> they sometimes have to be guided to a decision. > (Or… light bulb comes on… do they?)
Ithaca NY was a very progressive town when I lived there 30-40 years ago. The public school system set up an alternative grade school for kids who did not do well in regular school. No dress codes. No codes about hair length of "gender appropriateness". I knew a gal who was a teacher there. Rather than many different discrete "subjects" her "projects" lasted for months, and dealt with many different "subjects" all locked into the projects. She found that by teaching material in an interconnected way that her kids rarely lost attention. Sometimes they wanted to continue class during lunch hour because they were hungry to learn more. Class was fun for them.
She was teaching US geography when I got an earful of what she was up to. The class project was to design a cross country motorcycle trek thru the US. The kids knew the motorcycle part was a fiction, and they would not get to go anywhere, but it grabbed their attention. What little kid would not leap on that sort of fiction?
First, kids did research and presented reports to the class which showed all the neat things one could see in various places. Then the class became an open discussion group where they pared the list of possible places down to a manageable handful. Then the class was guided in deciding their route to include all the items on the list, with the possibility to add in some of the places which had not made the final list, if they could be added without going too far out of the way. Kids learning to reach a group consensus while having fun was a spiffy combo for her to be guiding.
Lots of work with road atlases. They broke into 6 small small groups, each one taking a different leg of the journey. The groups then reported back to the class for general discussion.
Then came the math part. The class had to figure out how many miles between overnight camping spots. They needed to compute how much gasoline they would need, how to make a budget for meals, gas, tolls, etc.
Then they were assigned the task of learning about motorcycle maintenance. How to change oil. How to lube & grease. How to adjust the carburetor. Etc. Kids made after school field trips to motorcycle garages, read books from the library, talked with family members who owned or used to own bikes.
They then had to figure out how to pack lunches, how to make simple meals on a campfire each night, how to shop for foods without going over budget, etc.
When the project was completed, the teacher had a big surprise for the class. My friend Carl brought his big-ass motorcycle to the schoolyard. The class all went out to watch Carl drive around the yard. Then each kid got a turn riding with Carl in the schoolyard. They spent the entire day riding around in circles. Carl told me he got very dizzy going around and around the small schoolyard all day long, but the kids loved it.
At the end of the day, with the bike quite hot, the kids then helped Carl to check the oil, fill up the gas tank from a jerry can he had bought. One kid extracted the spark plugs, scrubbed them clean with a wire brush, the re-gapped them. Carl was dubious at first so he kept an eye on the kid. Carl told me he was impressed by the kid's expertise. I believe these kids were in fourth grade.
He brought the bike back the next day. The kids then washed and waxed his bike without assistance. Carl was impressed with the job they did.
As I wrote earlier, the alternative school was set up for troubled kids who tended to get into fights, not learn, and were in danger of flunking regular school. Many were poor black kids with family problems. As word of the school spread, many Cornell profs enrolled their kids in the school too. So the diversity in classes was great. All the kids prospered.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 09:07 pm (UTC)> (Or… light bulb comes on… do they?)
Ithaca NY was a very progressive town when I lived there 30-40 years ago. The public school system set up an alternative grade school for kids who did not do well in regular school. No dress codes. No codes about hair length of "gender appropriateness". I knew a gal who was a teacher there. Rather than many different discrete "subjects" her "projects" lasted for months, and dealt with many different "subjects" all locked into the projects. She found that by teaching material in an interconnected way that her kids rarely lost attention. Sometimes they wanted to continue class during lunch hour because they were hungry to learn more. Class was fun for them.
She was teaching US geography when I got an earful of what she was up to. The class project was to design a cross country motorcycle trek thru the US. The kids knew the motorcycle part was a fiction, and they would not get to go anywhere, but it grabbed their attention. What little kid would not leap on that sort of fiction?
First, kids did research and presented reports to the class which showed all the neat things one could see in various places. Then the class became an open discussion group where they pared the list of possible places down to a manageable handful. Then the class was guided in deciding their route to include all the items on the list, with the possibility to add in some of the places which had not made the final list, if they could be added without going too far out of the way. Kids learning to reach a group consensus while having fun was a spiffy combo for her to be guiding.
Lots of work with road atlases. They broke into 6 small small groups, each one taking a different leg of the journey. The groups then reported back to the class for general discussion.
Then came the math part. The class had to figure out how many miles between overnight camping spots. They needed to compute how much gasoline they would need, how to make a budget for meals, gas, tolls, etc.
Then they were assigned the task of learning about motorcycle maintenance. How to change oil. How to lube & grease. How to adjust the carburetor. Etc. Kids made after school field trips to motorcycle garages, read books from the library, talked with family members who owned or used to own bikes.
They then had to figure out how to pack lunches, how to make simple meals on a campfire each night, how to shop for foods without going over budget, etc.
When the project was completed, the teacher had a big surprise for the class. My friend Carl brought his big-ass motorcycle to the schoolyard. The class all went out to watch Carl drive around the yard. Then each kid got a turn riding with Carl in the schoolyard. They spent the entire day riding around in circles. Carl told me he got very dizzy going around and around the small schoolyard all day long, but the kids loved it.
At the end of the day, with the bike quite hot, the kids then helped Carl to check the oil, fill up the gas tank from a jerry can he had bought. One kid extracted the spark plugs, scrubbed them clean with a wire brush, the re-gapped them. Carl was dubious at first so he kept an eye on the kid. Carl told me he was impressed by the kid's expertise. I believe these kids were in fourth grade.
He brought the bike back the next day. The kids then washed and waxed his bike without assistance. Carl was impressed with the job they did.
As I wrote earlier, the alternative school was set up for troubled kids who tended to get into fights, not learn, and were in danger of flunking regular school. Many were poor black kids with family problems. As word of the school spread, many Cornell profs enrolled their kids in the school too. So the diversity in classes was great. All the kids prospered.