The times that I have spent the most alive as a learner are when I have been an active participant, actually 'seeing' the things that I have learned about. I was inspired to be a history major in college by time that I spent in concentration camps in Poland and Germany-- really feeling the atmosphere, taking it all in, etc. Back in the US, for me, this meant going to the US Holocaust Museum in DC on a regular basis--- I needed to actually see pictures and experience the subject matter more deeply in order to stay grounded in it and reprioritize my learning again. I wrote a my undergrad thesis on a Holocaust-related topic, and spent many hours pouring through research articles, documents from the post-war trials, and so on. I often had to remind myself to put what I was reading into the context of what I had seen with my own eyes, to make it real. I feel like this can be very much the case with the learning that our own students do... if they can't relate what they are learning to their own life, and if they do not find it personally applicable, it's much easier to forget what they have learned and just move forward. We need to provide them with a context in which to file the information and knowledge that they have gained, to answer that question of 'Why am I learning this?'
This quote made me think a lot about those experiences I had in the camps-- and the fact that, in those times, I really did feel that I was 'living more fully than during the rest of life'. Because of the subject matter, it was not a particularly happy feeling of being 'alive' but it was a very real, strong feeling. There's something about an experience of that depth and intensity that really gives you a new appreciation for the things you are learning in a lecture, in a classroom, in another time and place. It was a very humbling experience and I consider myself fortunate to have been able to experience learning in such a hands-on way.
2 comments:
I enjoyed reading your post and I definitely agree with you that one of the most important parts of developing the flow and the passion is having the hands-on experience and being able to confront the material directly. I think that your having the "rainforest experts" call in to your class was a great way to bring the material to them in a very real way. How did you get your students to care about their UbD topics, or was it something that they were just naturally interested in? I feel like for my UbD unit on animals, most of the kids were happy to learn about it anyway. How do you think you're going to continue this level of engagement with the material for your next UbD unit? I would appreciate your input.
I think that you had an amazing experience by being able to see for yourself places where most of us only get to read about in books, and being able to connect research with the real place must have been unbelievable for you. I love history too, and whenever I have been to a place where I have read about or that is historical it always makes the experience and the learning you take away that much more powerful.
I like Claire's comment about the rainforest and the Ubd unit because I imagine this is quite a task to bring the rainforest to your first graders. Giving them as much as you can through visuals because I am sure there are probably no first graders we have who have been in the rainforest themselves. When I was that age, I had not had that experience not until I was 18 and went on a trip to a jungle area in southern Mexico did I even realize what a rainforest really might be. To my knowledge of what the Spartans and Highlanders tell me they learned a lot from you about animals and plants, and you have given them a lot of information for any future time that they will be faced with animals or the rainforest. Their prior knowledge before the unit was probably extremely limited and now you played a role in filling that with some backgtound information and knowledge. Now they have some idea about what it is and what lives there and they can go forward and continue to put more and more input. I think that is great that we as teachers can give them knowledge about the world even if they never step foot inside of a rainforest. I would be interested to see how you present the next science unit about stages of matter as I would imagine this one is going to be difficult too. I remember my first grade teacher did a little experiment that I still remember to this day. She set out a bowl of water and I remember being so excited to see the bowl of water each day and watching it disappear! That was 33 years ago, but I still remember that and being totally fascinated by it. It is one thing to read about something, but it is quite another to actually see it with your own eyes!
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