Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Week 2 Reading- The Art of Possibilities


Microsoft Word


People don’t see everything.  We may think we do, but in reality there is so much that escapes our sight.  I liked that the Zander’s gave great examples of how much may be missed during our day that we don’t think about.  Many times during these chapters I thought about what happens each day in not only my personal life, but also in my professional life with my students.  I tried to think about the world of possibilities that they spoke of and how we can accomplish things in our lives by opening up to new ideas and taking larger risks. 

I thought the idea of giving everyone an A right off the bat was very interesting.  In the beginning of the EMDT program I remember having no risk assignments that basically if you did you got an A.  It was nice to have less pressure and I still worked hard on my project.  I know that every week in school kids ask me, “How much do I have to do to get an A?”  Giving them the chance to have that internal motivation and not worry about the grade, but worry about reaching their full potential is the main goal.  I don’t know exactly how to get rid of grades, especially in elementary school, but I would love to find a way to have students not think of their grades as a way to compare themselves to others and focus more on the actual learning at hand. 

One last piece that I loved was thinking about the contribution game.  How do you make a contribution each week?  I think it would be a real eye opener for students to write down ways they contributed at the end of each week.  This could help students to think about ways that they help, and ways they could help in the future.  

No comments:

Post a Comment