Homework isn't all bad

On Tuesday, I set the class a task for homework.

Build a rocket or spaceship

Simple, right? Well yes and no. I asked them to spend two weeks and they weren't allowed to cop out and buy a kit, they had to make it - the more homemade the better. There was also a catch to it too, Tuesday next week (29th November) we would have an after school gallery where parents will be invited to attend and see their child's work.
But wait! What about those who have obviously had help? That's allowed - as long as they admit it. There's this stigma attached by some educators to homework because of the notion that parents 'interfere' with homework tasks, so the work isn't a true reflection of the child's capabilities.

I'm really looking forward to bringing the parents into our class and letting them share what we do. Transparency is very important to me as an educator and engaging the parents by enthusing their children is the best tonic for our jaundiced education system.

I'll post photos and get the class to add blog posts in a few weeks. Fingers crossed people turn up!

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100WCGU wk #20

The prompt this week is to use at least one of these for inspiration. …the powers that be / the apple of his eye / the writing on the wall… It was early in the Autumn When she took herself away. The trees in our orchard cried leaves for her; She was the apple of their eye , their Mistress. She said it was, "Inevitable". Powers that be had deemed it so and so it was Fruitless to pursue it. Her one way trip. The marks of her passing are writ large on the cold orchard wall s. They are writ larger, though, in me.

100 WCGU wk 21

This week's challenge is a picture prompt. I quite like picture prompts, they allow so many tangents. Our classrooms are windows. Children's views are shaped by the pictures we paint, the opportunities they envisage. We are responsible for the window's upkeep: treat it with consistent care and attention and it will open seamlessly to worlds that are beyond their wildest dreams; leave it untouched and those worlds will remain forever out of reach. The window is open to the world to view, some outsiders simply point out what is missing from times they spent inside. Others like to castigate and deride. Most smile knowingly, remembering with fondness the people who opened windows for them. People like us.

Independent Learning

This evening on #ukedchat, the discussion was about 'independent learning' or 'IL' and it's importance in the curriculum. In my opinion IL is an umbrella title, one so multi-faceted that we probably need to invest a lot of time determining the rationale behind it. One point that came across was from Miles Berry that Independent Learning is something innate, present from birth as a survival mechanism so teaching it is contradictory. This is something that I agree with and yet we are in a system that has institutionalised our lives to the point where children are taught out of this. They become so reliant on being told what, when and how to do things, that they forget what they are genetically programmed to do. And there's my mistake. I'm talking about these children in the third person. The point is that we have all fallen into the habit of providing knowledge as teachers. There is no blame associated with this, we are as caught up in the status quo as

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