Saturday, July 17, 2010
Into the Woods
Just a quick note to say that I've been safe and sound in Ottawa for the past week, and have been having a lovely time. Tomorrow I'm off to teach musical theatre at camp for two weeks and it's in the middle of the wilderness, so you probably won't be hearing much (or anything) from me until I get back. Be well!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Freedom (almost)
I went dancing last night and remembered why I love it. Then I dragged myself into work this morning and remembered why I don't do it more often.
Two more days of work and then I can dance to my little heart's content! (But I'm going to cry when I say goodbye to those kids).
Two more days of work and then I can dance to my little heart's content! (But I'm going to cry when I say goodbye to those kids).
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Teaching children with exceptionalities
My apologies: this is going to be a long one.
A while back, I mentioned the school I want to create one day. Ever since I first came up with the idea, it's been running marathons in the back of my mind. I am constantly thinking about everything from building design and location, staff recruitment and development, funding and scholarships, daily schedule, how to incorporate a myriad of subjects/topics/methods/projects (and how to present them to a diverse group of "exceptional" kids), individual education plans, mentorship programs... everything. It literally never stops. What I should really do is acquire a notebook for recording all of my ideas, and actually I think I will do that at some point this weekend. But in the meantime, I'm going to do a bit of recording here.
This morning, I headed over to my local Eat. for coffee, breakfast, and some leisurely Saturday morning textbook reading. I have this wonderful book--Children with Exceptionalities--that I acquired for a distance ed course that I never finished (shame on me). I love that terminology because it's much more inclusive and positively spun than "special needs."
Quote:
We all have certain strengths, we all have limitations on our mental and physical ability, and we all have some disabilities, however minor, when it comes to learning. Most of these problems fall into common areas--a tendency to be easily bored, distractibility, poor study habits, poor memory, inadequate motor control, family interference, and so on. Some of us have problems learning a foreign language; others forget directions or people's names. For most of us, a perfect backhand is an unreachable goal. ... In some students, the learning difficulties are more serious, and the children deviate more significantly in one way or another. These are students who are exceptional. ... In an educational context, children are considered exceptional only when their educational program must be altered to meet their unique needs. ... Children who are gifted and talented are recognized as exceptional because they too need specialized help from professionals to fully develop their unique abilities. (4-5)
This is my target market. Children who are exceptional because they fall on either side of the normal range for mental, physical, or social ability, and therefore require an altered program to fully develop their skills. The range of skills and abilities therein is ridiculously broad and diverse. My challenge is to create a program that can be adapted to suit all of their needs. And not just to a regular mainstream standard, either. I want my students to possess a superior understanding of the world and develop the skills to successfully make positive changes within it. No small feat.
So how do I plan to achieve this? The answer to that is still a work-in-progress, as I still have many years of learning, research, brainstorming, and experimentation ahead of me. To be honest, I don't think I will ever perfect the system, but hopefully I will touch a few lives and get people thinking about how they can improve education (for all children, not just the exceptional ones).
So far, here's what I want for my school:
- Small classes with low staff to student ratios
- IEPs with regular reviews for every child (with which all staff will be familiar)
- Comprehensive staff development programs and a focus on teamwork and idea generation within the team
- Recruitment and selection processes for both staff and students that are designed to find people who are diverse but equally likely to thrive within the school's environment
- A "firm but fair" behavioural management policy that aims to work with individual children's needs and personalities and encourage child and familial input, but demands child effort and improvement to ensure that all children involved in the program can make most of it
- Child yoga and other similar activities every single morning (I've been doing yoga lately with my kids at school and not only do they love it, it's really having positive effects)
- Balance of structure and child-generated learning based on a Mantle of the Expert model
- Using the above mentioned Mantle of the Expert, learning through the arts, and other techniques to investigate a broad range of subjects and ensure holistic/cross-curricular learning and skill development
- Focus on real world applications
- Focus on school, community, and global involvement programs
- Lots of open, frank discussion and debate
- Peer tutoring and mentorship
- Employment of technology, social media, and old fashioned pen and paper to communicate and learn from people all around the world
- In the secondary program, allowing children to focus their studies on a particular area (if they so choose) while ensuring they also round out all other basic and related skills
- Co-op and entrepreneurship programs
- Creative problem-solving to implement high impact, low cost solutions
- A bunch of other stuff that I should have written down and will hopefully remember
- A bunch of stuff that isn't really relevant to this post
- A bunch of stuff I haven't thought of yet
Right now, I'm thinking a lot about how I can use this sort of approach to get kids to teach themselves more than just how to use a computer. I've also been thinking for a while about how my system applies to children with autism (mainly the primary module, as I already know the secondary format would be awesome for them). This blog post made me realize it might be a lot more relevant to them than I originally thought, but I plan to do a great deal more investigation on the subject (quite possibly through my Masters studies).
My current belief is that education that is relevant, hands on, and student-driven is adaptable enough to be useful and attractive to nearly all children. Every child will develop skills that will help them survive, flourish, and even make a difference in the real world. And every child will be able to pursue subjects that interest them to the fullest extent that they can. The idea is to encourage a love of learning, investigation, and creativity.
Just like the eventual program itself, I aim to make its development a collaborative effort. One of my challenges is making sure that everything I do transfers to a diverse range of children, not just what I think would have worked well for me. So my questions to you are: What made a real difference to you during your school years? What do you wish you'd had (more of) in school? What ideas for education have you come across that resonated with you? How would you expand on or modify any of the ideas I've mentioned? How could they have been adapted to best suit you or your siblings/children, particularly if you/they are considered exceptional?
I have piles of specific projects that I want to try, but I'll save those for another day.
A while back, I mentioned the school I want to create one day. Ever since I first came up with the idea, it's been running marathons in the back of my mind. I am constantly thinking about everything from building design and location, staff recruitment and development, funding and scholarships, daily schedule, how to incorporate a myriad of subjects/topics/methods/projects (and how to present them to a diverse group of "exceptional" kids), individual education plans, mentorship programs... everything. It literally never stops. What I should really do is acquire a notebook for recording all of my ideas, and actually I think I will do that at some point this weekend. But in the meantime, I'm going to do a bit of recording here.
This morning, I headed over to my local Eat. for coffee, breakfast, and some leisurely Saturday morning textbook reading. I have this wonderful book--Children with Exceptionalities--that I acquired for a distance ed course that I never finished (shame on me). I love that terminology because it's much more inclusive and positively spun than "special needs."
Quote:
We all have certain strengths, we all have limitations on our mental and physical ability, and we all have some disabilities, however minor, when it comes to learning. Most of these problems fall into common areas--a tendency to be easily bored, distractibility, poor study habits, poor memory, inadequate motor control, family interference, and so on. Some of us have problems learning a foreign language; others forget directions or people's names. For most of us, a perfect backhand is an unreachable goal. ... In some students, the learning difficulties are more serious, and the children deviate more significantly in one way or another. These are students who are exceptional. ... In an educational context, children are considered exceptional only when their educational program must be altered to meet their unique needs. ... Children who are gifted and talented are recognized as exceptional because they too need specialized help from professionals to fully develop their unique abilities. (4-5)
This is my target market. Children who are exceptional because they fall on either side of the normal range for mental, physical, or social ability, and therefore require an altered program to fully develop their skills. The range of skills and abilities therein is ridiculously broad and diverse. My challenge is to create a program that can be adapted to suit all of their needs. And not just to a regular mainstream standard, either. I want my students to possess a superior understanding of the world and develop the skills to successfully make positive changes within it. No small feat.
So how do I plan to achieve this? The answer to that is still a work-in-progress, as I still have many years of learning, research, brainstorming, and experimentation ahead of me. To be honest, I don't think I will ever perfect the system, but hopefully I will touch a few lives and get people thinking about how they can improve education (for all children, not just the exceptional ones).
So far, here's what I want for my school:
- Small classes with low staff to student ratios
- IEPs with regular reviews for every child (with which all staff will be familiar)
- Comprehensive staff development programs and a focus on teamwork and idea generation within the team
- Recruitment and selection processes for both staff and students that are designed to find people who are diverse but equally likely to thrive within the school's environment
- A "firm but fair" behavioural management policy that aims to work with individual children's needs and personalities and encourage child and familial input, but demands child effort and improvement to ensure that all children involved in the program can make most of it
- Child yoga and other similar activities every single morning (I've been doing yoga lately with my kids at school and not only do they love it, it's really having positive effects)
- Balance of structure and child-generated learning based on a Mantle of the Expert model
- Using the above mentioned Mantle of the Expert, learning through the arts, and other techniques to investigate a broad range of subjects and ensure holistic/cross-curricular learning and skill development
- Focus on real world applications
- Focus on school, community, and global involvement programs
- Lots of open, frank discussion and debate
- Peer tutoring and mentorship
- Employment of technology, social media, and old fashioned pen and paper to communicate and learn from people all around the world
- In the secondary program, allowing children to focus their studies on a particular area (if they so choose) while ensuring they also round out all other basic and related skills
- Co-op and entrepreneurship programs
- Creative problem-solving to implement high impact, low cost solutions
- A bunch of other stuff that I should have written down and will hopefully remember
- A bunch of stuff that isn't really relevant to this post
- A bunch of stuff I haven't thought of yet
Right now, I'm thinking a lot about how I can use this sort of approach to get kids to teach themselves more than just how to use a computer. I've also been thinking for a while about how my system applies to children with autism (mainly the primary module, as I already know the secondary format would be awesome for them). This blog post made me realize it might be a lot more relevant to them than I originally thought, but I plan to do a great deal more investigation on the subject (quite possibly through my Masters studies).
My current belief is that education that is relevant, hands on, and student-driven is adaptable enough to be useful and attractive to nearly all children. Every child will develop skills that will help them survive, flourish, and even make a difference in the real world. And every child will be able to pursue subjects that interest them to the fullest extent that they can. The idea is to encourage a love of learning, investigation, and creativity.
Just like the eventual program itself, I aim to make its development a collaborative effort. One of my challenges is making sure that everything I do transfers to a diverse range of children, not just what I think would have worked well for me. So my questions to you are: What made a real difference to you during your school years? What do you wish you'd had (more of) in school? What ideas for education have you come across that resonated with you? How would you expand on or modify any of the ideas I've mentioned? How could they have been adapted to best suit you or your siblings/children, particularly if you/they are considered exceptional?
I have piles of specific projects that I want to try, but I'll save those for another day.
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