Tag: creativity

Surprising Reasons Why You Should Moo and Not Oink

Surprising Reasons Why You Should Moo and Not Oink

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“Why do we even bother educating children in the first place?” This question posed by Tom Hobson (aka, Teacher Tom)  really made me pause and reflect on the value of an education during the recent Pedagogy of Play conference. He suggested that treating school as if it was preparing children for the unknown jobs of tomorrow as rather silly when vocational training is really the domain of corporations and businesses and instead we should prepare students to be involved and caring citizens. In fact, he reminds us that our youngest learners today will be the creators of “those jobs of tomorrow”, so we should be dedicating our learning time to problem-solving and making informed decisions in order to develop sound critical thinking skills and creativity.

My favorite antidote he shared is how he takes out his box of toy farm animals on the 1st day of school, grabs a pig, and says to a 2-year old, “A pig says Mooooo!” just to get a reaction and get the kids thinking.  pig as cow.jpgHe wants to provoke them into questioning this information and seeing if it adds up to the experience and knowledge that they have about their world around them. I just loved that! I love it for so many reasons because this seemingly small moment opens up the possibility to learn that…

  • We need to really listen to what people are saying.
  • We can challenge information that seems “off”.
  • We have a responsibility to debate and deliberate information so that we come to a greater understanding of each other’s perspective and understanding of “the truth”.
  • We build intimacy with others by having difficult conversations with friends and family rather than destroying it by allowing misunderstandings to linger.

As I reflect more deeply on this idea, I find it imperative to have these “safe” opportunities for students to question authority so that they can learn how to express ideas with kindness and courtesy. We need children to look at us in the eye and say, “Hey silly, pigs go oink, not moo.” And we can lean back and laugh, acknowledging that the correction of information came from a need to develop connection and trust between us. Providing these sorts of opportunities to have them question the “truth” of information is really a critical need, particularly as we reflect on how technology is shaping our society. We need for them to get a sense of confusion and wonder so we can express our knowledge and debate our understanding–even if it doesn’t change peoples minds–the essential outcome is that they are thinking and challenging why they believe the way they do.  This habit begins in our earliest years of life and we have, I believe, an obligation to nurture it throughout their lifespan in our educational systems.

I’m a believer!-Provoking thinking and offering up opportunities for debate should be on our “schedule” of learning every day. As I think forward to this school year, I’m wondering how I can instigate and give more space to these small moments for arguing issues that matter to them. Honestly, I think opportunities will present themselves and it just becomes a matter of allowing the discussion to take place, honoring their need to feel heard and engaging in dialogue. Because these moments are so vital to developing the brain along with the heart, I will put “challenging the moo” on my list of learning objectives for this year.

 

The Role of the #PYP Coordinator: 3 Things that No One Wants to Learn the Hard Way

The Role of the #PYP Coordinator: 3 Things that No One Wants to Learn the Hard Way

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About a month ago, I sat having wonderful discussions with PYP coordinators from all over the world in the Hague about the Enhanced PYP. Aside from curriculum, it got me thinking about other aspects of the leadership role of the Curriculum Coordinator. It’s not an easy position to be in and no 3-Day Workshop or online course can provide adequate training for your school’s special challenges.

As coordinators, we have the responsibility for The 3Cs: Climate, Curriculum, and Culture. It’s hard to say which one of the 3Cs comes first as a priority as they are critical to the success and impact you can make at your school.  You often have to juggle them and it’s hard to keep those balls up in the air but they have to stay in motion. The impact they have on the community can help to create a contagion of positivity and goodwill if done well. Most of our professional development comes from the context of those 3Cs and they take time to develop. And no coordinator can be successful alone–they need a team, and teams develop through relationships.  I think having empathy and coming from the perspective of “the teacher” is particularly important as it relates to developing staff relationships, and there are few things that I wish someone would have advised me on when it came to the role.

People Before Paperwork

We are human beings, not human doings.  You’ve got to consider people over paperwork because people are our job–whether it’s the little people in our classrooms or the big people that make up our staff. paperworkI know we have our checklists of paperwork that we have to stay on top of, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have teachers focused on making sure the kids have engaging, authentic and impactful learning and I have rarely found that paperwork inspires them to create that. This is especially true at PYP schools in which we have to reflect often on our students’ learning so that we can determine the next steps in their inquiries

I had one coordinator who used to come in nearly weekly and, during our meetings, he would put our conversations about learning into the PYP planner or onto our scope and sequence documents so that the ideas were documented (ticked the box) and the teachers could engage in more creative thinking during collaboration time. Also, I had more time to communicate with families, look at data and plan more thoughtful provocations.

Coordinators should always look for opportunities to free up time so that teachers don’t have to be bogged down so much with paperwork and instead shift their focus to making learning impactful.

Professional Relationships: You get people ON the bus when you don’t put people UNDER the bus

A common mistake that coordinators make is that they complain to teachers about the administrators as a bid for connections. Don’t throw administration under the bus in front of teachers. As a new or aspiring leader, choosing to throw someone under the bus is one of the telling signs of your leadership capabilities.

[bctt tweet=”When you blame somebody else for something that you should be taking some responsibility for, you are communicating weakness and not strength” username=”judyimamudeen”] In most situations, you can be a change agent so you should be seeking solutions and not be projecting your frustrations onto the staff.  I know it may help you to “feel” that can connect more with the teacher’s perspective but it’s unprofessional and you will develop a culture of complaint and gossip. Who really wants that?

evalutionAnd it’s poor form to throw teachers under the bus in front of teachers. Trust is so important in your work so if you undermine others, expect staff to lose their confidence in you.

It’s the Law of Karma-what is said aloud, goes aloud. So Watch your mouth! The minute you walk away, that teacher you complained to is wondering “hmmm… I wonder what my coordinator tells others about me?” If you feel that a teacher isn’t working up to their potential, talk TO them directly (not ABOUT them) and in a non-threatening way, and seek out a mentor for them. Also, how you say what you say matters. Under your breath, if you must, repeat the mantra: Stay professional. Stay Professional. Stay Professional.

I’m not going to lie here. I have suffered from bouts of “Insert Foot into Mouth Disease” and, goodness knows, that I have had to go back to a staff member to apologize for saying something in a wrong way.  But, for me, it’s more important to have peace and understanding than lose face. However, I once worked with a vice-principal who NEVER ONCE said an unkind word about anyone. EVER. He had plenty of opportunities to humor me with grievances but he never did. Bless him. I thought of him as a saint. And if he asked me to jump, I was like “How high?” and “Would you like sprinkles with that?” He is still my inspiration today because he was always compassionate, generous, thoughtful and caring.  Now, if we all could aspire to that level of professionalism, imagine what a peaceful and productive school we’d have.

Communication: The Human Touch 

Have you ever played a game but you didn’t know the rules? You read the rule book (if there was one) but you just didn’t get the gist of the game. It was frustrating, wasn’t it? You felt like you could never win.

Often that happens with procedures and policies at school. Admin sends them policy manuals and handbooks (if you have them) and tells them to read it. And through osmosis, they are expected them to “get it” and feel successful in managing the systems and practices of your school community. New teachers need explicit explanations of the rules and norms of this “game” called At Our School We Do….. Sometimes coordinators do this through an induction program that is spread out over time. I know that I have dedicated a period of weeks to this and I found it highly successful. My staff feedback was that it mitigated the overwhelm of their transition and helped develop our personal relationship.

Another coordinator I know has staff meetings “end” early during key times in the year (like the 1st 3-way conference, or report writing time, etc..) so that she can have a Q and A sessions with teachers about expectations and protocols for important events. The staff members who already know these procedures and processes feel happy because they can “be released” to do other work, meanwhile, the teachers (mainly new teachers) who need some support can stay behind and get their needs met as well. Later, she sends a follow-up email documenting the expectations that help these teachers to remember those conversations.

Speaking of Emails vs. Meetings

emailsCall me Old Fashion, but I prefer the personal touch of staff meetings over email any day. I like connecting with colleagues and having a common understanding of the events in our community and our school’s pedagogical approaches. Also, consider the fact that if teachers are more concerned with keeping up with emails, rushing to read them then they are not examining students’ work or reflecting on the discussions they had, then the focus isn’t on improving learning. We want teachers to be spending their cognitive power on making learning for students awesome rather than your 18-bullet email about professional development goals. Let that one sink in a bit. It’s good to have a weekly newsletter to communicate important things but if you find that your staff emails began as a couple of sentences and now is evolving paragraphs, then it needs a face to face. A quick and dirty chat will be more impactful than a back and forth conversation over the internet.

And one last point about “the human touch”-Do you go into classrooms? Or do teachers have to come to you? Are you “The Boss” or are you “a colleague and mentor”? How you present and project yourself weighs heavily on the level of trust and compliance you will develop with your team.  Kindness and connection are vital to the work we do in schools. It’s how you build trust and loyalty.  Talk to you teachers-You don’t have to be charismatic and bubbly but you do have to have sincere enthusiasm for the work they are doing in classrooms. We all need encouragement sometimes and when you say it to their face, it is always more meaningful and authentic than an email blast. It’s great to give them recognition amongst their peers but to take the time to tell them in person is really powerful. Don’t underestimate the value and meaning of your words.

Perhaps you might relate to these challenges. As humans, we are all a bit flawed (except for that saintly vice-principal) and when you are in leadership your flaws are even more obvious. So I am wondering what other ideas and perspectives you might share that would help develop more positive staff relationships as we engage in their role in the curriculum. Tips and tricks welcomed in the comments below!
#ChangeInEducation: Doesn’t This Bother You?

#ChangeInEducation: Doesn’t This Bother You?

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Some people think that stress is productive, that it is “fertilizer for creativity” but I liked to call bull$*&# on that. When you are concerned about your basic needs being met, how you can the bills, it takes ninja skills to keep your mind focused.

In 2007, my husband and I packed up our things from beautiful Arizona and decided to move to another state, a more progressive state, to try my luck in the educational system there. It was a gamble, but I felt confident that Washington state invested in their education system and would allow me to be the teacher that I wanted to be without having to worry about layoffs and pay cuts. This Facebook post summarizes the trajectory of what I left behind years ago.

 

A former colleague relates her frustration with working in the Arizona public school system.

 

If I knew about the crumbling economy perhaps we wouldn’t have moved, but who could have predicted the housing market bubble bursting, coupled with intense competition for teaching jobs (because apparently those who cannot do, teach–ARGH!). This made for one of the worst decisions ever and by the spring of 2008, we were back in Arizona, living in the good graces of my loving family. I cringe to think what would have happened without their support.

So, although my career as an international teacher was more of a push due to economic circumstances rather than a pull for adventure, there is never a moment of regret and there is certainly no longing to go back into the American public school system. But how can we not address the elephant in the room? teachingAmerica is not the only country–this is a global issue! Teacher pay and job security is a huge factor in our performance. You give a pay cut to professional baseball players or basketball players and see how well they play?

So how can we talk about innovation in education without addressing this most fundamental issue? Do politicians really think that robots are going to replace us? You cannot automate the heart and emotion that goes into the care of students! —I don’t care how crafty an AI algorithm can be! Watson and Siri are not going to create the citizens of tomorrow.

I acknowledge that this post is more of a rant, but so often educators are made into martyrs which is incredibly unfair given the weight of our position. We are shapers of the future and not cogs in the wheel of the industrial complex. This sort of thinking and culture needs to be disrupted.

Don’t you agree?

 

Oh to Capture Thoughts and Ideas: The Writing Life!

Oh to Capture Thoughts and Ideas: The Writing Life!

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Recently I had someone grilling me about writing journals, and I was deeply surprised and amused since we have so many notebooks and journals for our students that they can’t even fit into their cubbies. And yes, sure, it’s a common practice to have students hold their ideas in a journal, but I believe writing is thinking; and sometimes our thoughts are trivial and sometimes they are elaborate, they come into the mind through questions, phrases, lists, arguments, epiphanies, and regrets. Our writing life is a bit like that too and a journal is only one way to get a hold of these ideas. writer world

As a 1st grade teacher, I feel incredibly anxious ensuring that our students feel confident as readers and writers. I want them to stare at a blank sheet of paper and be able to imagine how it might be filled with words, taking the pencil into their hands and devouring the empty space with their ideas. I want them to stand back and experience reverence for words when they look at a poem or examine the pages of a book. But sometimes I feel incredibly challenged by how daunting the task is: to not only make students competent with reading and writing skills but develop these attitudes towards literacy that motivate them to choose writing. I want them to have agency, not shove writing down their throat, demanding that they create so many perfectly spelled and punctuated sentences a day, a week, a month. I want them to be true writers: reacting to life and wanting to capture its joys and downturns with words and pictures so that they may communicate their experience with others.

Also, I want them to make connections between our literacy block and our time spent in Math and Inquiry. I want them to know that lines on a paper are an invitation to share their thinking, whether it be with words or numbers or both.

Maths is a subject of words and pictures not just numbers. -Lana Fleitzeig-

I want them to write down a question on their paper and stare at it, considering the reading and writingvarious ways that one might approach its answer. I want them to think, then reach for a book, a website, a magazine or ask someone so that their curiosity can be nourished by the support of other human beings. And then realize that they too have something to share, which makes them reach for the pencil or tap on a keyboard. I want their minds overcome by the desire to write.

So, just like in real life, students may create lists or books, use sticky notes or scraps of paper, whatever they can get their hands on, including their writing journal to document their ideas and moods. Today it may be a sign-up sheet for a game of tag, but tomorrow it may be a wonderful tome on Cheetahs. Who knows what the heart of a child wants to share with others!  But for them to see themselves as writers, no matter how prolific they may be inside their journals, is more important than any spelling and grammar lesson that I may give them. Perhaps it is more important to ask students not how much or how well you wrote today, but did you write today?–not because I am your teacher and I have educational aims that you must reach to be “meeting expectations” but because your soul demands expression and I am here to support you answer its call.

So, although the mechanics of syntax and grammar are my learning goals for the day, my real overarching goal is for students to naturally and organically write, to feel the pull and lure of an empty space that can be filled with their ideas.

I want them to live a writer’s life.

 
Shouldn’t the Madhatter be a Girl? He’s Having a Tea Party After All!

Shouldn’t the Madhatter be a Girl? He’s Having a Tea Party After All!

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I have really been grappling with the idea of “girl stuff” vs. “boy stuff” lately and it’s a conversation that I have had with many of my friends who are likewise trying to navigate the concept of gender with their children in our modern age. In an effort to make sense of this, I reached out to fellow International Baccalaureate educator and creativity wizard, Tim Fletcher to help me explore this idea in a guest blog post. Tim is an avid dancer and Middle Years Programme (MYP) performing arts teacher at The Inter-Community School in Zurich, Switzerland. I am excited to share his ideas and I hope they are as thought-provoking and insightful for you as they were for me. Enjoy!

 

 

I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn’t identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. – Kurt Cobain

There is something incredibly sad with this quote from Cobain, a guy that went on to make music that defined a generation and most likely resonated strongly with those that he could not identify with growing up. What it does show is the huge disparity between the perception of gender role play and the reality. What Cobain found interesting was disregarded by his peers as not being ‘masculine enough’, yet his through his own path he became a revered figure. It is a complex subject which I can reflect on from a personal perspective, having started ballet in a small rural city at the age of six, but it has many wider implications about how our brains are wired, how society reinforces that wiring and what we can do to change those perceptions.

What gave me the desire to ask my mother to start ballet so early? Why was I driven to dance, that it became such a driving factor in my life that it turned into a career? To be perfectly honest I have no idea, I must have seen it – and that was it, I had to dance. It is a decision that shaped my life, took me travelling, introduced me to my wife, etc. My whole being was attracted to movement and moving, and still is.

Not to say I didn’t like doing the boy things too. I ran around with toy guns and built spaceships, I just did ballet as well. Now I got lucky, my friends accepted that ‘Tim just did ballet’ and never questioned it or its masculinity. But in lots of situations it is questioned, take this anecdote, for example, the given starting point for this blog post: During a recent sleepover, my daughter creeps over to me and whispers “I think when I grow up, I’m going to be a boy”. My eyebrows raised and a curious grin comes to meet her gaze. “Really, what makes you say that?” She confesses, “Well, I like boy stuff like robots and remote control cars”.  “Ah, I see”. “and I don’t think it’s fair that boys get to have all the fun, why can’t us girls play with those things? And furthermore, I don’t think it’s fair that us girls only get to play with Barbies. Maybe boys would like to play dress up as well. What do you think?” My 7-year-old explains what prompted this revelation–her girlfriends prefer to play with Barbies all day and she gets bored with them after a while. So she feels like she’s not “girl enough”. The socialisation of this situation is frightening in that seven year old questions herself and feels she may not be “girl enough”, like Cobain, when we don’t fit – we feel ‘unnormal’.

As soon as young children figure out the difference between being boy or girl (we’ll stay with the binary for sake of not exploring another theme) they start to play out roles. Although, the exact cause of gender identity remains unknown, biological, psychological and social variables clearly influence the process1. These are reinforced by older siblings, peers, education, media, toys, marketing and most of all parents. Very quickly children fall into what they hear in the playground, like ‘boys are dumb’, ‘girls aren’t strong’, etc… and let’s not start with the parents who bolster these attitudes.  

We are quick to jump on the bandwagon today and blame marketers, toy manufacturers and tv producers that create gender specific products and content for today’s youth, not to mention the sickening phenomenon of pink for girls, blue for boys (which only took hold in the early eighties). In fact, we have been going in reverse with gender neutral toys, so much so, that when you wade through the mass selection in a toy store it represents more a vision of the 1950’s than the 21st century.  Surprisingly, it’s only the last three decades though that the toy industry has made massive strides backward, making a buck and greed has driven this trend. But it wasn’t always this way, check out this letter from Lego that came with a set of bricks in 1974.

lego to parent

Marketers and our environment contribute to this problem of gender identity and what is “normal” or not. All that being said, there is now some growing evidence to suggest that we may actually be predisposed to certain types of toys based on our gender. Recent studies with rhesus monkeys showed how female and male bias may be biological in what types of toys they preferred to interact with. In this study, male monkeys took to the trucks and females to the dolls. And there is a lot of historical reasons to support this, men hunted and built the shelters, woman cooked and bore children. Then these roles were repeated and repeated, and repeated, until very recently. It provides us with a framework of why the world is constructed as it is and why some people have trouble surrendering to modern structures.

This creates what we call ‘norms’. Most males probably have a predisposition to building and most females to nurturing, within a bell curve of sorts. Most people fit into (more or less) this type of behaviour, which is fine. Although, these norms can be twisted. We know through psychology that we categorise and compartmentalise as a coping mechanism. It is impossible for me to think of every person as an individual, with uniques traits, likes and dislikes, etc. So my brain groups them by their ethnicity, nationality, gender, clothing, etc. These rough categorisations have associated attributes from my specific environmental socialisation, i.e. my opinion, based on my experience, to a particular ethnic group, gender, etc – determines that… and violà I have a sweeping inaccurate impression of someone I saw for a second on the street. Although it is inaccurate, our impressions of others defined by this categorising, creates cognitive comfort.

What is not fine is giving into it and judging people for not fitting into the stereotypes we have built of the world, like when a girl prefers to play with robots and a boy prefers to do ballet. Even worse berating them for being different. Many parents who insist and tell their child that they are an individual, special and can do anything often struggle when the child falls from the realms of normal gender play. This cognitive dissonance must also cause some discomfort for the child “Mum says I’m special and can do anything… except, as long as I don’t play with dolls and stick with trucks”.

This is why we have a responsibility to educate, establish acceptance and shape a new set of norms, which is the responsibility of all those I listed above that contribute to this predicament. So, what can we adopt to remedy this perception problem?

Asking children why they think one way to challenge the stereotypes is a good place to start. Why is it stupid to brush and stylise the doll’s hair? What could you learn from doing it? Could the plaiting of hair give them ideas to build in different ways? This could be supported by showing innovative building designs but also showcasing successful male hairdressers. Breaking down false stereotypes can be done rationally, and emotionally. There can be an appeal to the emotions in the context of a game or competition. Children facing gender opposite tasks during a game will often “get on with it” because of the nature of competition and through doing, their actions may appeal to their emotions – that actually, it feels alright.

What can happen by observing different toy vehicles in action? The tyres make different patterns which could be the formation of an eventual print on the material. There are an unlimited amount of ways we can look at using gender specific toys in a variety of ways if we allow ourselves. In terms of creativity, it is a well-documented technique that putting odd things together can have very productive and unique outcomes, as I have covered in this post. It could be introduced as a rule of playing with gender opposite toys at home or in the classroom. How can I apply this toy, or playing with this toy, to an area of interest for me?

But most importantly we must be installing a new ‘norm’ of acceptance with what children are drawn to and indeed prefer to engage in. If that interest manifests it could shape their lives, so we have more female physicists and male midwives. I hate to think what would have happened if I had not been allowed, and indeed encouraged, to follow my passion for movement and attend ballet classes.

  1. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/psychology/development-psychology/psychosocial-development-age-02/gender-development

nela_painted_1

If you would like to read more from Tim and his research more specifically into creativity and education, check out his blog, Learn Creatively. He has a lot of interesting ideas about the intersection of art, learning, and inspiration.
Literacy Amplified: Using Technology Tools Effectively

Literacy Amplified: Using Technology Tools Effectively

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Technology has the ability to enhance learning with positive results. That said, we need to be careful not to assume all technology is good technology or that just having access to technology automatically equates to higher learning outcomes. Strong leaders in education carefully select technology tools and implement strategies so that the tool will not distract or take away from the learning goals, which can easily happen.  -Elizabeth Moje-

I can completely relate to that piece of wisdom, as we have explored 1:1 iPads in our primary classes. Sometimes classrooms can be overzealous in the use of technology, and the point of its use gets lost in using this “shiny tool”. We’ve had to reflect, is it the app/tool that drives our instruction or is it the curriculum? And I think to refine our choices through this filter (the curriculum) is helping us to make better decisions when selecting technology tools.

Studies by Harold Wenglinsky and other researchers from the US Department of Education have indicated that there are criteria that we must consider in our decisions with effective technology use in the classroom. Educators have to ask themselves the following:

  1. Does it elicit higher-order thinking around the contenttechnology-in-class or just an over consumption of content?
  2. Are their social interactions between students, which help build student knowledge. Collaboration is a key skill in developing digital literacies, so keep that in mind when selecting tools.
  3. Does it provide quality over quantity when it comes to practicing skills so that critical thinking is being developed?
  4. What is the “value-added” element of the tool?  Is instruction more personalized and/or differentiated; and can the students develop a more sophisticated understanding of the content?

 

When it comes to developing literacy skills, we have to remember that whatever the tool we choose, it should augment what we already know is critical in developing good readers. So what do we know about good readers?

  • They are active, with clear goals in mind and a purpose for reading.
  • They are constantly evaluating the text, asking questions and making predictions.
  • They can peruse the text carefully, noticing the importance of text features and structure.
  • As they read, they are engaged in making meaning of the text, constructing and revising their understanding.
  • They are making decisions as they read, reflecting on what to read carefully, what to read quickly, what not to read, what to reread, and so on.

When it comes to good writing, we want to make sure the tool reinforces what we know is vital to cultivate in our learners:

  • Writing that is focused, with an obvious topic or idea.
  • Ideas that are detailed and flow clearly.
  • The student engages in a process of revision, elaboration, and editing so that the writing improves.
  • The student sees themselves as an author and is aware that their writing is meant to be shared and appreciated.

Keeping in mind, what we know about good literacy instruction, then we can use technology to amplify the learning in our classrooms. I love what Eric Johnson says about using technology in his instruction, as he explains how teachers can discern what makes for enhanced literacy teaching and learning with technology.

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These four-year-olds work together to create a simple story. Each selected a character and then recorded their characters’ expressions to create a dialogue between them.

Considering this, when we want to amplify the results of our literacy programs, we need to make sure that students aren’t sitting alone, swiping mindlessly through an app or game, but instead, we have a clearly defined purpose for using the tool, and then demonstrate how to use these tools through a Think Aloud or Read-aloud. We may have to model how to work collaboratively in order to apply certain literacy strategies and/or complete a project.  This could include even how students should be sharing their knowledge, and reflecting how well they are doing in meeting the standards of the task.

In our classrooms, we want our students engaged and their learning enhanced as they work with technology. Even at home, I’m a huge advocate for showing students and their families how iPads are tools and not toys so that there is more thought put into the use of this technology. We want our students to be empowered and innovative so that there is a shift from consumption to creation when it comes to content.

So before you start app smashing or sit your student down to a website, ask yourself what impact will this technology REALLY make in the overall learning? And if you can’t identify that, then move away from the “shiny tool” syndrome and take more time to either find a more appropriate tool or use a time-tested traditional method to meet the learning goals.

 
Teaching Patterns

Teaching Patterns

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I love teaching patterns, particularly in the beginning of the year so we can keep referencing them throughout the year. However, this year, my programme of inquiry had patterns being taught last with my homes unit (Where we are in place and time: People make their homes in different places and in different ways). Since I do a balance of integrated math and stand alone, the student really enjoyed going on pattern hunts as we looked at different homes, along with discussing and creating brick patterns. I thought I was doing a pretty good job when one of my 4 year olds turns to me and says, “You know Ms. Judy, we learned patterns last year in EY3 and we are pretty good at it. I think we should learn something else.” Krikey! Out of the mouths of babes, I was properly told off. So I reflected on what we were doing and decided to add symmetry into the mix.

After the topic was introduced, out came the mirrors and rulers, and the children began exploring how to create mirror image patterns: symmetry. They were absolutely captivated. Although I don’t have any pictures of the early explorations (I was too busy helping them hold mirrors) , I would like to share some of the later activities.

In the first set of pictures, we clamored upon the playground, drawing lines of symmetry with some chalk, and then the children worked as partners, taking turns making patterns with various manipulatives, which the other had to copy. They did a great job, and even helped to create the PicCollages that you see.  Later on, we worked with the app, Geoboard, by The Math Learning Center, to create symmetrical patterns. Again they did fantastic job, and worked very cooperatively, much to my chagrin. At last, we just got plain silly and used the app Photobooth by Apple to create symmetrical pictures using the “mirror”. Some of the kids took those images and recorded ideas and stories using the app Fotobable. It was a wonderful way for them to extend their idea of patterns, and they did such a wonderful job working together to collaborate on the images.

Teaching Creativity

Teaching Creativity

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Since I have been teaching in the UAE, I have noticed a stark difference between American (ergo western children,in general) and my Arabic children when it comes to creativity. I might easily shrug it off to teaching ESL, but I co-teach so I get to observe their behaviors during Arabic and Islamic Studies.   Indeed, the children here spend more time running feral in play than plopped down in front of cartoons and computers, but that certainly wouldn’t account for the muted expression of curiosity or creativity, in fact, it would have made me think just the reverse since they have so much free play. Thus, it makes me beg the question: are we born naturally inquisitive and creative or are those attributes acquired through our culture?

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When given a box of legos (bricks), students rely on pictures of examples of things they can make before attempting to design something.

Many of us Western teachers have observed similar behavior in other grade levels. And, at home, when we might have been plagued with the endless amount of energy of questions and tangents of imagination our students would go on, we are absolutely desperate to get students to think for themselves, let a lone outside the box. I don’t mean for this observation to reflect poorly on our students, because they are bright and able, but perfection and high marks are what is really valued in this culture.  Whether a student writes a lovely poem or paints a beautiful painting is not as appreciated as an A on a paper. So I have to think that this is a cultural influence.

Since the Abu Dhabi Education Council is wanting to reform their schools to more western style approaches to learning, they are trying to shift from the more traditional methods into ones that will sponsor innovation and technology through critical thinking. Increasing inquisitiveness and creativity seem paramount to this task, so we have felt at a loss at how to systematically teach it.

Enter Harvard Project Zero! Through research done, they have created something called “Visible Thinking”, which they noticed that ” Often, we found, children (and adults) think in shallow ways not for lack of ability to think more deeply but because they simply do not notice the opportunity or do not care. To put it all together, we say that really good thinking involves abilities, attitudes, and alertness, all three at once. Technically this is called a dispositional view of thinking. Visible Thinking is designed to foster all three.”  (Visible Thinking)

I have been implementing many of their core routines and it has been interesting to actually gain insight into their perspectives and ideas.  Naturally, since I teach in a bilingual classroom, most of the responses are in their home language of Arabic, but my counterpart will translate their ideas to me.  It has been very helpful in cultivating a culture of deeper thinking, respect for different points of view, and looking closer at things. The easiest routine for my ELLs has been  I SEE, I THINK, I WONDER  .   I also really find Creativity Hunt to be another really interesting one that has a high level of engagement.

Overall, I really recommend teachers to take a look at their site because their are so many simple things that you can add to your lessons to increase creative thought and critical thinking–No matter the grade level.  I hope you take some time to check  out some of the material and implement some of the routines in your classroom.

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