Diversity Matters

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I've been wondering a lot lately about the importance of diversity.  Too often in the classroom teachers are trying to create an "ideal" student, or a student that fits their particular preference.

When we think (or when I guess environmentally minded people think) about the environment we think of the strength of diversity.  How it helps make our system stronger, which in turn helps make us, as humans, better.  I guess I wonder who does this in class, we often talk about how we appreciate different perspectives, and different ways of knowing, but in my trips through classrooms I don't know how this is championed or truly used.

How can we as groups look more towards the diversity of our classroom? How does it push our thinking? How does it makes us better learners? Then, can we look outside, and see how our local community works, see what makes it strong, it's not everyone being the same, it's everyone being different.  

How can we engage learners in our class to focus on diversity? Recently I read an article about student centered learning my biggest takeaway was this.

You cannot counter structural social inequality by good will.  You need to design structural equality into the classroom.  

          Structuring equality in classroom discussion--in a lecture or a seminar--is actually quite easy to do but it is not intuitive. At least, it was not intuitive for me. I learned several tricks from other people and I pass them on every time I give a public lecture and use at least one or two of them every class period.  They work.  They change the dynamic.  They change the way everyone participates.  When the situation is equal, no one hides, no one wants to hide, and no one bullies.

Looking forward to trying to make this happen

Environmental Leadership

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This week was pretty exciting.  One of my teachers has asked me to do an environmental leadership class which was great. Now every Tuesday I have dedicated environmental time in a class. 

It's been a year, but it's a huge first step for me. 

Our first adventure will be in our garden, and then we're going to sit outside and find our sit spots.  We're going to start developing a sense of place and a better understanding of our environment in order to be real leaders and work with our community to enhance our place. 

I'm really excited.

Making our own paths

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One of the best things about this job is the ability to constantly (re)define my role.  So, it's pretty great for me, although I can understand that people who need clearly defined roles might not be as happy.

So, what I'm really going for this year is experimental iPad groups. I recently read this "Challenging Tweet" post.  It's been consuming a lot of my thoughts recently.  We are reinforcing this idea of hierarchy and traditional classroom values while using tools that could be used for student led learning.  I'm trying to get my teachers and students to see this, but I'm not sure about it myself. I just know it's something we have to start thinking about it. 

My first thought is, this is why we need to teach coding.  Students are taking part in a world they really don't have a lot of control over. Coding will give them some power. Actually teachers need to know more about this (and so do I for that matter). 

My second thought was, get them outside and start creating their own knowledge, they can do this inside too, but I really want them outdoors to reinforce this idea that learning has no boundaries, when you're in a class, the walls are already there. 

Anyway, trying to go down these new paths, some lead nowhere, but hopefully one or two will take me to some place pretty great.