Blue+Teal: Upper School Band Swap Week 2
As the Upper School Band Swap of 2016 continues, and I got to hang out with the Teal Band last week.Same Curriculum: Civil Rights.Different Kids: From the oldest kids of Upper School to the youngest.It's funny to reflect on this past week. I teach at this school that is revolutionary in its curriculum development and freedom. As teachers, we can change and shift and grow in experimental, unconventional ways. But in this great experiment, here we are, doing something pretty conventional: each collaborator is teaching the same mini-course 4 weeks in a row but to different groups of kids.For me, what's been truly extraordinary about this process so far is seeing how (roughly) the same content is received in vastly different ways by different students. Each group finds a different entry into the content, and then each group explores that content and finds connections to it in very different ways.
For me, this illuminates the content and provides a fuller picture of how learning occurs, what the content itself actually means, and also gives me deeper insight into how to better teach/communicate/facilitate it.
My biggest take away from this week with the Teal Band has to do with two things:
- Context and background information is sometimes so important. We can't actually talk about marriage rights if the difference between a having a wedding and entering into the legal agreement is not clear. We can't fully understand the racial discrimination revolution of the 1960s, if we don't understand why the racial divide occurred in the first place. We can't talk about women's rights without understanding that birth control hasn't always been an option. And with that foundation, the concrete information breeds abstraction and allows us to critically examine the thing. We can't be equally critical if we're not equally all on the same page.
- By taking inventory of and reflecting on the nitty-gritty details and concrete historical events that have birthed civil rights movements, this week I've created a clearer picture (for myself) of the material, and have also developed a stronger foundation upon which to base my critical conversation. Way to go, Teal. You did that.
Meanwhile, the Blue Band got to hang out with Amanda Oberski for a week and learn the ins and outs of psychology. They learned about social experiments, the ethics of human and animal testing, and also learned a lot about themselves and their own growth and development. So far, they have been most jazzed about this: something about learning about themselves through engaging subject matter and really traumatic-seeming articles, research, and videos.I caught this great sequence of shocked and appalled faces during our afternoon work time:
Shock and appauledness aside, Blue has really dove into psychology last week. The afternoons were filled with critical conversation about the whole morning and about the homework. They begged to continue working when we had to shift gears, and many of them even applied the concepts and terms that they learned to our critical conversation around Lord of the Flies. To see them draw lines and weave together concepts from the morning session and then apply them to the close reading of a novel was amazing, well timed, and such an asset to my time with the Band.So, I'll end with some shout outs:
- Thank you, Teal. You made me a better instructor by giving me new perspective on my material.
- Thank you, Amanda Oberski for creating such a rich foundation for Blue to critically discuss literature.
What a great week!