Spring break and nurturing student flowers
The clocks sprang forward and an hour of sleep was lost, but spring also signals more sunlight again. That can put a spring in one’s step as can the notion of a week off for Spring Break. Time for reading, relaxing, vacationing and gardening perhaps. Spring can also be a reminder of the notion that each person can bloom where they are planted.
If students are flowers that take root at a school, it’s the educator’s job to provide sunshine, (encouragement) nutrients (rich content) and water (processing activities) so they will grow and offer up their beauty. When students collaborate and learn to “root” for each other, they celebrate each other’s growth and a culture of learning is more likely to flourish. Ruston Hurley, author and motivational speaker, dedicated to inspiring educators to improve regardless of how good they are, recently posted in a blog, “How do teachers become powerfully memorable?” In short he answered that their task is to design learning experiences that are more effective.
“Teachers make what happens in the classrooms not only better, but they help author the stories that drive opportunities for students within a campus and hopefully beyond.” As a photographer and videographer, Hurley proposes that “digital storytelling is the intersection of hope and improvement. School is a grand narrative … a story of hope.””
Tech-savvy students are more easily enticed with media rich lessons and assignments. He hosts a library of creative videos that help teach and most are produced by students.
If teachers give school assignments, students tend to make it just good enough to get the grade, but when their work is being shown to the world, they want it to be really good. The videos produced and the process of producing them for a wider audience make learning more memorable. Check out his collections of teaching videos at nextvista.org.
Dru Tomlin in his blog post entitled, “Major and minor players in the story of school” described how to help teachers and students feel more like major players in the narrative of the school story. Tomlin doesn’t usually write about binary relationships like middle schoolers choice between Axe spray vs. breathing normally because life isn’t usually that simple.
In vibrant schools with a rich learning culture students and staff members feel like major characters in the story of school. Unfortunately, not all feel valued as contributors to the narrative.
When teachers lose their passion they can feel like minor characters. Some students lose their spark and just go through the motions. When too many feel disconnected the culture and climate of the school is affected.
Empowering them is a matter of figuring out ways to help them reconnect and feel like valued major characters in the story of school. Reigniting that fire can be done with a simple spark. Sometimes it’s as easy as asking them for help so they feel like they’re relevant. When they’re asked to assist and feel like they are having an impact again, this mini success breeds more.
Whether the need is to spark the fires of passion about learning or to help students feel rooted in a culture that nurtures them to grow and blossom, teachers have their work cut out for them. Infusing technology and connecting those previously disconnected characters helps them feel more like major players in the narrative.
May spring break refresh teachers and students alike so that memorable teaching and learning can resume next week.