What we look back on the last day of school...

In our final assembly today we had the pleasure of watching a slide show of all the "fun" things we have done this year. The pictures included dancing, painting murals in the hallways, Olympic and fitness activities as well as dramatic performances from throughout the year. There were no pictures of kids writing and responding to texts or answering questions independently in their notebooks. What we enjoy looking back on are those times when we are active in our learning, participating and having fun. I worry that so many people consider these out of classroom experiences as a waste of time, not realizing the learning potential these experiences contain. If these are the school memories kids will latch on to, can we not gear our teaching more towards this kind of education? Do we have the space and time for it? I think so ...... do you?

Engagement vs. Academic Success

On August 13th, 2009 I read the title of this Toronto Star article and sighed as my stress level returned. Are my kids not engaged? I asked myself. Forever trying new things with my students I took this article very seriously and decided to try a strategy recommended by the Canadian Education Association (CEA) called "Collective knowledge building." It was described as a strategy that would improve intellectual engagement. According to research by the CEA, letting kids talk, debate, question and collaborate would give students a voice and some choice over what they are learning in the classroom. In October, I taught my grade four students how to have a conversation. They loved it. We followed strategies suggested by Harvey and Daniels in their book, "Comprehension and Collaboration"- sharing ideas, disagreeing politely and asking questions. Things were going great. Everyone got involved, the volume rose and you could hear the passion in my students' voices- challenging each other and adding on to each other's ideas. I decided that it was working, engagement must be happening. The next question I sought to answer was if this engagement affected the work my students completed. At that time we were working on persuasive writing. Our conversations and collaborative work was on the topic of Medieval Times. I set out to see if the conversations influenced and improved my students' written work. After several weeks of practice and a few persuasive texts later, I assessed how the conversations changed my more reluctant students' work. Expecting fireworks, I was surprisingly disappointed! They had obviously learned from their peers. They had demonstrated a passion towards a topic. They were full of ideas... but, when it came to write them down, these students froze. Each of them struggled to complete ideas on paper, they didn't prove their ideas and didn't really know what else to say. I was disheartened but encouraged by a question asked to me, "what is more important?" If a child is engaged is that not enough? Is our priority not to get kids hooked in so they eventually discover their own interests to pursue in more depth? If someone is engaged in school and continues to be so over the years of their educational experience, is that not success in itself? Does our current focus on academic success dampen the energy and spirit of our curious students?