What do students want?

thank you for visiting my blog. i like yours very much, it's very interesting and useful for me as a parent, i will add in my preferite...

"i think most children in a learning relationship do have an opinion about what they want from their teacher/parent *in that learning relationship*."

I was taking the idea very broadly, and applying it across the board in my ongoing relationship with my students / kids. I was thinking about the variety of ways that I impose my goals and desires on them, and was challenged to think about what THEY might want. It is interesting as both teacher / students AND and mom /children, the learning relationship and the living relationship edges blur and intermingle somewhat with home education.

My analogy to "candy for breakfast" was not meant to cast aspersions on child-led learning. Far from it. I was thinking out loud about how to respond with gentle direction when what the student / child WANTS seems to be more bad than good for that child.

for example:

J has insightful ideas, and makes creative, interesting connections between ideas and subjects that are thrilling to discover. But he dislikes writing - and I have not aggressively pushed him to improve, only praised and encouraged his efforts and attempted to inspire him to want to write his ideas down on paper. But he doesn't want to, and it has been like pulling teeth to get him to do so, so now what we have neglected because of his lack of desire is seriously limiting him in his ability to express his ideas in a way that lasts beyond the conversation of the moment.

Written down (like those wonderful Art History Journal pages showed us) the ideas and the discovery and the process can be captured, relived, and used as a springboard for further investigation. But ideas are lost when they are not preserved. And J's ideas are often lost because he does not WANT to write them down.

So that's the candy in the analogy - choosing what you WANT (not writing) at the expense of the good (writing for reading and communicating later.) The candy is the "want" that has dubious benefit down the road.

I guess I was exploring where I must step in and direct (please write something down about this really cool thing you just learned so we can enjoy it again later, or you can show daddy, etc.) and where I can step back and allow their desires to direct (he asked to type instead - and so that's what we do now.).

I am more and more convinced that inquiry based learning is the best approach for true learning. I am merely trying to determine when I need to put my apron on and serve up some tasty AND nutritious breakfast to lure them away from the candy they want right at that moment.

This discussion has really made me think...

When we were working on the art history journals- the boys were totally engaged on what they were doing. They were reading about da Vinci's designs for giant catapults and studying his drawings of skeletons. They took notes about what they thought might be important- not what I said was important. They needed notes to create their journal (which also included watercolors, charcoal drawings, scratchboards). More than anything, they were making these journals for themselves- and wanted to teach and show others. It was the engagement in the subject matter that drove their desire to read, study, write, and draw.

Generally, I would choose the artist of study- beginning with da Vinci because I knew that his drawings and mirrored writing etc. would be of interest to the class. Da Vinci was easy- there are so many books and resources. Other artists- I wasn't so sure what would catch the attention- like Picasso's Guernica. Which led them into discussions about the Nazis and war. Or Ansel Adams which led to environmental discussions. All of this happened because they cared about it- and I did my best to fan the flame.