I am an 8th Social Studies teacher, who was allowed to attend two different Constitutional Weekends at Montpelier. Immediately I started to see the intelligence of Will Harris’ argument, and agreed with him on his belief in description. I am a full believer that many people have an opinion on a problem, with no real understanding of the problem at all.
For the next few days, I really thought about description and how it could work it into my class, and soon had my eyes opened to the real world around me. History is nothing more than a description of the past. How could I expect my kids to understand history, if I never taught them how to effectively describe.
Then the word of Will Harris came to me, “…make them describe a cup, make them describe anything…’ So I did just that I grabbed a coffee cup and after having a very intelligent conversation I had them describe the cup. But soon I had kids asking what the cup was made out of or how old it was? So I told them, maybe instead of all your comments being on what the description is, you could describe what the item was not. This took a few minutes of understanding, but soon kids were again writing. I made them write for ten minutes without stop.
Then after we talked about the importance of description and without me pointing them, many saw that if they understood what something wasn’t they could fix things much easier. Here I was thinking how smart I was to introduce “something new ” to them, but they were already figuring out.
Over the next few weeks, I had them start describing paintings and the natural world around them. Then we started to look at our history through my lectures and our textbooks, and by creating our descriptions of history. We could see how we could learn from these events and apply these descriptions to our world.
Then as though magic occured these students started to understand, that for every answer we tried to answer, we were also creating a new set of different problems. It was in that moment,that I was fully aware of my students just not repeating what was always told to them, but the full awarness of them making something new.
Great job! You’ve not only made their thinking deeper than surface level but you’ve made the connection between the grade level expectations (GLEs here in Missouri; SOLs in Virginia, I believe — and I snickered a little when I typed SOL) and the relevence of those expectations in your student’s lives.
Why is it important to understand Locke & Hobbes or the difference between monarchy/theocracy/parlimentary democracy/presidential democracy? Simply because the state curriculum says we’re supposed to teach it? Everyone who reads this board understands the importance of all the standards. It’s when we the teacher makes the topic relevent to the student, that’s when we see deeper understanding.
Again, great post! I know what my kids will be doing Monday!
This sounds like a TERRIFIC exercise! I’m going to try it with my students a.s.a.p. Multiple perspectives are a key component to critical thinking, as is communicating ideas “down the arm and through the pencil”.
It’s amazing how so many of his students spring board off of Will’s stuff.
WOW!!!! Every student in your classroom is so lucky!! In fact, I think that I could benefit from being in your room. I have been to the same number of Will Harris institutes as you and yet I still lack the clarity that you middle school students have… KEEP IT! Every teacher and citizen should be so ambitious!
I used this in class yesterday; I had them describe my coffee-bowl.
I found it interesting that each and every class came to the conclusion that it could be used for a weapon. They also, when we transferred what we learned from this exercise to understanding the Constitution, came to the same conclusion — that the document could easliy be used as a weapon. This led in to discussions about separation of powers/checks & balances, majority rule with minority rights, etc. It really helped lead to a deeper understanding of the genius of the Founding Fathers.
Thanks again for the idea!
Thats awesome Mule. Did you find that after you did the first description the more theoretical description was actually really easy for them?
For the most part, yes. They’re beginning to see the connection and the interweaving of these theoretical concepts (i.e.–checks & balances; limited government; independent judicary, etc.). It did help to couple this exercise in description with my wonderful analogy of how everything dealing with limited government can be summed up with “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. With the three branches, this is the best way to explain this abstract concept with any degree of success. You just have to keep “Lizard & Spock” out the the mix.
It’s hard to tell. Looking back, I’d rather have done this at the very beginning of the semester when I could of had them thinking “outside the box” from the get go.
Thanks everyone for the great comments!! If you aregoing to do this in class, remember to start small and give the kids a time limit. I picked 10 minutes, they had to keep writting , and allow them to be silly about it. Some kids started putting things it wasnt like it wasnt a cell phone or a microwave. Well they were telling the truth so I allowed it. Also I let it be a grade, they got a 100% as long as they didnt stop writting and were quiet. And also make sure you tell them why we are describing why its important to have this skill
Have fun good luck and please post how it went so we can all learn from your tries!!