What's the Meaning of This?

Madeline Hunter's The Mastery of Teaching offers four techniques that make material meaningful, but I'd like to focus on the technique that I've personally seen to be extremely effective in the classroom: providing a function. "Providing a real function for the material to be learned also builds rationale and meaning for the student".

My girl, Maddy, couldn't be more accurate.  One of the most rewarding learning experiences I've had the pleasure of witnessing was watching a 10th grade journalism class create their school's first ever newspaper.  What began as a lesson on non-fiction writing eventually turned into a project that spanned two classes, a collaboration across all curriculums, and evolved the learning process from extrinsic to intrinsic all the while nurturing team work, empowerment, and helping students find an individual voice as they filled the roles of the editor-in-chief, section editors, and the many journalists that supplied the rich material for the creative endeavor.

Honestly, this group of students hardly realized that they were learning the mechanics of journalistic writing such as AP style, form, research, and proper citation.  "The human brain learns almost effortlessly when there is a sensible reason to learn" (Hunter), and this 10th grade class, without a doubt, effortlessly put together a sensational school newspaper.  I think I even saw a spark or two in some eyes as they realized their calling in life.

To read Hunter's three other techniques on making content meaningful, I highly recommend picking up her insightful book.  Happy reading!

(Note: I get absolutely no kickbacks from the sale of Ms. Hunter's book...unfortunately).

Golden Purpose

I traveled to India in the winter of 2010. In my travels, I took video snippets of the awe-inspiring sights that I saw. When I got home, I decided to edit these snippets into one video. Sounds simple, right? Well, the project grew and grew, and suddenly I was doing an interview and weaving in the sights and sounds and text...

For a seven minute video I poured in about 23 hours of work. 

I loved it. 

When I finally published that video on YouTube, I was euphoric and also detached. I had done my best. I had learned lightyears about video editing, communication, and my own self. If only two people watched that video, fine. What mattered was that I had learned.

When learning has a purpose, a function, then learning stops being "work" and starts being "inspiration." Madeline Hunter writes in her book Mastery of Teaching that "The human brain learns almost effortlessly when there is a sensible reason to learn" (73). The key word here is "effortlessly." Effortlessness is this sense of ease, lightness, and excitement. There is distinction here that work that is effortless can also be challenging. But when there is a reason to learn, that challenge becomes exciting. 

As a teacher, sparking this inspiration in students to learn effortlessly with excitement is my pot of gold. To do this, students need to feel directed in their learning, that the effort put into their work will be applied to something practical in their lives and others' lives. 

Here are some examples of "authentic tasks for authentic learning:" 

- Learning how to word process and use Adobe Photoshop to create invitations for an event

- Write a children's book about a subject one is studying (the periodic table, figurative language) to be read aloud to children in kindergarten and first grade

- Learn how to apply fractions in baking for a bake sale fundraiser for a school trip

Authentic learning tasks take time and effort to prepare for. Consider your preparation for these tasks a task of authentic learning for yourself. When you plan for these tasks, let yourself get absorbed, lose track of time, let it be effortless and challenging and inspiring. You are preparing to give students a meaningful experience of learning. Your work has purpose. 

(P.S. If you'd like to view my India video, check it out here:

  Welcome to Mayapur)

The Holy Grail of Teaching

"Nothing deflates a teacher more than bored students." This is the first sentence of an article written by Sam Intrator, a veteran high school and college teacher.

Neglecting the pursuit of powerful teaching is not a bad thing. It's simply deflating. Demoralizing. Boring. Painful. Intrator says that classrooms "can be dynamic settings that launch dreams and delight minds, or arid places that diminish hope and deplete energy." I believe that we have all had personal experiences of both of these scenarios of the classroom.

So as a teacher, really this is about a choice. What experience do I want to create in my classroom? Deflated teaching and deflated learning? Or vigorous teaching and vigorous learning? That's a choice I shall face every day.

I am moved by this experience of Intrator's "Holy Grail" of teaching, which is what he describes as "Moments when I see the collective attention of my students and feel their energy for the subject at hand[.]" He put into words so concretely what I also want to strive for, and I am internalizing this experience of the Holy Grail. I believe it a worthwhile and lifelong endeavor.