Student

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Every Idea Begins With a Spark

I came upon a quote yesterday that I wanted to share. It is a message that every student should hear in some form every day.

Be innovative in your thinking and bold in your learning.

– Sabine Lague 2011

(The original quote is in first person.)

I thought it would be great as part of a BigHuge Labs Motivator poster, but then I found more than one photograph that would be perfect for the poster.

It occurred to me quite abruptly that I have not posted a photo essay in a long while. So the genesis of this post — a mix of photos and quotes.

 

IMG_0486IMG_0486 © 2008 Chazz Layne | more info (via: FlickrStorm)
Every Idea Begins With a Spark

 

 

 

 

 

 

EUREKA! I Found it!EUREKA! I Found it! © 2008 g d (Gary Dean) t???????d? | more info (via: FlickrStorm)
That Grow With Focus and Imagination into a Dream.

 

 

Humboldt GasworksHumboldt Gasworks © 2005 Cassidy Curtis | more info (via: FlickrStorm)
Whatever You Do, or Dream You Can, Begin It,
– W. H. Murray

 

 

Foxy!Foxy! © 2008 Wavy1 | more info (via: FlickrStorm)
For Ideas Rarely

 

 

The Thought Fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Webster, Richard. (2002, 1984.) ‘The Thought Fox’ and the poetry of Ted Hughes. The Critical Quarterly vol, 26, no. 4, 1984. http://www.richardwebster.net/tedhughes.html.

 

 

 

Life Offers Many Paths.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

 

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

 

 

 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

 

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Frost, Robert. (1916.) The Road Not Taken (poem). Mountain Interval. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken.

 

Creamsicle SunsetCreamsicle Sunset © 2008 Evan Leeson | more info (via: FlickrStorm)
Keep Adventure in Your Heart and Pick the Paths that Excite You Most.

 

 

Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Howard Thurman

Realize Your Dreams.

 


Success Imagemap

 

 

Everything you want in life is right outside your comfort zone.

– Bob Allen

Be innovative in your thinking and bold in your learning.

– Sabine Lague

by

When School Breaks and Learning Turns

Tuesday, June 28, is the last day of school for students in Alberta. They get two months off. Some will visit family, some will plunge into adventurous vacations, camps or clubs, some will relax at home.

 

 

At the same time, last Tuesday, June 21 (actually last Monday evening, June 20), was the six-month anniversary of my blog. It turned out differently than I imagined, both following a different route than I envisioned and having fewer entries than I planned.

(I think I will wait for the next Eve before Winter Solstice before I reflect on what I have learned through my blog.)

Today, I wish to address summer break.

 

 

Would I teach the same way during the Summer?

In particular, a question occurred to me as the end of the school year stealthily approached.

If a student came to me and asked for some tutoring this summer, how would I teach her (or him)?

  • Would I teach this student as I would in a classroom full of students, following the curriculum and lessons set for me in the middle of the school year?
  • Would I even follow the curriculum?
  • Or would I do something completely, utterly different (after all I would no longer be restricted to the curriculum or to a schedule or to another teacher’s plan)?

 

 

My ideal class

Which is more important — the content or the engagement?

Lately, in #mathchat we have been discussing student engagement and how to center math learning on the student.

I think the best thing I could do for any kid is enrich his experience of a subject by exciting her about it. The first thing any student needs to learn about any subject is what is fun about it and how it is used in the world.

Everything else follows after that.

So, what is my ideal class? It is a subject-club-style class. And if the "lessons" happen to cover the curriculum the student needs to learn, then the class would be truly empowering.

How would you teach if you were called this Summer?