observing lessons
listening to swan lake
still reading data wise
reading developing more curious minds
reading researching lived experience
reading . . . a lot
If any parents/readers have the occasion to travel to Senegal this month on business, you should check out the Biennale of Contemporary African Art. The Dakar festival begins today and runs through June 9, 2008. Todd Lester of freeDimensional sent me a detailed description of the public exhibit that they’re sponsoring. freeDimensional promotes the intersection of art/artists and projects for social justice (in this case, a public exhibit at the festival w/ concurrent events elsewhere on the subject of shifting Senegalese migration). What does this have to do with learning/teaching? Read the event description closely: Oliver Bakewell of the International Migration Institute at Oxford suggests that in order to truly take migration into account, we would have to become committed to . . . developing capacities of people [emphasis added], not places.
How do we prepare kids for a world that hasn’t yet happened? How important is it to inspire imagination in our students (read: future community leaders)?
For Anatole France, “the whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards” (France as cited in Barell, 2003, p. 1).
How about for you? Respond as comments, and I’ll post them.
In a former life I was a 2nd grade teacher in an urban school with an open space floor plan. Kids and teachers loved it. The learning space constantly changed to meet the needs of a given day. But all I heard from teachers outside Walker-Jones was “open space is horrible. What a bad idea.”
Wm. W. Caudill described the modern school design as an “egg crate.” Separate, but equal, learning spaces. A place where kids learn to isolate themselves from each other and from the world.
Here’s an outstanding concept from Thomas Jefferson Elementary: kids reading = teachers camping on the roof for a day. Misters Knight and Greiner blogged the event from atop the school. It reminds me a little of Diffendoofer Day at MEH.
We all know and love edulicious in FC/DC, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Scott McLeod (Iowa St. Prof. and guru of tech education leadership) reads Mr. Sparrgrove, too.
An MEH team took top honors at last weekend’s Virginia National History Day Competition. Bravas! (that’s Portuguese) and best wishes in sharing your re-animation of the Watergate story at the National contest in College Park.