Weblog walk with the students
My favorite walk where weblogs is concerned is the one with the students. I began to range out of control last week with my Wrinkles group. Let me tell you why. I have three students in that group who were also in last year’s NewsQuest group. They look forward to writing and want to be challenged. They have really learned how to reflect about their own writing. They care about the issues in today’s world. They like weblogs because it gives them a voice and they feel that someone out there is caring about their voice. It’s a new feeling and it is empowering. They want to make a difference. They take great joy in helping all the other students who are new to weblogs this year. I’ve seen them stop what they are doing time after time to help a peer struggling through a new learning step on the weblogs. They want these students who are new to weblogs to learn to love them as much as they do. Sounds like some of us, right? They just know their peers are going to see the power of writing and they are so enthusiastic with each other! They keep asking me if they will be able to do this in middle school, which is where they are headed next year. I tell them, I hope so!
Watching them interact teaches me so much and lets me know what I need to focus on in my teaching. Anyway, my group of three have decided that they want to tackle an issue and report about it on the weblog. This is what made me range out of control. They want to investigate and support reasons for keeping art, music, and physical education in the school curriculum. They talked about interviewing teachers, researching the issue, and maybe even getting together something good enough to send to our legislators. These students have gotten wind of the fact that our Governor and legislators may give classroom teachers a 2% pay raise but this pay raise may come at the expense of art, music, and PE programs. The students are alarmed and want to express that. What really thrilled me is that they truly get the academic importance of art, music, and PE. They are ready to explain that and are going to try to put this together in some way that will get their point across. The final thing that just really made my day is that they are willing to do this outside of class. Soar, soar, soar! Hey, these kids are truly representative of their school mascot, the eagle. Eagles don’t flock, they soar!
February 10th, 2004 at 6:13 pm
What wonderful proof about the power of weblogs! That they want to do it on their own time is fabulous because it means they have internalized the power of the written word.
(Well, in California they’re talking pay cuts for teachers… Maybe Ahnold can do a movie “Terminator: Cutting the Educational Budget Strangehold.” All proceeds going to education. Think he’ll go for it?)