Bird Droppings June 7, 2011
Annuals or Perennials

“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” Peter Drucker

I have read so many times that education should be about teaching life long learners. Sadly as we walk to the front of the classroom as a teacher we are more concerned about the standardized test coming up and cramming all the material into that students head in time. We as teachers perhaps forget the life long part in favor of teaching to the specific test we have that month. AS I am researching on the Foxfire Approach to teaching I came upon a school where the entire school kindergarten through fifth grade is taught in a Foxfire manner. Interestingly enough they exceed the state of North Carolina’s state average scores in every test category and are first or second in every category in their district.
Beyond that school district I have been in contact with many Foxfire students from the early 1970’s and all so far have had fond memories of lessons they learned nearly forty years ago. I can barely remember my teachers let alone lessons. As I thought about this I recalled one of the Foxfire core practices.

“Connections between the classroom work, the surrounding communities, and the world beyond the community are clear.” Foxfire Core Practice

Add to this a long day driving up and back to Mountain City and The Foxfire property and I am looking forward to repotting many plants tomorrow that I had sprigged or had taken cuttings from parent plants and a thought crossed my mind. Do we want students who are annuals or perennials?

“Learning is not attained by chance; it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” Abigail Adams 1744-1818

As I was work with my garden and plants some are annuals for example the various basils that I have in my herb garden at first frost are finished. However I have quite a few plants that stay green all year and some that die back till spring is here and regrow from their roots. Education seemed all explained within the various different plants I that I have been working with. Some methods of education are like basil an annual, only one season and it is gone, the teaching to a test that we hear about and is going on daily in school across America. Some education is more like those plants that die back in the winter and come back from the roots often a better and stronger plant. But there are a few teachers who teach with such passion that learning that it becomes a constant for their students.

“Good teaching is showing and that’s what lasts. That’s the big question: How do you teach in a way that lasts?” Dr. Donald Graves, Professor, University of New Hampshire

I have often wondered about how we teach in a way that inspires learning and inspires students to want to become life long learners. Going back to my Foxfire research and Core Practices, “The work is characterized by active learning.” It is learning through experience that provides a focus for Foxfire teaching and in effect for good teachers. A good teacher provides relevance to the learning and teaching going on.

“Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connectedness among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves.” Alfie Kohn

“Howard Gardner has a nice line: he says if we ask our kids what they did in school today and they reply “Nothing,” they’re probably right. They didn’t do anything because traditional schooling is “done to students.” Alfie Kohn

“Looking at the long-term impact of traditional teaching and the push for Tougher Standards, then we are finally left with Dewey’s timeless and troubling question: ‘What avail is it to win ability to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul.’” Alfie Kohn

I go back to my plant comparison as I was thinking earlier and how it takes about the same effort to grow an annual as a perennial plant. In teaching it is about the same we can teach in a manner that is lasting or one that is only for the moment the test at hand.

“John Dewey reminded us that the goal of education is more education. To be well educated then is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure the learning never ends.” Alfie Kohn

I will be repotting perhaps thirty plants tomorrow and all are perennials and I do have few seedlings that are annuals I will be working with as well. The potting soil will come from the same bag and will be equal in measurement. The containers will be all the same. My hands will get just as dirty with one as the other. How do we get students beyond the moment in their learning?

“The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?” Albert Einstein

I have used this quote from Einstein many times over the years and have it hanging on my wall at school and yet every time I read it I am struck again how can I be that potent teacher. Listening to students remembering bits and pieces of classes of mine even from summer school where one summer we labeled and tagged all the trees on campus and learned scientific and common names sort of hit home. There was relevance to them as we walked around the campus identifying trees. It was not on the standardized test but every student who had failed Biology passed the final during that summer session and also knew nearly fifty different tress and shrubs.

“John Dewey reminded us that the value of what students do ‘resides in its connection with the stimulation of greater thoughtfulness, not in the greater strain it imposes.’” Alfie Kohn

It is about providing that connection and giving the student a reason for what it is that is being taught not simply because it is in the state standards and required to know for a test imposed by state and federal law.

“Many classroom teachers asked to specify their long term goals for students instantly responded with the phrase Life long learners.” Alfie Kohn

I would like to believe much like the Foxfire students that I have had communication with this week my students from over the years will remember bits and pieces I have shared and taught. One in particular comes to mind as I close out this evening writing. Please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
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