Why Should We Let Our Students TEACH US?
'Our Students Can Teach Us' is a project inspired by a lesson based around the idea of how we can 'make life count'.
At the end of the lesson I asked my students to create their own proverb on what they think is important in life. The students were given no rules, they could write anything they like and, for homework, they were asked to choose a background for their proverb. We then put the two together in the following class. Suffice to say I was blown away by the maturity and thoughtfulness of both the proverbs and related backgrounds they chose.
At the end of class a couple of my students came to me to tell me how worthwhile they thought the project was, and how much they appreciated being given an opportunity to express themselves. Hearing this made me realise just how few opportunities students are given to really express how they feel about the world, that in this school culture we've created based on continuous assessment and scores we forget what amazing young minds our students have and how much we can learn from them.
My students very bravely agreed to share their work in the hope that by doing so it might encourage other educational institutions to give their students more opportunities to share how they feel about life, to take a small step back from the rigorous systems of assessment and encourage both creative and critical thinking.
We spend so much time telling our students what they should be thinking, why not give a chance for them to teach us a thing or two?
At the end of the lesson I asked my students to create their own proverb on what they think is important in life. The students were given no rules, they could write anything they like and, for homework, they were asked to choose a background for their proverb. We then put the two together in the following class. Suffice to say I was blown away by the maturity and thoughtfulness of both the proverbs and related backgrounds they chose.
At the end of class a couple of my students came to me to tell me how worthwhile they thought the project was, and how much they appreciated being given an opportunity to express themselves. Hearing this made me realise just how few opportunities students are given to really express how they feel about the world, that in this school culture we've created based on continuous assessment and scores we forget what amazing young minds our students have and how much we can learn from them.
My students very bravely agreed to share their work in the hope that by doing so it might encourage other educational institutions to give their students more opportunities to share how they feel about life, to take a small step back from the rigorous systems of assessment and encourage both creative and critical thinking.
We spend so much time telling our students what they should be thinking, why not give a chance for them to teach us a thing or two?