“Our philosophy is that we want everyone to take our content and make it their own.” – Dixie Feldman (I couldn’t find the actual article, so this is cached.)
This woman really gets the kinds of environments that kids crave. She told the story of a character dying on Degrassi and students needing a place to grieve. She created that environment, gave kids the tools, and then let the kids talk. I find this anecdote to be extremely compelling. For the most part, I don’t do this in my classroom.
For the most part, we don’t show students compelling content and then let them recreate it. We don’t give them the tools and set up the environment and let them go. Why? Are we interested in what they would come up with, or are they more interested in seeing the kind of knowledge that they can amass?
I hope that we start to focus more on creating the environment and finding the best tools (ideas, resources, collaborative values, etc.) that will allow them to create or recreate learning. What are the standards for that?
