Hello everyone! This is not my response to the reading for Module 3 (although I am working to complete the articles and intend to post again before the end of the day, so stay tuned!). I am adding an extra entry here to discuss an experience I am having this week that I think really speaks to our discussions of motivation and isntruction.
This week I am participating in a humanities seminar for high school teachers at Colgate University. The description (from the seminar poster sent to local high schools) is as follows:
"The guiding theme of Plato’s Republic is that we can learn about
the human soul by comparing it to an ideal city-state. At the same
time, Plato envisions a rigorous system of education for the children
of his ideal state that will shape their souls so that they are suited
to sustain that state. In this seminar, we will explore Plato’s controversial
views on education and social organization. We will also
consider challenges to those views in writings by Montaigne and
Rousseau. In addition, we will investigate the entwining of king and
state in Shakespeare’s Richard II, and the challenge of education
and self-development in a contemporary theocracy in the memoir
Reading Lolita in Tehran.
We will meet for intensive discussion of these works for four hours
each day. The workshop is open to all high school and middle
school teachers. Enrollment is limited to fifteen participants, to
allow ample opportunity for discussion. Thanks to generous
support from Colgate’s Division of the Humanities, the Upstate
Institute, the Dean of the Faculty, and individual departments in
the humanities, there is no charge for participants."
This was a free seminar offered to middle and high school teachers. We were supplied with the books being studied, treated to lunch on campus, given time to meditate and converse (1.5 hour lunchtimes!), and regarded with the utmost collegiate respect by talented faculty. Aside from coming prepared with the readings, there has been no assessment - no collection of written responses to be graded, no expectation of a final project to be implemented. I'm completing a learning experience that contradicts almost every characteristic of supposed successful schooling... and yet I'm having one of the most enlightening, most intrinsically gratifying intellectual experiences of my career.
Now, there could be several reasons for this that have nothing to do with the educational design, but instead are really more about me as the learner (for example, my own learner history, my own patterns of attribution). But I think that there's something at work here that desperately needs examination. Yesterday's conversation of Montaigne's essay "On Education" led to a discussion of the true joy inherent in the act/art of learning, and I am reminded of the work we're doing in this class. If I followed the discourse properly, then it seems that Montaigne argued for a type of instruction that made learning - dare I say it - fun.
As I begin my doctoral work and consider the various avenues available for research and exploration, I continue to revisit these same ideas: reading, learning, motivation, inquiry, self-direction, literacy, curiosity... it may sound simplistic, but what I really want to know is this: why can't learning in high school be fun? Why does the word "fun" have to be so immediately equated with "simplistic?" Why can't we create classrooms where the act/art of learning is joyous, not in spite of but because it's challenging, uncomfortable and empowering?
A few months ago I had a powerful experience: I went to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. If you haven't been, drop everything and go immediately. It's a children's museum that pays tribute to the imagination and the stages of childhood development, but I think it holds a special appeal for educators at all levels. And I think it may be informing my research in its infancy - why can't we look at secondary instruction as we do elementary instruction, as a manifestation of the relationship between learning and play, too? Personally, I think I'm on to something here... :)
So what is the connection here - why this additional post? I'm having fun, so I'm motivated to share about my experience, and my enthusiasm is (I hope) infectious. Maybe you can take the workshop with me next year!
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI am definitely agree with you. Actually we had a discussion about this issue with my wife at last weak. She is a high school teacher, and I asked her that why are their daily school plans are sooooo boring, why did not they utilize fun activities at their classrooms(since as an elementary school teacher, i love to play and do something else than sitting and studying).
She and most of the other high school teachers believes that high school students tend to misuse these types of activities. She claims that they are using most of these activities talking about everything but the learning for content.
I have never taught a classroom at high school level, and I have not had a problem like this in elementary classrooms. As a student (I wasn't a good student), I remember that I have used every opportunity to disrupt classroom (learning
) environment :). Overall, I believe this is a motivational problem (as you mentioned), and I would love hear good solutions about it.
Best
Osman CIL
Hi sarah,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing. The workshop is a perfect example of what we would hope learning is about. People do it because they are intrinsically motivated to do so. What we should hope, as educators, is that people coming out of school systems should want to engage in learning experiences like this because they see it as valuable and fun.
On engaging students in classes in fun manner. What I often hear is that if teachers used engaging activities, they wouldn't have time to cover the content. This is essentially what Osman's comment is suggesting; if content isn't covered (talked about or mentioned) in class, students won't learn it. Why is that? (of course there are many reasons, Denise hinted at some on her post for Mod 3, speaking to those students who become over committed. But for the students who don't do that--like the ones Ramon commented on in his response to Denise's post--are they motivated to investigate on their own? (I am sure some are. I was a student like that.)
BUT-- to encourage this behavoir in students means created classroom instruction that encourages them to be more intrinsically motivated to learn. The classroom experience could include the 'hook' to get them to persist in their desire to learn more outside of class, as well as teaching them the strategies they can use to become more efficient and effective learners.
Now, that is easier said than done. As all of you who teach in classrooms know, there are all those classroom management issues that get in the way. I did a 1.5 hr workshop with eighteen (so a small grp) 13-18yos. We had two of us, with the other person managing disruptive behavoir. I planned activities that got the kids moving around. It did involve having to get flip chart post-it paper, putting the question on each one, and they had to go and respond to each. Once they started that activity, by and large they were engaged. Sure they talked bit about other stuff as they moved about, but they also all did respond on the charts, and almost everyone engaged in the discussion, even kids who often say nothing. The one advantage we had was 2 ppl. (Bcz yes, with this grp there were some instances of behavoir that had to be addressed as they moved between the charts.)