Helicopter parenting is more prevalent than ever. Parents know the importance of their child having success in the classroom and the coloration of success in later life. Wagner eluded to this on p. 102 when he comments "For parents to give children more unstructured, supervised playtime is to take a risk." It was refreshing to see that Kirk's parents had a different approach than many others. They believed in play and it inventing. Kirk and his siblings didn't need an XBox or cell phone to keep occupied. Instead, they routinely went outside and made up their own games to play. I especially loved on pg. 98 in the iPad version, Wager remarked that " A child has to get bored before he can figure out how to get himself out of boredom." Translated to PBL, we must first come up with the problem, and then we can focus on the solution. Instead of having him only play soccer on the "privileged" teams, they enrolled him in a suburban blue color neighborhood team where everyone spoke Spanish. It gave Kirk the opportunity to experience another culture but still with a common goal. In short, it gave Kirk experiences. I literally laughed when Kirk's mom described the prep work that she laid for the family's upcoming trip to New York City. She had planned every moment and tried to give them every tool to have a successful trip. It reminded me of how of I as an educator try to plan for every moment in my lesson. Sometimes I forget the "play" part in all the content that I'm trying to give them.
Kirk commented on the important of the process when he said that "they(his parents) didn't care all that much how what I was interested in, they were far more interested in the process of my find out what it was that I was interested in." p.104 in the iPad version. Kirk's parents always supported exploration and discovery. That is what sparked his knowledge in engineering. He commented several times that he didn't know at all what kind of engineer he wanted to be. It was only later in his educational career and with an amazingly innovative teacher, Ed Carryer that he determined that he loved to make things. I found it terribly sad that Wagner commented on p. 126 that "I rarely hear a teacher at any grade level talk about wanting to empower their students." I disagree with him on that front in that I think most teachers want to empower their students but at times don't know how to go about doing it.
We must continue to "drink the kool-aid" and lead our fellow teachers to it. I know I have struggled with PBL as it is more chaotic and I have a hard time dealing with chaos in my classroom. When I went to school, the chaotic classrooms were usually the rooms in which learning wasn't necessarily taking place. It's a shift in mindset to see that this is the best way to foster true student learning. We are giving students the tools, not the answer.
"they(his parents) didn't care all that much how what I was interested in, they were far more interested in the process of my find out what it was that I was interested in." p.104 in the iPad version. I too found this to be a key part of Kirk's success. His parents seem to feel that how he was learning and what course and direction the inquiry took was way more important than what he was interested in.
ReplyDelete"they(his parents) didn't care all that much how what I was interested in, they were far more interested in the process of my find out what it was that I was interested in." p.104 in the iPad version. I too found this to be a key part of Kirk's success. His parents seem to feel that how he was learning and what course and direction the inquiry took was way more important than what he was interested in.
ReplyDeleteHi Liza,
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing up two critical elements of successful project based learning in your post, play and process. You shared how one of the points that Wagner brought up was the importance of play in developing innovation in our students and risk taking. I, too loved the quote, "A child has to get bored before he can figure out how to get himself out of boredom." I agree with that. There is a wonderful essay by journalist, Anna Quindlen called, "Doing Nothing is Something" and it validates this powerful point that when our students and our children have unstructured time that is when they are able to be free enough to figure out for themselves what they are going to do. Boredom isn't to be avoided, it is to be figured out. I loved growing up with parents who allowed us to stay home by ourselves in the summer. We lived out in the country and were able to rule ourselves for the day. The adventures we came up with weren't always pretty but my brother and I built a strong sense of self-efficacy from figuring out some of the jams we got in before our mom got home! I found myself nodding my head in agreement when you made the connection of play and problem solving to pbl. You said, "We must first come up with the problem, and then we can focus on the solution." I agree - if the problems and the processes are pre-determined by the teacher there isn't much play or risk taking and certainly not a lot of room for figuring anything out independently.
Liza you mentioned too that you feel Wagner is wrong on his point that most teachers don't want to empower their students. You pushed back and argued that teachers do want to empower them, they just don't know how. I would agree with that. I don't know any teachers who don't want what is best for students. In my experience I've found when our students struggle and do less, we are afraid for them for their failure so we end up doing more, providing them with less, and taking on more responsibility for their success than they do. I believe the answer may not be in us doing more for the students, but in us figuring out how to help the student do more for themselves, growing in confidence and gaining in skills as they go through the process. How to do that isn't always easy or we'd have it figured out by now and Pearson would be selling it. We believe one answer is in the way we structure learning experiences. In consciously structuring our curriculum into project based learning experiences and opportunities we invite and inspire our students to take a risk, to think, to step up to the plate to figure out and to engage in critical thinking and in application of skill instead of passively listening and test taking. I loved your last line, "We are giving students the tools, rather than the answer." In thinking about your own pbl unit and/or your current content you are teaching, how are you utilizing inquiry as the primary tool for student engagement?
Thank you for an excellent journey of thought in your blog post!
Sincerely,
Dawn