Swimming against the current: how great innovators are born

In my subconscious, I always felt that to really become good at you are doing, sometime or another, you had to stand up to the establishment. Take the example of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Galilei championed the heliocentric model (the Earth revolving around the Sun), he went against the most powerful establishment at that time, the Catholic church, went to trial and was found heretical. He spent the remainder of his life under house arrest.

On top of being an astronomer, a physicist, an engineer and mathematician, Galilei was also a philosopher. I believe that he represented both sides of the coin: the scientific side and the artistic side, which allowed him to really test the limits of his time.

Let’s come back to the 20th century and the life of Steve Jobs. Needless to mention, he is considered as one of the greatest minds of this century. The success of Apple came from his genius brain but also from his artistic and sensitive soul. He dropped out of college and traveled to India to study Zen Buddhism.

I could give many more examples of how true pioneers and innovators are in touch with their artistic side. We should go back to the examples in history and be certain that humanities compliment, or rather, are one of the essential blocks of our education. That is, if we want to produce thinkers and really good swimmers who can take on the greatest currents and never deviate from the right path.

Raising of critical thinkers: it is harder than it looks

This week’s readings about critical pedagogy may prompt some of you to apply those teachings in your current and future classrooms. Except that I have been trying to raise my kids to be critical thinkers and it is harder than it looks.

I always try to make time to explain to my kids every thing that I am doing, why I am doing it and what would happen if I don’t do it. I  try to give them the choice of doing something or not doing it. I  travel as much as possible with them, widening their views on existing cultures so they can question how the world works and start a dialogue. Most of all, I respect the choices they make and their individuality.

I cannot begin to articulate how challenging and tiring that way is.  My oldest (six and a half) has developed a keen sense of logic and sometimes his arguments make more sense than mine and I have to adhere to his requests. And my younger one (there and a half) is completely independent, he wants to do everything himself and sometimes wants to make decisions for us.

On days when I am not completely overwhelmed, I can appreciate that I am raising critical thinkers who will not take matters at face value but rather question and validate their choices. But, on the other hand, it takes so much work and time to keep up with them, being the guide rather than the enforcer of rules.

Needless to say, I appreciate Freire’s approach to education and rejecting the “banking system” and all it takes is a conscientious shift on our behalf from automated teaching/learning to eternal seekers and givers of knowledge.

Diversity: the last unfinished business

The first step towards winning the fight with diversity is to acknowledge that we are still not in accord that diversity is still an issue in society.

One way to remedy that problem is to encourage the burgeoning of diverse groups on campuses and just having students feel included somewhere. It makes all the difference in the world.

Dr. Marilyn Sanders says it best in her TEDx talk.

What students want from teachers

When a teacher feels at ease and comfortable in class, he/she will be able to deliver lectures with more and lectures will be received with more interest.

“The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.” Lilly Walters

But let’s ask ourselves what students expect from their teachers in order to get educated. Educational Leadership asked this question back in 2008 and this is some of the answers they got back:

  1. To take them seriously
  2. To challenge them to think
  3. To nurture their self-respect
  4. To show them how they can make a difference
  5. To encourage them to try things their way
  6. To point them towards their goals
  7. To make them feel appreciated
  8. To tap their creativity and,
  9. To bring out their best self

I get dizzy just by looking at the number of “demands” from students. How in the world am I going to meet their expectations? I barely have a handle on my expectations from them.

Well, it turns out that when I tune my expectations to their expectations coupled with my understanding and ease of the subject I am teaching, teaching them is not so difficult after all. They want to feel heard, acknowledged and respected. They want me to be their guide on a learning journey but they want to do the discovering on their own. I want to fulfill their needs as best as I can, that’s when the magic happens.

 

Guilty as charged

Okay, I confess. Yes, I am guilty of having played video games sometimes even pulling all-nighters. Yes, I am also guilty of having read books until the early lights of dawn, catching a couple hours of sleep and then heading to school. Yes, I am also guilty of having enjoyed most of my classes at school and have actually enjoyed learning.

I am a product of the nineties. We didn’t have free access to the internet, and knowledge was not as readily at our fingertips as it is today. When we needed to look up a subject, we needed to hit the library and read through encyclopedias. Fun times (NOT!). But one thing was instilled in me when I was very young,a passion for learning. I don’t remember how or why that came to happen but I grew up to be a curious person. My motto in life is “knowledge is power”. I try to learn about anything and everything. And that has become so much easier now with the technological revolution.

So, I think what the digital age can help kids acquire is a passion for knowledge by opening up imaginary worlds, yes even by using ipads and playing video games. Once your imagination is stimulated, that’s when you really start mindfully learning and enjoying it. The digital world does just that, it stimulates us. It sucks us into this imaginary whirlpool of possibilities and, most of the time, we are much better humans for it.

 

 

Bye bye grades, hello chaos

I am a firm believer that grades do not accurately reflect the knowledge of a student regarding a certain subject. They certainly do not tell the whole story.

BUT, grades are an indicator of the level of the student. Just like when the doctor is looking at the test result of a patient, the blood sugar level is not the only indicator of good or bad health but rather one of many others.

Grades serve the exact same function. When assessing the “health” of a student in a certain subject, grades should be accompanied with a thorough assessment from the teacher. A combination of both those indicators could be closer to assessing a student’s ability, but not one without the other. This will make the teacher’s life harder but, in the long run, produce better quality learning and teaching.