Sara Williams
Multimodal Learning for the 21st Century Adolescent
Chapter 4
So I have to tell you a secret. This class is making me a better parent and wife. Last night, my husband and I were getting ready to go work at our rental, and we were trying to wrangle our kids and get out the door. My 3-year-old, Cameron, was doing his thing, playing, and not listening to us beg him to get his shoes on and get ready to leave. After asking him for the third time and saying for the millionth time, "Cameron, I need you to make a good choice," I realized that I hadn't told him what a "good choice" looked like in this situation. I made my thinking visible and was explicit, explaining, "a good choice right now would be to say 'Okay mom, I'm getting my shoes' and go upstairs and put your shoes on." Miracle of miracles, he did it immediately. Similarly, I've been frustrated that my husband doesn't make the bed, as if we're teenagers or something. All I did was making my thinking visible - I verbalized why I like a made bed (I think I said something crazy like, "Getting into a made bed is like opening a present for me every night, and it makes the room look so much cleaner.") I have been seething about him never making the bed for LITERALLY years, and it took me 30 seconds to say it out loud, explicitly, and now he does it everyday.
Sorry to get so personal, but those stories just highlight my biggest takeaway from this class and our professional book. We have to say exactly what we're thinking and we must explain the process we go through when reading, when searching a database, when encountering a problem with technology, when we do just about anything, if we want those around us to learn. It seems so obvious, but it wasn't to me. What a revelation! :)
Our group has talked a lot about the author's assumptions that all students have access to the tech he describes and that all of our students have full buy in to whatever project we're working on. (His "classroom vignettes" are especially laughable - it's like he's recording the conversations of perfect little student robots) We've generally been pretty negative about it, talking about how his scenarios just aren't plausible, but today, our tone changed. We discussed that even if we impact 5 kids, or if we teach 3 kids some tech skill they didn't know prior to our class, we are effecting change. Teaching and learning is NEVER going to be perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Bean's ideas might be pie in the sky (or "pie in the eye" as my sleep-deprived brain spat out in our group discussion) but I admire his enthusiasm. :)
I liked our discussion protocol today - the 4 A's. (Author's assumptions, Agree, Argue with, Aspire to) Typically when I read a professional text, I'm black and white - I'm all in or I think it's all a crock. This forces me to find something good and something questionable in the text, and also helps me to articulate what strikes me as meaningful and authentic or doesn't.
I really liked the connection you made at the beginning. I also agree that explicit modeling is one of the biggest "ah has" I'll take away from these two weeks.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had expanded more on the protocol and what your 4 A's were.
I love your examples! It's true. So often we expect people in our lives to just "know" what to do. We need to be explicit with students and significant others. Excellent transfer of skills.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your personal connection and can't wait to give this a try with my own kids and more importantly, my husband. You're right, they can't read our minds and its a good trick to think aloud not only for our family but our students as well.
ReplyDeleteI also like your honesty regarding the book as a whole! Maybe you could expand on other professional reading that you have done that does a better job!
I too liked your personal reaction. (My husband does the dishes, but will always leave one or two unwashed. I don't get it.) Perhaps students are like husbands--they just need to know what we are thinking and expect them to do.
ReplyDelete