Week 11 - Reflection on Reflection

Beth,
I had a vivid mental image of the feather frenzy in your room. Feathers rank right up there in a category close to glitter for me. I use them, but days later find that students are still distracted by the tiny little barbs that seem to float through the room for days on end.

I seem to recall that your district was requiring some serious integration of images and core curriculum content. Was this image one of them, just out of curiosity?

I have been trying to read 'Why Are School Buses Always Yellow? Teaching for Inquiry, Pre-K-5' by John Barell. (Unfortunately, this reading takes place in my free time, which is non-existent, sigh...maybe this summer...) It's all about the process of "...help(ing) students pose significant questions about the content they are studying." (p4) I'm not sure that it addresses all of your questions, but I suspect you might enjoy Barel's take on inquiry.

Reflection
I loved reading the questions and responses of Beth's kindergarten students and I appreciate the questions that she has generated about the process of questioning. One of her questions ,"Do questioning strategies follow stage development?" is right in line with something I seem to be asking myself all of the time - how does this relate to stage development? I find myself wanting to know more about stage development. I find myself wondering if we do a disservice to students by limiting what we are willing to put out there, thinking that they won't get it, that they aren't theoretically ready for it. (Case in point, my VTS lesson this week.) Has technology affected Erikson's stages of psychosocial development?

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Response to Karen's reflection Week 9

ARGH! I just crafted a long and thoughtful response to your response and accidentally deleted it while attempting to publish it. Experience has taught me that my second response will be briefer and far less witty. (After two attempts, don't worry, I wised up and copied after deleting the first response - Karen, I can't respond on your blog. It just deletes, maybe a setting issue?)

 

Let me start out by saying that I've always prided myself on being "out there." I'm naturally attracted to others who are also "out there". Peregrine Honig claims that she can immediately identify a person who is a twin. I think I'm gifted in identifying my own kind...for whatever that's worth. LOL

 

Yesterday I ate lunch by myself in a restaurant, kind of unusual for me, and I found myself thinking the exact same thoughts that you describe. I'm in the middle of a unit on identity with my first grade students. I want them to begin thinking about the experiences that contribute to the fact that humans are unique and special. I sat in Panera, listening to snippets of ambient conversation, wondering what more I can do to foster the understanding that "every individual is an ocean of experience," since it's something I have to force my much older, and hopefully much wiser-self, to do. Is it just a seed that I plant in the mind of a seven year old, or could I do more? These are the kinds of questions that keep me awake at night.

 

 

My Reflection or Adding to the questions...

Okay, so technically, this is a reflection on a reflection on a reflection...strange to put in writing, but completely normal in the course of dialog. I find it interesting that I am back at square one with my response to both Karen and Beth. How does stage development come into play? Ask anyone who has ever experienced a baby crying in response to hearing another baby cry and I think it's plain to see that humans are inborn with a degree of empathy. How do we get so wrapped up in ourselves that we turn a deaf ear to the cries of others? When does that happen? Is it the same in every culture? How has it changed over time?


And some people think art class is about making pretty stuff to hang on the walls...