Opening Minds Part 2

Before I add my two cents here, I want to tell you how impressed I am with all of the stimulating, thought-provoking, honest reflections we've had this week! I'm so looking forward to continuing the conversation with all of you this week. Remember, this week is being hosted at Jill's blog, My Primary Passion. You can also read last week's installment at Cathy's blog, Reflect and Refine. Cathy is also helping us get our cyber-exercise by putting together our Jog the Web for this year's event. Ok, here we go...

My thoughts on chapters 4-6...

"Whenever we publicly say "good" to one student and then follow it with "excellent" to another, suddenly "good" isn't worth as much." (p.41)
After I read this quote, I had to stop and ponder for a moment. It brought me back to a conversation I had with a parent some years ago. She came in for our fall parent-teacher conferences and asked if we could speak about her son's calendar in his folder. (There was a calendar in the take-home folder as a quick means of communicating with parents. Children received a stamp on the date or a note from the teacher if it had been a rough day. The stamps were all animals and holiday related.) She wanted to know what the hierarchy of the stamps was. I had to ask her for further information, but even though the stamps didn't even have words on them, her son had convinced himself some stamps meant he'd had a better day than others. He figured some stamps weren't worth as much as others. What a learning moment for me. This quote brought that all back, and it made me think further when Johnston says, "Praise is related to power and control." (p. 44)

"...books are not merely to entertain or to teach kids to figure out words or even to learn things from. They are tools for growing minds." (p. 56)
This quote got 3 post-it flags! Tools for growing minds. Oh, how I love that! It is in the dialogue that our thinking is challenged, stretched, changed. Our CyberPD event is a perfect example of this!  As adult readers, we engage in these book conversations where we come to understand other people's perspectives and opinions... so why wouldn't we want the same thing for our students? I think this is a phrase I will need to remember as I make more time in our day for engaging in these conversations. I have to provide the time for us to use those important tools to grow our minds and to have those reader-to-reader conversations. I really liked Peter's analogy of saying that it's "as if (kids) are stretching to the next rock in the stream and become aware they need to reach out to others for a balancing hand." (p. 59)

"The hardest part for most of us is then keeping our mouths shut and not judging what children say." (p. 77)
I have worked really hard on this, especially in the past year. No, I don't feel like I am quick to pass judgment on what my first graders say... but I do feel like I tend to talk too much. I forced myself to take a step back during the last school year and not jump in. I made myself listen more and talk less. No longer do I feel like I am the "keeper of the knowledge"... or the person with all of the answers. It really was a liberating feeling!

"Social imagination enables social decision making, and since learning, literacy, and inquiry are fundamentally social, we should approach teaching in ways that foster it." (p. 80)
Johnston begins chapter 6 by talking about how learning is fundamentally social. I think this speaks volumes to the world in which we live today. We are so "connected" with so many people in so many ways, and we have to find ways to foster that social connection face-to-face. Children need opportunities to talk about how their actions impact others around them, and they need to practice the social skills needed for life. I'd also add that bringing down those classroom walls aids in making our learning more global. It's something I'm really striving for this year. How can I help my students to make those social connections, both face-to-face and with our global community?

And I'll leave you with this... something I stumbled upon when playing on Pinterest...

"Talking with quiet confidence will always beat screaming with obvious insecurity."

There wasn't an author listed, but I'd like to thank him/her for hitting the nail on the head with that one!

#CyberPD continues next week!
July 25 here at Our Camp-Read-A-Lot
July 26 on Twitter (time to be announced soon!)

The conversation will continue on Twitter using the #cyberPD hashtag. Wallwisher is also a place to jot down your favorite quotes, questions, and quandaries! Let's keep the conversation rolling! :)