I love finding ideas or concepts in our textbooks that reinforce our own thoughts and practices. It is almost like our classes are saying “Yes! You’ve got it! That’s a great way to do it.” In this Chapter 3 of Literate Lives, particularly, I am talking about the reference to Kidwatching, and its impact on how we, as teachers, can connect with and understand our students and their learning styles. I think that learning about your students will always be beneficial to their education. Not only is it more likely that they will understand the material better if it is geared towards them, their interests and their learning styles, but their excitement level will be raised and they will be more engaged.
I had a camper this summer who was obsessed with trains. You might think that “obsessed” is a little over dramatic, or an exaggeration. It isn’t. This kid constantly talked about coal trains, freight trains, locomotives, commuter trains, passenger trains, trams, monorails – you name it. Obviously, as a teacher, this would be an easy observation. Not all aspects of Kidwatching are in-depth or difficult. My camper was really upset one day because someone told him they didn’t like trains because they were bad for the environment, and he couldn’t understand why. So, he and I talked about how the smoke from some trains hurts the air – which would be the same as someone taking part of a track off of the ground. The train wouldn’t run as well. So if smoke hurts our air, the air can’t be used as much or as well as we would like it. This is just one of many examples of “teachable moments” that I believe are facilitated and helped by Kidwatching.
Kidwatching can help incorporate a student’s interests, their culture, their hobbies --- just about anything. To not take into account their interests, learning styles and other relevant information would really be doing them a disservice.
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Laura, I agree with you completely! This chapter was a reinforcement of everything we've been learning in our classes this year, as well as Nicki's class last year. I think that you're absolutely right about learning about our student's particular interests and culture in order to get them engaged during school. If that little boy who loved trains had been one of your students, I'm sure you could have thought up ways to involve trains in your classroom. If we could do this with each of our students, just imagine how much more involved and exciting our classrooms would be!
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