Well, in one of our conversations I mentioned we should have a selective “share button” in our minds for everything we felt like blogging, be it personal or professional. It’s not an ideal world, but Cris compelled me to share here after her wonderful post about teaching, teaching practices and memories. I guess this is also part of our comment challenge challenge! I’ve been making new connections, strengthening old ones as a group of highly excited, passionate bloggers are willing to take their time to keep hitting the share button every single second and it’s been a huge collective knowledge builder. I’ve been learning in every possible way from this journey.
Well, going back to Cris and teaching and me. Cris talked about her own experience, how she’s changed as an educator, how she understood that the human touch and connecting to students was what really mattered. I, too, learned that books don’t teach or enhance learning. We, educators, together with learners, do! I remember how I’d rely in tons of papers, activities, games to have the feeling that I was teaching, that I was being approved by my students. Then, I realized that what really made a difference was the human touch, the personalization, the intimacy a classroom with so many brilliant souls provides.
I realized that what really made a difference was harnessing individual talents, encouraging students to be and do their best, tapping into their interests, passions. I learned that we didn’t need tons of papers, resources, activities…We needed to connect, to be good listeners, guiders and followers.
My teaching changed and I changed along the way.
I’ll never forget, for example, a conversation class on teens we had.
I showed my teens this video. Then, we talked about it, they taught me some teen slangs in Portuguese and they produced cooperatively wonderful poems on our class wiki. These are the connections I look for and I miss now that I’m not currently teaching f2f, though I’m having a wonderful time with my online students and connecting in unexpected ways, but this is another story, blog post…
Their poems:
And more than this. They want to enjoy their lifetime To know themselves, To know what they like And expect about them and the world.
by Andréa and Joanna
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Teenagers
Some teenagers are okay And others are wicked insane Even if some people say they are always the same They can´t understand that this is part of their games! Yo, man.. fo sho..
Some like soccer Others prefer the Net They can be rockers and bum a cigarette
Probably lives with passion Maybe in need of an exercise set Or don´t live without fashion They are different, I bet.
by Joseane, Felipe and Leonardo
____________________________________________ Teenagers want to be more informed Know about what the world can offer, New cultures and different people Teens want to enjoy their lives They want to have as much as possible Teens are always under pressure But they were made to be freeThey are always trying to find the real liberty Without getting out of reality They want to find new feelings New love and new experiences
Matheus and Breno
_______________________________ Living in a Dream
Every teenager has a dream It can be like Martin Luther King. They want to make the difference Also looking for love and peace.
If you do have a dream, Make it real. It can be just like having an ice cream or as hard as living in Rio.
Never give up. Keep on going. So start cheering up ‘Cause the world is rolling.
Patrícia, André and Gabriela
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What do Teenagers want?
They want parties They want to go out They want to enjoy their life They want to know about everything They don´t have feelings In reality, they have nothing That´s what they say about who is never working…
Is that a real conclusion we can take about them?! I will tell you what A teenager is more than a friend…
Teenagers dream Teenagers sleep Teenagers cry Teenagers think Teenagers die Teenagers drink Teenagers dance Teenagers decide
They come to the conclusion By heart or outside They are just younger But they are people, anyway
People that are always learning And that can teach too.. You should dream as a teenager And think about what is true…
Roberto
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No. I’ll never forget those teens and many students who changed me, who taught me, who are my inspiration and my optimistic view of education.
I’ve been part of some networks at Ning for some time. I check it once in a while. There are just fantastic networks there in which learning happens in a blog post, a photo, a reference in a forum, a connection to someone in your area, an exchange of comments. However, I’ve never really considered the power it holds. Ning is a platform that aggregates many of the tools every educator dreamed of in the past to keep communication flowing among participants of a group. And I’m not mentioning only in terms of classroom. I mean educators as learners need to have their sharing space for professional development. So, Ning is empowering. An educator can be part of a variety of networks according to his professional and personal interests and might create a network to connect to his students, as well.In my case, I had been part of other communities, but then it dawned on me that I could create a network to keep the students of an online course I was teaching connected. It was their wish. So, as a surprise of end of term, Ning became the beginning of another stage of our interaction. Plus, I realized that it was an open learning space in which I could invite friends and even former students to be there as they shared their interest in language learning. Another great aspect was that Ning was visually appealing and had features of a social networking that my younger students just love, infinite possibilities to add photos, videos, music, whatever they feel like sharing.