Elephants in the (Class)room

Our second blog writing this week was on the article entitled, 9 Elephants in the (Class)room That Should “Unsettle” Us by Will Richardson. In this article, Richardson states that there are nine “elephants” that go on in our classrooms that should raise some attention. There were two that caught my attention that I want to share.

The first elephant in the classroom is, “We know that most of our students will forget  most of the content that they “learn” in school.”  It was stated in the article that only a small amount of information that is taught to our students is retained year after year of learning. This is because the curriculum and the experiences children have in school have little or no connection to the students, in addition, our focus has been on assessments and grades.  How can we change this was my first reaction? How can we make learning more meaningful so students retain what they learn? I think that this could be changed by several ideas. One, if teachers make connections to students with what they have an interest in. For example, if a student likes a certain sport, if the teacher would connect sports with his math, the student may like math more or remember the concept that you are trying to teach. Or, if you are teaching math again and teaching fractions, why not create a recipe and make cookies to teach fractions.  Another idea as we all created this semester was an Independent Learning Project. I think that this is an excellent way to make connections and extend curiosity in learning. I can remember the best lessons that my teachers taught me when they related a concept that I had an interest in and the concepts stuck in my brain longer.

The second elephant that caught my attention was, “We know that most of our students are bored and disengaged in school.” I was shocked to read that according to the article, that only 32% of high school juniors reported that they were “involved and enthusiastic about school” and only “17% said that they have fun in school!” WOW! What happened to the days of having fun in school? I know that times have changed, even since the time I was in elementary school compared to my children in school. Kids today can not experience the “fun” we did and I am sure that our parents would have said the same about us. My girls do not get to have “Halloween or Christmas Parties” like I did, but I think schools should experience celebrations and not always be worried about meeting the learning goals. All in all,  I think that students do need to have fun. It would make school more enjoyable and it makes me wonder if kid would retain more.