Friday, November 9, 2018

Sparking Interest?

For class the last few weeks we've had to read and watch a lot of material about teaching. A lot of it is just helping people bring their audience into what it is they're trying to teach and be engaged with the material, or simply finding ways to facilitate students' independent discovery process. It has been very exciting.

I had the chance to begin to apply some of these things at my work.

In the afternoons I work with a group of about 20 kids from 4K to 5th grade. The majority of the group are kindergartners and 1st graders. This means that as leaders it is very difficult to invent things for the younger kids and leave the older kids to find something to do on their own. But that's not engaging them or helping stir them on to creativity and discovery.

After a conversation I had with one of these older kids I decided to go to the library and pick up a plethora of books that are capable of stirring interest - you know, the kinds I pored over when I was a kid. I got drawing books, a few DIY books, a bird guide book, some gardening books, and one with photos of Korean architecture. I made sure that all the books were visually stimulating, full of pictures (not too many words) because this was exactly the kind of thing that stirred my fancy when I was a kid. I also want to look into instructions for how to build things out of cardboard - a resource of which we have plenty.

The point is this: to get the kids thinking of things they would like to learn more about and we can help facilitate their curiosity by providing more books of similar topics. Who knows how it will go, but I'm excited to see what happens.

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