What is Nature Smart

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Just had an interesting conversation with a grade 5 teacher about "nature smart". 

He wasn't totally convinced that multiple intelligences were something we should be teaching towards, specifically with nature smart ideas. 

I fully understand that encouraging people to develop growth mindsets can get them out of a box of learning a specific way and not just focusing on their strengths. The conversation which really got me though was, what was nature smart? 

In the book he was looking at it said something like liking animals as a basis, his question (and rightly) was who doesn't like animals? Does that really make you nature smart. 

I started talking about the ability to see things in systems, not really sure if that's nature smart, but looking at connections between animals, and creating empathy that kind of thing. But wasn't really sure. 

So this week will be digging a little deeper into my ecoliteracy book, trying to convince him about maybe thinking ecoliterate is a little different from nature smart, we'll see. 

Finally getting outside

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The past couple of weeks here have been "haze filled" so students couldn't go outside very often, this included recess. 

After reading Richard Louv and learning more about nature deficit disorder and experiencing these last couple of weeks, it's easy to see how a school needs their students outside. More than just running around or getting exercise, students need the connection to other living things.  

Many of the units we've been inquiring into have looked at how we organize ourselves in groups.  The younger students especially had a difficult time with this because they had little time to connect with other living things (at least that's what I think).  By building that empathy with other things we are more able to see ourselves as part of a system. When we see ourselves as part of a system we're more likely (I think) to see how we can work for the benefit of a group of things, rather than just ourselves.

We (as teachers) had never really thought of this aspect before the haze.  Now we are wondering how we can reshape our units, to really look at how other living communities organize themselves, and if that is true, than how can we organize ourselves to benefit the community. 

We definitely had some interesting discussions, and once our term break is over, we're all ready to finally get outside. 

Reflection

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With our grade 3 classes we've been using blogs to reflect what we are learning. More than that though, I am hoping to make our reflections interesting.  Almost all of my students think that reflection is like a recount.  Here's what we learned, this list of things.  I know now this.

It's frustrating, mainly because I want to move away from that kind of learning, but my students obviously still see learning this way.  I try to tell them that let me know what you learned, not what was taught, what's your big take away, why does it matter? 

Then I wonder why or who taught us how to reflect.  I think for my next couple of lessons I'm going to look at some other student blogs and teacher blogs to talk about what's really important about learning. Then go to maybe tumblr or something to show how we are always kind of reflecting.  Maybe some comics, to talk about processing visually, maybe Nicki's Blog to show how we can even think differently. 

School is off for two weeks so I have heaps of time to prepare, but how can we teach students to write interesting reflections, I've used them as the audience, and even they are bored.  So time to inspire I guess. 

Outdoor Discovery Center

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Our Outdoor Discovery Center opens this week.  However, "The Haze" is making it nearly impossible to go outside. This is going to be a great way for students to learn about how to take personal buying action (hopefully).

We're going to be Looking Closely.  But first we're going to find spots to look closely.

This week I'm headed out with the teachers after school to look for great spots to notice life.  Then we will bring the students out with cameras and get them prepped for sitting still and being patient and then being a part of our living community.

With the smoke everywhere outside, I don't know when we can get the students out. Fall break is fast approaching so we may have to wait until after then, but we are all really excited.

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.