This is my third year of teaching since attending the Seeds Institute, and I have gone through many changes. Each change seems to be a little more radiclel than the last, bringing me where I find myself today- teaching in a classroom without desks and the confines of textbooks. Don't get me wrong- I haven't gotten rid of the textbooks, but they have a much different purpose in my classroom than they did before the Institute. The curriculum in my classroom is not driven (nor confined) by them, rather they support the learning in my classroom. How did this happen?
I vividly remember the last part o my experience at the Institute. We all stood around the perimeter of the giant room and shared one word to sum up or an experience that touched us in some way. My word was "Spark." Little did I know how fitting that word was in my life. The Seeds school is very different from what we have in Santee. But when I went Seeds, I saw what I wanted to create in my classroom. I wanted a class full of self-directed, motivated learners. Students who valued, understood, and invested in the process of learning. I didn't know how I was going to get there back at home, in my classroom, but I believed there to be a way.
I started with designing units like the one had did at the institute because I saw how those units fostered critical thinking skills. I felt that this was my first step. After having gone through the process of planning a lesson with teachers from the Institute, and using the binder for reference, I found it easy to begin to implement strategies into my everday teaching. The questioning process seemed to be so valuable, as it gave students ownership of what they were learning. I also found the importance of keeping a big idea in mind, like survival, as it added a deeper layer of learning throughout the year's units. Over and over, I refered to the binder to create units in social studies and science. With these units, I found my students more engaged in learning than I had ever seen them. It seemed like they were truly creating lasting understandings. This encouraged me to keep going. In the beginning, the lessons seemed to be a lot of work- but the work was worth it if they were coming away with enduring understandings.
Then I began thinking about part of the title of the Institute- “Creating a Thinking Curriculum.” I realized that I had been focusing on creating a learning environment where my kids thought critically. One key component was that I (their teacher) needed to be thinking about what, why, and how I was teaching. *Spark* If I was not thinking critically, how could I expect my students to think critically? That was why I felt such satisfaction with social studies and science- I was thinking critically about what, how, and why I was teaching. As I came to this realization, I found that I could tweak things here and there to make it more my own, I could change the templates, and found new ideas and ways to look at a unit.
I realized that thinking about what, how, and why I was teaching was powerful in all subject areas. I began thinking about language arts and math. Although our adopted texts are research based and follow a proven scope and sequence, they do not require one to think critically about teaching. It is far too easy to follow lesson after lesson, give the assessment, and move on. I began to look at making learning experiences more meaningful. I didn’t exactly know what that would look like or how to do it, but I started to keep my eyes open for an answer or direction. Maybe it would look the exact same way the publisher suggested, but without thinking critically, I wouldn’t know. Soon, I began to discover quick projects that I could do with my kids to deepen their understanding of math and language skills.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I began thinking even more deeply about how, what, and why I was teaching. This level of reflection then sparked a series of events and thoughts that have led me to a classroom full of student choice and learning- the deskless classroom. I'm not exactly sure where this is leading my, but I enjoy teaching more and more each day.