Letting Them Choose

EVERY DAY for CHOICE, a photo by Jenn Farr on Flickr.

I have discovered, during my most recent attempts to give students the ability to choose the way they will show me their learning, that many of my students will just choose what they have always done. The easiest way. Not the way that would best showcase what they’ve learned, or their particular skill set.

In June I assigned what I thought would be a pretty cool final project in social studies. They were to compare and contrast the three societies that we had studied in grade 8 Social Studies (Renaissance Europe, Japan – Edo-Meiji Period, and Aztecs vs Spanish) as well as interview a person who had grown up in a different decade than them about their Worldviews. The assignment can be found here on google docs. As you can see, I gave them a number of different options for how this would be presented to the class. I honestly thought that they would come up with more original, more interesting options than the ones I gave. I thought that they would seek out new and exciting ways to show what they know. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong. There were eight groups and all but two of them chose to use a trifold or do a powerpoint. In truth, the presentations were quite boring and although they did know the information, I could tell that none of them had enjoyed the assignment.

When reflecting on the assignment, I realized a few things:

1. It was a boring assignment with little critical thinking involved at all.

2. I was the one who gave them the option. I put it out there for them to choose.

3. As this is the first time I have given this kind of choice, I do not have any previous examples for students to see.

The Great Debate

Balanced debate, a photo by Articulate Matter on Flickr.

Once again I have been amazed by the abilities of my students. So many times I worry about the things they CAN’T do and how I am going to find a way to improve them, that I forget about all the great things they CAN do.

The most recent example of this for me was this past week in my Knowledge and Employability grade 9 Social Studies class. I have 14 students with varying degrees of learning, behavioural and health issues. This is the first time I have taught them an academic subject and I would say that we have ALL struggled at one point or another with the material so far. They have some pretty large limitations with reading and writing and I am not sure I have always found effective ways to bridge this gap when directing their learning.

When sharing some of these problems with Brad Arndt (@barndt_77), a colleague who taught the class to last year’s grade 9s, he told me that he had had a lot of success with staging class debates. Ok…to be honest, I wasn’t too optimistic, but I was willing to give it a shot.

We took two full classes to discuss what a debate looked like and they watched some video of actual middle school debate teams competing. Then we tried to come up with ideas on what makes a good argument – this was not easy and I got some push back from the class. Then I brought up easy topics and we quickly wrote up arguments for both sides. The first topic was Cats vs Dogs, then 11:00pm curfews for teens under 16, and lastly lowering the voter age to 16. With every topic, they got stronger and stronger at formulating effective arguments and rebutting the arguments of the opposition.

During our last debate on lowering the voting age, I was astounded at some of the points made and at how articulately these “special needs” students were. At one point, a student who was speaking FOR lowering the voter age stated (I am paraphrasing here) “its like going down the road and choosing which path to take…we want to have a say in the path of our country”

Good point.

In rebuttal another student said “It is like choosing which path to take, but 16 year olds are too inexperienced to choose a good path. They will choose a bumpy path instead of a smooth one…if we drove our car down a bumpy path, it would get ruined, so why would we take our country down one?”

Whoa…remember if I asked these students to write down these arguments, they would need assistance to even get started. If I asked them to turn their argument into a simile or a metaphor I would get mostly blank stares. Yet here they were eloquently and confidently arguing their points. Amazing.

The the first student responded by saying “It may be a bumpier path, but if each of those bumps is an idea then that is the path we should take.”

There were more contributions than just these two students and I definitely felt rejuvenated by their enthusiasm and receptiveness for the debate. Mostly I was reminded not to dwell so much on the things they struggle with.

We Pulled It Off

Last week, on December 14th the grade 8 students at Stony Plain Central School put on an amazing Renaissance Faire for visiting schools, SPC staff and students, parents, grandparents and  other guests. They dressed in authentic Renaissance clothing, presented information and artistic creations and performed music and drama pieces. Here are a few of the highlights:

Artists grotto

Our Renaissance artists displayed, sold and created  different pieces of artwork.  They actually painted rudimentary portraits of some of  our visitors.  Their knowledge of Renaissance artists and techniques was excellent and they answered visitors questions about the art of the time.

Our musicians were an impressive group.  These students came together and learned a Renaissance period guitar piece that they played  during the day.  They also created a display and gave information about other instruments used during this time period.

Sword fights

The sword fights and jousting competitions were some of the most entertaining aspects and drew the biggest crowds at the fair. Kids created their own armour and shields.  They researched different fighting techniques, choreographed some fights and held their own tournament.

These girls were the Renaissance “royalty.” They walked around the fair and sat on their “thrones” to watch the jousting and sword tournaments.

Our Catholic Brother

We even had our very own Mona Lisa!

We had a number of  students who represented the merchant class.  They sold buns, pies, teas, dried meat and art.  One group even made a Renaissance meal and served it to our guests.  The meal  included red “wine” – aka cranberry juice.  Some students sat at the “Bank” and exchanged money into ducats so that fair goers could purchase the merchants’ wares.

Our students competed in a jousting competition.  They rigged cardboard horses heads on a couple of scooters, created armour and used pool noodles as their lance.

We were lucky enough to have access to an authentic Renaissance musician. This lady, who is a friend of one of our EAs, agreed to come with her Renaissance organ, recorder and horn.  She played continuously throughout the event and discussed and answered  questions about her instruments.  We were so thankful and honoured to have her join us.

One of our students and his dad and uncle actually built this stockade at their farm and brought it to the school. These kids were our policing and punishment experts.  Guests of all ages were quite eager to get in the stocks and see how it felt.  Unfortunately we didn’t have any rotten vegetables to throw…maybe next year

The kids definitely had a good time and I know it was appreciated by all those who visited.  As teachers, we already have a plan for how we are going to improve on this project for next year.  As someone who has seen a lot of changes at our school over the last 5 or 6 years, including the loss of some of our long-standing traditions, I am hoping that the grade 8 Renaissance Faire will become one of the new SPC traditions.