{"id":295,"date":"2013-04-22T23:16:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T23:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/?p=295"},"modified":"2015-10-22T19:04:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T19:04:24","slug":"words-worth-their-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/2013\/04\/22\/words-worth-their-weight\/","title":{"rendered":"Words Worth Their Weight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dialogue is essential for learning. No one acquires real knowledge without it.<\/p>\n

I asked my students to speak about their education, specifically their studies in literature.<\/p>\n

Is it true, as many technocrats and administrators would have us believe, that literature, the humanities even, are plummeting like bad stock in the 21st century education market? \u00a0Is it true that students no longer want to read literature because they’ve lost the attention span required to read a novel, and their future jobs won’t require these skills? \u00a0Are reading and writing\u00a0pass\u00e9<\/em> in the digital age? \u00a0Are schools preparing students for “the 21st century”, whatever that means? \u00a0Does anyone ask them what they want? \u00a0What value they find, if any, in their learning, and what they themselves want to learn?\u00a0<\/p>\n

They’re up to answering these questions.<\/p>\n

My students are thoughtful, interesting people full of ideas. \u00a0They make my work mean something.\u00a0 They keep me grounded, and make me try my best.\u00a0 They’ve no idea how much they teach me every day. As teachers, we have to remember that our students have voices, and we must let them speak. \u00a0We can learn from them. \u00a0They’ll learn from each other. \u00a0They must be invited to the table in curriculum design and creation. \u00a0 Otherwise, we run the risk of assuming the wrong things in the name of “21st century commonsense”. \u00a0I believe Nabokov’s warning<\/a> still holds true today:<\/p>\n

Commonsense has\u00a0trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth […] Commonsense at its worst is sense made common, and so everything is comfortably cheapened by its touch. Commonsense is square whereas all the most essential visions and values of\u00a0life are beautifully round, as\u00a0round as the\u00a0universe or\u00a0the eyes of a child at\u00a0its first circus show.<\/p>\n

I care about what happens to my students.\u00a0 Graduations are always bittersweet for teachers who must close yet another book in their own learning.<\/p>\n

With Prize Day less than two months away, with tests and essays still to be written and lessons to be taught, I want to celebrate the work of these thoughtful and inspiring young people.<\/p>\n

Below are links to my grade twelve English students’ blogs. Just hold your cursor over any image and click to experience the world of education through their eyes. \u00a0Discover and remember the musings, reflections, and experiences of adolescent wonder that grow from the joy of learning and the joy of reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Dialogue is essential for learning. No one acquires real knowledge without it. I asked my students to speak about their education, specifically their studies in literature. Is it true, as many technocrats and administrators would have us believe, that literature, the humanities even, are plummeting like bad stock in the 21st century education market? \u00a0Is … Continue reading “Words Worth Their Weight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,20,41],"tags":[14,30,19,18,23],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century-curriculum","category-action-plan","category-defense-of-literature","tag-21st-century-syllabus","tag-blogger","tag-curriculum","tag-literature","tag-personalized-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/shelleythomas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}