Comments on: Guest Blog From Marina

By: Myra Zarnowski

Myra Zarnowski — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:04:34 +0000

Monica, you are certainly right about our teachers not giving us any preparation for writing those reports. To be fair, they probably didn’t know what to tell us. It was all to be magically accomplished and graded according to some unknown standard. None of that was good. The good part was being able to research and make sense out of what we found–to shape our findings. I can only hope we learned something about sentence structure from copying those sentences!

By: Monica Edinger

Monica Edinger — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 22:09:37 +0000

While I too remember having a blast researching and writing reports, I also remember ….er…copying pretty much straight from my sources. As I wrote in one of my books on teaching history — I probably spent as much time on my cover for my butterfly report as I did researching and writing it. And, yes, these teachers sent us off to do it on our own, but they didn’t do much to prepare us on how to research, read, write, or had much to say with the results other than giving us a grade.

Myra, I’ll be 59 in October and I do very much remember worksheets. Many, just mimeographed rather than xeroxed.

As I’ve noted here and elsewhere I’m fortunate to teach in a school where I can continue to support children in becoming experts and be able to delve deep into a subject, but it seems many of my colleagues are not so fortunate.

By: Marc Aronson

Marc Aronson — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:01:56 +0000

I like the idea of handing young people an “unpackaged, messy world,” it reminds me of my problem with youth sports. We went to the park and played — whatever and with whomever. Now, as in a few minutes, my son is in his age appropriate uniformed baseball game on an official field with an umpire. In a way it is like worksheets — they never pick up sides or work out a batting order or make boundaries with bookbags and argue about who was tagged — they look for signals from coaches. More on this in a future post.

By: Myra Zarnowski

Myra Zarnowski — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:01:41 +0000

Marina,
I grew up in a world similar to yours. My parents read The New York Times each morning and so did I. No one asked if it was on my level! As a child I was, like you, asked to find my own resources. Like you, these were the Britannica, the Times, and magazines. And there were no worksheets, although there were workbooks. I remember those reports and how I worked so hard on the writing and the fancy cover which I created. I think being handed an unpackaged, messy world was a good thing–a great thing, a gift. That’s how the world is. It prepared me for graduate school and beyond when I had to think for myself.

I am afraid that what your sons and others are experiencing is the result of mistrust–mistrust of teachers and mistrust of children. When I began teaching, I was was allowed to work with my class to pursue interesting topics. My job was to awaken their enthusiasm for learning, make sure they were reading and writing, and guide them, not control them. Times have certainly changed. When I taught I was able to give my students in elementary school “choice time”–45 minutes of doing what they wanted to do three times a week. Imagine that! They could read, paint, draw, make a model, make something with clay, whatever! And knowing they had the time to do this, they prepared for it. They counted on it. So, I want to ask, What happened? Why don’t we trust our teachers and children enough to let them pursue their interests?

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:14:45 +0000

Certainly, the value of original, high-level material shouldn’t be lost even for a young audience.