Listen!

I will never forget the day that I truly became a teacher. I was teaching in a middle school at the time. It was my first year in a middle school after teaching in an elementary school for four years. I absolutely loved this particular class as I had taught them in the 2nd grade, 5th grade, and now 6th grade. I had been able to watch them grow up before my eyes and I loved them. The only difficulty was that I was using the best methods that I knew to reach them and I wasn't. I remember pulling ideas from my own formative years and using strategies that worked so well with me, but they were to no avail.

Finally, one of my students came up to me and said, "I know that you are doing your very best, and we love you for it; but the methods that you are trying to use aren't working because you aren't watching us." I had to think about that one for a bit! Sadly enough, he was right! I was so busy thinking about what my college textbooks said, what my colleagues did, and what my own teachers had done, that I wasn't looking at the audience at hand.

I began watching them. Really watching them. And slowly, but surely, they taught me how to teach them. Some of the greatest lessons that they taught me are as follows:

...when they say that having music on helps them to focus--it does
...when they say that they need small breaks--they do
...when they say that movement helps them to remember--it does
...when they say that drawing helps them to focus and remember--it does
...when they say that it's boring--it is
...my pace isn't necessarily their pace
...my interests aren't necessarily their interests
...their jokes are genuinely funny to them
...their fears are real
...talking things out helps adults to learn, so what makes us think that children should be quiet?

Our children want to succeed. They are bright and know that there must be a better way. If we listen to them, perhaps we can help them to rediscover the love of learning!

Active vs. Passive

How do we get children to be as excited about learning as they are their video games? Can Edgar Allan Poe ever be as thrilling as the X-box game Halo?

In order to answer this, we must first ask the question,"What makes this video game so popular?" What makes any video game popular for that matter? The answer is ACTION! Children prefer to be active. They like to do things and see immediate results. The world of video games provides this.

Now let's take a look at traditional school work:
--Fill-in-the-blank worksheets with vocabulary words that are meaningless and lifeless to our children.
--Students sitting in rows to listen to someone talk "at" them.
--Students being asked to read with "getting done" as their only objective.

What would happen if children of today could rediscover the wonderment of asking a question and the thrill of discovering the answer? What if learning became as addictive as a video game?

How can we make this happen? Here are my suggestions:

1. Turn all knowledge into a project with a purpose. For example, teach children area and perimeter by building a house with craft sticks.
2. Have students ask questions and then become very active in finding the answer. Questions at a preschool level could be, "Where does macaroni and cheese come from?" Questions at the middle school level could be "What is happening to the cells in my body when I get sick?"
3. Give students a purpose before they read anything. For example, "I want you to read this section in your text book to find out what happened during the depression."

The theme here is to keep student's minds actively engaged. Keep them thinking, questioning, and wondering. This is what will take a student from good to GREAT!