Tonight, my sons began learning how to program different tasks into an Arduino. They were working together but I wouldn’t quite call it collaboration. My oldest son was very controlling and particular about what was happening. Every time his brother, who, to be fair, is quite enthusiastic, would touch a piece or move something around, daggers would dart from my older son’s eyes or a nagging command full of exhaustion would spew from his mouth.
This was driving me nuts because I was trying to enjoy a podcast. It got me thinking about how I used to (maybe still am a bit) be very much like that. Especially in my teaching though maybe without the nasty words and evil eyes. I would write a lesson plan and I wanted things done in a certain way. Veering from the path was not accepted. If I peel back the layers of reasons why I needed so much control it most likely had to do with fear.
Truth Disclosure: These fears still creep into my life more often than I would like. I would wager that I am not alone in this. External fears drive so many of us to keep things looking clean and orderly. They keep us from sharing mistakes and getting messy. They keep us from trying new ideas and branching out. For some reason, we have culturally (globally?) settled for a "middle of the road, don’t rock the boat, keep it identical to the next" mentality, for the sake of feeling secure and part of the pack. There is certainly an evolutionary explanation for this but this inability to be individually expressive leads to a distorted sense of what happiness means. In my lessons, I wanted to look the part of a teacher and from my experience and imagination, teachers were in control. They had control over the students. They had control over time. They had control over materials. They had control of directions, instruction and processes. I can remember giving out projects to students where I literally spelled out every single step of a three week project. All students had to do was go down the list and check things off. I thought it was quality because I always added some element of creativity in the lessons but honestly, I still wanted things to be creatively done in the way that I imagined. This was less like scaffolding new skills and more like sprinkling glitter on a basic facts poster. Just the facade of creativity. But who do activities like this serve? Definitely not the students. (Though there is something to be said about modeling creativity and working through recipes) As I move toward greater student independence in my classes, I expect to feel uncomfortable and un-teacher-like. I expect things to be messy and I am going to be ok with that. Perhaps I just need shift my title from teacher to guide and flip the script from fear to joy. As an educator/guide I will experience the….
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Grant SouderI am an educator, musician, parent and maker. I do my best to live with intention and to create learning environments that foster the same. This blog is an effort to share my thinking and learning. It is in no way a cementation of my understanding but a catalyst for unearthing it. These ideas are living and fluid. Archives
September 2019
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