Serendipity35

Do families still sit down to dinner together and have conversations about what everyone did that day?  We tried to do that with our kids. Of course, they were stuck with two parents who were teachers, so we were inordinately interested in what was going on in their classes.

Last month, Will Richardson wrote a post saying that he hoped that his own children's stories about school will change. He hopes that the stories will be less about grades on tests and tonight's homework.

He posted his mental list of the types of questions he is hoping they might be able to answer - here are a few:

What did you make today that was meaningful?
Who are you working with?
What surprised you?
What did your teachers make with you?
What did you teach others?
What unanswered questions are you struggling with?
What do you want to know more about?
What made you laugh?

Though there are some significant ideas there about creating, collaboration, and teacher interaction, I found most of them too big. I imagine my own sons groaning at some of the questions. They would be really hard to answer, and what would come from asking the question for the fifth night in a row and hearing, "Nothing" again?

He poses questions like: What’s something your teachers learned today? What did you share with the world? What did you learn about the world?

So, how often do these things happen in your classroom? If it is every day, you are doing a great job, but I expect you are in the minority. 

Years ago, I had a conversation with my friend's son Brian who was about to start kindergarten. He was very eager to start school. I asked him what he wanted to learn about in school. He said, "I want to know about ghosts and where they come from. And I want to know how airplanes fly and how I can fly like a bird." I smiled. And I thought, he is going to be very disappointed in school.

Well, this past month, I saw pictures of Brian on Facebook getting his first "white coat" at the beginning of medical school. I don't know if he ever found out what he wanted to know about ghosts and flying, but something worked in his classroom experiences.

Maybe the most important thing about those questions we ask our children or our students is that we ask them. Asking students to reflect on what they are learning is something I find extremely important. Richardson's questions are good ones, but they are ones that a teacher would ask. When there are no answers to those questions, isn't it a reflection on the teaching rather than the learning?

I hope kids can come home and answer some of his questions. It would mean the classroom is changing. I also think teachers should ask these questions about their day. The unexamined lesson isn't worth teaching.