January 10

Never Quit

Recently, my daughter started a “learning journey” with the art of weaving with a loom.  It’s suddenly very popular with young children.  My son is getting involved as well.  I’ve been amazed at her progress in making loom jewelry.  I mean using a loom isn’t easy.  In fact, the company that makes the prodcut struggled to get the toy companies to buy them and place them on their shelves.  Why?  People didn’t know how to use them.

Weaving with a loom has been around for ages.  Different cultures around the world have used looms since 6000 BC to create everything from cloth for wrapping and burying the dead, stylish clothes, to intricate pieces of jewelry and art.

Ella, my daughter, learned about the Rainbow Loom at school with her friends.  She became very interested when her friends showed off all of their stylish bracelets that they made themselves.  The NY Times has a great article about how a the Ng family started it from their home in Michigan back in 2010.

Here’s a video that briefly describes her journey in making an advanced bracelet.

The story really makes me think of how powerful motivation is with learning.   What Ella doesn’t tell you is that she became frustrated from all of the failed attempts she made.  She even broke down and cried on 1 or 2 occassions.  I tried to help her but my knowledge wasn’t any better than hers.  So, we still failed.  However, she didn’t quit.  She was determined and after several revisions, or retries, she perservered.

How does this connect to the classroom “learning journeys” that we make?

December 7

Alex’s Effort

Lately we’ve been working hard as a class. I set-up some rotations for related activities during our literacy block and math period. During the rotations our class has really been engaged. Alex produced a piece of work that fits nicely with our math rotations. He was done with an assignment I gave him and he asked for more to do. So, he moved to the Extra Assignment activity. I was really excited for him. Alex seemed very enthusiastic as well. This activity was a good fit for him as he had a solid amount of confidence built up from the last activity he had done. He wasn’t doing it to improve his Knowledge, instead he was trying to improve his Know-How. Let’s stay engaged and be sure to keep turning in any artifacts that you produce that show evidence of your learning.

November 16

Cendy’s Effort

Recently, Cendy came to me and shared some work she had completed for school. Cendy created the reading log pictured below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The log has a date column for when she read books, the title of the books, author, pages she read and a category for E (Easy), JR (Just Right) and CH (Challenging). Most importantly she has a goal. When she showed me this I was very excited. Why? I never asked her to complete one. Cendy has taken ownership of her learning at a very high level. I talked to Cendy about this and she explained that she wanted to get some feedback. So, I thought let’s ask our blog readers to give some input.

What feedback would you give Cendy to improve her reading log, or to make it more interesting?

October 16

Brian’s Effort

Recently, I was given a piece of work from a student in our class. He wasn’t asked to do it. This impressed me because it’s clear evidence that he’s trying to understand what he’s learning. It’s what you can do if you’re highly motivated and trying to understand something beyond Know-How. This student is on his way towards gaining Wisdom! Remember that at this level of learning you become a teacher of what you know. You can apply it at the highest level. Good job Brian and thanks for letting me share your work.

September 17

Effort

Recently, we’ve been discussing what it would be like to achieve the highest quality art project, creative story, dance performance, math assignment, soccer game, etc…. Last week I discussed this idea further by asking students to reflect on the journey to achieve high quality.

I think this story I’m sharing with you today really helps us to understand what this journey involves.

Dipsea is a race that is very well known across the country for its rich history. The race covers 7.4 miles. It’s the oldest trail race in the US. Dipsea is not the most difficult running race in the world; however, it is treacherous and very challenging. Many racers have become injured while racing on the course which starts at sea level and rises to 1360 feet and descends back to sea level. Different points along the course have telling names like Cardiac, Insult Hill and Dynamite.  The following video gives you a tour of the race course. Please be advised that there is 1 inappropriate word used at the very ending of this video. I’m showing the video to help you understand how challenging our journey towards high quality can be.

At this point, ask yourself “Would you enter this race? Why? Why not?

An 8 year old girl entered this race last year in 2010 and won.  Here’s more on the story of Reilly Johnson.

What do you think it took for her to be able to accomplish such greatness?
Was it easy?
What did she do to stay motivated?