Education Matters

Education Matters

Marh 22 - 28, 2017
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Gulf Weekly Education Matters


Social Studies can be a very dry subject, littered with facts that students don’t really need to know, only to regurgitate in exams that measure how much they can remember, not what they understand.

So when a head teacher challenged his teachers to start all of their Social Studies planning with the phrase: “The children walk into the classroom and find......” he found that the learning quickly became irresistible and the phrase challenged teacher’s imaginations to build learning on many levels.

Children always respond to things that are unusual or unexpected, so this idea gave teachers an opportunity to think of imaginative ways to teach some of the drier topics and allowed them to create a fuss to get their points across.

One Grade 3 teacher ran with the idea and merged science and geography objectives through a ‘Planet Earth’ theme, by introducing a new character to the classroom - and kicking over a few chairs in the process.

So, ‘the children entered the classroom and found….’ that a kerfuffle had taken place in the corner. Glitter (space dust) was everywhere and it appeared that a spaceship had landed (charcoal scrapings in a circle on a desk). Next to it was a note in a plastic cylinder, covered in goo.

The letter was from Zog, who claimed that his planet (Gog) was much better than Earth: more unusual animals, better weather and more stunning landscapes. Gog then challenged the class to prove him wrong.

The children were indignant. After identifying where Earth fits in to our solar system and the unique features that make it habitable, they split into investigation parties to discover wild and interesting nuggets of information to prove him wrong. Facts were the order of the day and, once the children had collected them, they filed a report to send back to Gog.

As the class learned about Earth’s unique geographical features they exhibited a growing sense of pride. But Zog had given them other questions to answer, such as why he could sometimes see large black spots in the ocean and why the ‘white bits’ at each end of the planet were getting smaller.

Eventually, the true learning experience of this exercise became apparent and the penny started to drop. They had extended their knowledge by learning about man-made disasters and their impact, and then applied facts to a new context (Zog), leading to wider understanding. Suddenly they not only understood the uniqueness of our planet but saw the potentially disastrous impact of mankind’s carbon footprint. But the best bit is they had worked it all out for themselves.

Creativity in the classroom is the catalyst that makes learning enriching for students and gives context to the sometimes dry facts that often litter school curricula.  A good school will encourage staff to try new things and not control them by insisting that exam results are the only thing that defines a successful school. 

For a school to be truly outstanding though, school management should empower their staff and trust that they know their children well enough to teach them in the ways that inspire them.







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