I titled this blog a couple days ago because I was thinking
about how my kids think in class... How they respond to different elements they
come in contact with. I am trying to understand why they react the way they do.
I also struggled with the lack of thinking my students want to do or how much
they rely on me to tell me what they should be thinking. The children I come in
contact with on a daily basis become frustrated at times because I ask
them why something is or how they came about this answer. I do not want to
prove them wrong but want them to prove themselves right. They act as though
no one has ever asked them to support their thinking. I literally feel like
they dislike me with extreme intensity
when I ask them to "explain"
something to me. I get responses like "that's just what I got" or
" that is what I read". They never really dig deeper or want to
really give me the meat of the story.
This made me think about my own 3 children at home and the
things they ask me or what we talk about. Visualizing how one piece of
information we begin with can lead to something so off topic to what we
initially started talking about, it's nearly impossible to believe. Sometimes
we even stop to think about the process it took to get from where we started to
our end result, always chuckling about how that can even happen.
I titled this blog a couple days ago because I was thinking
about how my kids think in class... How they respond to different elements they
come in contact with. I am trying to understand why they react the way they do.
I also struggled with the lack of thinking my students want to do or how much
they rely on me to tell me what they should be thinking. The children I come in
contact with on a daily basis become frustrated at times because I ask
them why something is or how they came about this answer. I do not want to
prove them wrong but want them to prove themselves right. They act as though
no one has ever asked them to support their thinking. I literally feel like
they dislike me with extreme intensity when I ask them to "explain"
something to me. I get responses like "that's just what I got" or
" that is what I read". They never really dig deeper or want to
really give me the meat of the story.
when I ask them to "explain"
something to me. I get responses like "that's just what I got" or
" that is what I read". They never really dig deeper or want to
really give me the meat of the story.
This made me think about my own 3 children at home and the
things they ask me or what we talk about. Visualizing how one piece of
information we begin with can lead to something so off topic to what we
initially started talking about, it's nearly impossible to believe. Sometimes
we even stop to think about the process it took to get from where we started to
our end result, always chuckling about how that can even happen.
Ironically, a coworker sent me an article about learned
helplessness this morning and it talked about students not being able to think.
(http://catlintucker.com/2016/01/learned-helplessness/) This was an interesting
read and I appreciated the fact there are others experiencing the same
unfortunate circumstances. Do I think we can help this epidemic? Definitely.
However, we have to start at a young age so we can help these youngsters
develop into the innovative thinkers this society so desperately needs.
So if a kid gets a little upset with me because I want to
grow their brain and make them branch out into that thinking zone... then I
guess I will just have to deal with some anger issues until they understand the
positive repercussions of it all.
