Learning Never Stops

The other day, I was talking to a colleague about a post I had seen on Facebook. It was about how we need to be in the now as opposed to thinking about the past or fearing what's to come. She commented laughing, on how difficult it is to be in the present. I think she's absolutely right! The funny thing is, the only time we are in the NOW is when we enter the classroom. All our baggage, our fears are left by the door the moment we walk into the room. The students envelop us with their warmth, joy, and laughter. Their needs take precedence over anything else during those moments in the class. We are constantly looking around us, listening to what they have to say. I feel this is the closest to meditation I have ever been!

 These moments should happen more often in my classroom. My students were busy creating  videos, powerpoints, booklets, and posters in order to show their learning. Their unit of Inquiry was about Health and Wellbeing.  Their task :   Identify someone in your environment who is not leading a balanced lifestyle. Based on your understanding of what you have learned in this unit, create a week's plan that your patient needs to follow. Some students were busy borrowing glitter paint and colourful tape (I admit I do get irritated when they rush for these things without a plan, but as they were focusing on time and self-management skills, I had to curb my instincts and hold my tongue...hard job this is!); other students were video taping each other. The class was abuzz. Students were busy. Well, except one. My eyes fell on a child who was doing nothing  apart from watching others at work. At times, he would rush to their aid...

Something interesting happened the other day in my maths class. We had started a new topic, Division. I asked the students to turn on their laptops and talk about their understanding of division. They loved watching themselves talk. Some even put on an accent in order to sound posh! :) Watching the videos, it was clear that some students had a fair understanding of what division was, while other students had no clue. One student said multiplication is division. Another student said it is like division. Then as the lesson progressed, this slowly changed to- it is connected to division, and finally, one very shy and quiet student  exclaimed that it was inversely related to division. Bingo! She had made a connection to the concept of "inversion."  As this was a completely new topic in grade 3, the students started warming up to it using ice cream sticks, which we had in plenty. I asked them to grab a handful and share them equally amongst them...