Ingredients by Elicia

Curiosity- if the kids don’t want to learn more about something, there will be no reason for them to engage. Sometimes it’s the teacher’s job to discover what they are curious about and other times the teacher’s task is to provide the support for the students to guide their own curiosity. There is no active learning if there is no curiosity.

safety/support- I think that creating a community where all students have the right and responsibility to speak and to take risks in a safe environment is absolutely vital to allowing children to become active learners. If a child can risk asking a question then they can risk learning something new.

stuff- I know this is broad, and maybe a bit one-sided. I’m thinking of classrooms I’ve read about where the students sit on the ground in the open air and have no books, no chalkboard, no pencils or slates. I am not sure that an active learning classroom environment can occur without some stuff. That stuff can be plants and wildlife to observe, clouds and weather patterns to observe, books, or maybe even each other.  What I mean by this is that learning in a sterile, white box with homogenous uncomfortable desks and nothing to relieve the eye or spark curiosity will result, at best, in a passive learning environment.

Fluidity- Fluidity means that everyone in the classroom can take on different roles as appropriate. For instance, the teacher can become a learner when the whole class is studying something new. A student can become the teacher when she presents on a topic that she is intimately familiar with. A parent can become a teacher, an aide can become a learner, and the roles can flow and change. The fixed notion that the teacher is the Teacher and the student just needs to learn from them is a good way to dissuade anyone from learning.

Responsibility-I truly believe that all students want to be seen as responsible. A sense of responsibility can be created in all sorts of ways (assigning tasks is probably the most common) but the payoffs of believing oneself to be responsible are huge. Increased self-reliance, increased self-esteem, and in fact a sense of self are all the results of feeling responsible. There is also the idea of being responsible to oneself, to the classroom, to each other, and to the community at large.
However, a teacher must be careful to ensure that the responsibilities placed on her students are developmentally appropriate. To me, this ties in very well with Vygotsky’s idea of the ZPD-knowing how much responsibility can Jane handle? What does she need to help her achieve that?

I believe children need to be trusted. Part of the act of trusting is listening to them and asking them questions. Part of trusting is also reacting honestly to what you hear. If a teacher trusts her children (beyond the “trust” of going to the workroom to get supplies unaccompanied) she believes in their inherent goodness. I also believe that trusting a child results in better learning, better behavior, and better self-esteem.

I believe teachers should stop making stupid, arrogant, and racist assumptions about their students. Several times in the past two weeks I’ve come across statements such as “Yet we are led to believe that inner-city, urban students of color have little or no interest in science.” In the my literature circle book, four bilingual, extremely well-educated, progressive teachers go through a process that transforms their thinking about students and their learning capabilities. They had made assumptions about their primarily working-class US-Mexican students and had them debunked. Why do even these progressive teachers have preconceived notions about their kids that are harmful to a learning environment?
Please don’t think I’m off the hook here, though. My own assumptions are probably just as biases and I don’t even know they exist. I can’t stand, however, the idea of “authorities” or more experienced teachers, or anyone really, telling me that African American/Eastern European/Latino/insert-race-here kids can’t excel. Didn’t anyone see Stand and Deliver???

I believe schools should...
This is tough for me. I know I’m choosing to go into the schools, and so I really ought to have an idea of what they ought to do. But I’m torn. The idea that schools in this country originated to help kids develop a certain moral attitude as well as create a docile workforce makes me ill. But let me try again.
I believe schools should teach students how to think critically, not what they should be thinking about. (Thanks Dad!) It’s important to me to believe that people who think critically about our society, our government, and our ecosystem will make positive changes that will directly affect the well-being of all people. If kids can be taught to question the idea that food comes wrapped in plastic and labeled as “foodstuff” or “cheese product”, perhaps the value of actual food will rise.