mistake far bigger than we can afford to make.
Because then we are missing the very best thing in it all.
Human connection.
Sharing.
Open giving to each other to make the world better.
When we miss the point, we miss out on it all.
Everything.
The point of the technology is never the technology… it’s the people. The connections. The learning.
