Category Archives: teach
all things related to teaching
Are schools interfering with children’s education
I just watched this video made by a recent university dropout that makes some very good points about the current reality in education; that it is sorely lagging behind the fast-paced changing world our digital natives are born into.
Earlier today I also enjoyed a conversation with an outside consultant in which he confided to me that even though he is into selling high-tech stuff to schools, when it comes to finding a school for his 19-month old son he is looking at the values of the school before anything else. He feels too many schools now-a-days promote a big campus, tech-equipped classrooms, multimedia library centers, and ample playing fields before the offer the core values that drive their educational philosophy. I feel fortunate that I am currently at a school where technology, a shiny campus and large playing fields are not at the core of what we do. I strongly believe we have one of the best Elementary School leaders there is. These, after all, are the most important years for soon-to-be leaders of the world. Our Middle and High School students are teenagers who enjoy a rather free environment where there are in charge of their own time, and though there is discipline, they are allowed to make mistakes and given the opportunity to learn from them.
Kids in school on Saturday!
Here I am, sitting at my desk on a perfect Saturday morning waiting for a group of student to finish shooting a short film they are making to compete in a 48hr competition online. It is such a great way to spend a Saturday, seriously!
These kids are fantastic, enthusiastic and totally given to the project. Sure, they have no script, not much of an idea of how to operate the equipment, nor much of a crew – only 3 of them because the other 3 or 4 managed to get themselves grounded last night – but they are committed to finishing a 3minute short within 48hrs. This is what I love about video in the classroom. Even though many of the students in school who work on videos are not my actual Digital Moviemaking students, the word gets around that we have decent equipment for them to use and they gravitate towards my neck of the woods.
Once kids have an interest – and if they are in school on a weekend they sure have an interest – the rest is easy. Teaching them how to operate complicated equipment, how to deal with editing issues using post-production effects, or how to make better audio for their projects is simple when they are actually paying attention. When students get together to create video projects they employ all the good stuff employers are looking for these days; group work, leadership, good communication, [some] planning, troubleshooting, quick-problem-solving, creativity, imagination. As long as they are interested I watch as they develop these skills all on their own….I’m there to guide the process, but they get to do all the work. It’s a joy really!
Check out what Dimitris and company churned out in 48hrs:
My students have an A+
Even before stepping into my classroom, my students already have an A+ as a grade. It is up each of them to maintain that A+.
The way I see it, in the Middle/High School years, very little academic content motivates students more than their social life. At that age, a day can be the single worse or the single best day of their lives. What they learned in math or science on any given day is overshadowed by what their best friend said or did, or even what that special someone posted on their Facebook profile that morning. Each student’s relationship/status with their own circle of friends is above anything else.
I am not claiming students don’t learn. They do. It’s just that there are other more important things going on in their lives that trump any academic information we try to give them. This is where is gets really easy for me. Students come into a computer lab hungry for information, one they can use to get better at their social “job/life”. Teaching Communications Media in the Middle School, I get to walk them through how to create graphics, publish information via their own website, and how to create voice/video recordings they can then share to the world via YouTube or Vimeo or their own website. In the Digital Moviemaking class in the High School, students learn about making movies, creating stories and how to interpret composition in still images as well as images in motion. These two classes that I teach already engage the student even before I say one word. They are hungry to know more. This I take advantage of!
This is why my students have an A+ when they come into my classroom. They walk into my class with intense interest and motivation. They are willing to make really incredible mistakes during the first few weeks, and their work gets better as time moves on. They work on the creative as well as the technical, simultaneously and interchangeably. They stick to deadlines, they write, they edit, they manage themselves, they find ways to move the story forward even if one whole scene must be taken out during post production. They make decisions, they mess up, they ask questions, and go right back to make it better. I sit back and I enjoy!
