Vincent Van Gogh Persevering

It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed.

Mr. Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world’s most famous artists, wrote these words in a letter to his brother.

He speaks of perseverance, grit and stick-to-it-iveness — qualities that I hope and believe my students and I learn during genius hour.

Why School? The Movie

Quotes from Will Richardson’s blog post about Why School? The Movie

Thanks to a tweet from Nancy Carroll, I learned about Will Richardson’s huge project.

It will be a movie inspired by his TED book Why School?

He wrote about the project on Friday here: “‘Why School?’ The Movie (?)

Regarding the movie and the students and educators Will is hoping to recruit to help, he writes:

…we want it to be “our” project as in the global community of connected educators that care deeply about what schools must become for our kids to flourish in their futures. Those who believe in some semblance of that third narrative I wrote about recently and that we need desperately to bring to scale a new conversation about schools and classrooms and learning in the modern world.

I am all in for that third narrative he wrote about earlier this month in the post “The Three Narratives.”

The way forward is to change the emphasis on student learning from “what” to learn to, instead, “how” to learn.

I’m attempting this in my classroom. I lean every day on my PLN to help me find the way. And now, I’m excited to help make this movie happen!

Do you want to be part of this ground-breaking movie? I signed up to do “grunt work,” maybe you’ll want to join me. 🙂

Read Will’s post to find out how you can be involved.

Fellowship of Open Spokes Week 1

What will education be like in five years? I know it will be different because I looked back to see what it was like five years ago when my students and I had no blogging, no YouTube, no Twitter, and no Skype. Worst of all, my students had a teacher who thought she was in charge of dispensing knowledge. Yikes!

A lot has changed in five years. Here are some of the things I’m looking forward to in five more years.

See more videos from the Fellowship of Open Spokes.

Vlogging?

I never thought I’d say I was a vlogger. And I won’t say it just yet, but I did join the Fellowship of Open Spokes. The Fellowship “meets” in a connected YouTube channel where educators are sharing and discussing their reflections, questions, and learnings in video format.

You can subscribe to the channel and join in the conversation, even if you don’t want to vlog.

Should you be interested in trying your hand at vlogging, check out this Google Doc with more information. You can also learn more on the Google+ Community called “Reflective Practice Vlogging.”

Before and After Research

Because we were going to see him speak, seventh graders researched Philip Gans, Holocaust and concentration camp survivor.

These two pictures tell the story of my small group of seventh graders. I tease them sometimes and tell them they are one organism. They are a collaborative, learn-together group. And when an “organism” is studying the Holocaust, sometimes it’s better to do it together.

Being in a connected world of collaborative learning together is a good thing.