Learning Never Stops

I have been reading George Couros's post here and I felt I should write something about this. Creativity or what Maslow (1943) calls self-actualization is the highest form of human endevour. What a powerful video. We really get very unsettled when our kids are bored. Put an Ipod in their hands or a television set in front of them. And watch them slowly transform into zombies. Well this child shows us the power of creativity. Boredom is a state of mind and he chose not to be bored. He seized the opportunity. Though he did not have any customers, he never stopped being excited about his arcade because, to him, it was not about the final product or the money. To him the very act of creating was fun. Creativity needs time.   Observe how the children become creative when we give them more time! So the question we educators need to ask is "How can we encourage our students to be creative?" What if we had one period of the day where they are give...

...with tasks that can be fun and engaging. CAVEAT None of these tools are new. You have probably used them or heard of them.The question is, have they been used to create authentic learning or are they forced? Can they be improved upon? This particular group of students have taken to IT like fish to water. Dr Sugata Mitra's project "Hole in the Wall" addresses this innate ability of children to learn on their own! I  hardly set up my classroom blog and the kids are already posting comments, commenting on their friends' posts and embedding pictures. I taught them nothing. Just gave them their passwords. "Hey kids! Slow down will ya? I need to TEACH you bloggin' rules first!:" :) "Nah", they probably mutter under their breaths..."Just show us what to do and we'll figure out how." Activity one : Hero Hunting How do we show recognition of heroes? What do we do to remember their deeds and celebrate them? On Heroes of Hyderabad  ...

How can you teach something you are not excited about? As a PYP teacher, I need to convey excitement and enthusiasm to my students and the only way to do this is to be excited about a new unit myself. I am not a student of history and since my next unit, Old is Gold is all about the past, I plunged headlong into it. I borrowed enough books to last me the mid term holiday. I am reading all about the history of Mombasa. It is fascinating. As I keep reading, new ideas keep coming to me. I am all set to try them out in class. This is a unit where kids will study artifacts and ask "fat" questions; where they will analyse, interpret and reconstruct the past. So what types of activities will promote these understandings? I will be creating centers in my class. In one center, the kids will be watching YouTube videos on the life of archaeologists, or observe what goes on in a historical site. In another another center, they will draw arti...