Wednesday

Awhile back I mentioned an assignment I thought up for the first chapters of TKM. It involves having students devise ten ‘ways’ of northern MN. That is ‘ten’ things people from different areas should know about us and how we live and what make us unique to this area.

Here is what some came up with ---

Hugos and Walmart . . . that’s about it.

Be ready to wear orange for the month of November.

Canadians raid the campground every summer.

Parents will excuse you from school for deer hunting.

Going to ‘the cities’ is a big deal.

MN, land of 10,000 lakes and no sharks.

We measure distance in hours.

Mud running (whatever that is. Apparently, it involves a rather large fourwheel drive vehicle and copious amounts of mud. I’m not sure on the rest.)

Most kids’ conversations occur through texting rather than talking.

Walmart is the place to be.

By far, my favorite essay was from our French foreign exchange student. He wrote about a fall morning when he rode in with the son of the family he is staying with.

After school, he saw a truck with blood all over it. Then when they got closer he saw two deer dead in the back.

Could you imagine his shock!

The author wrote – “Now I realize it’s normal to kill animals and show their bodies to everyone. I’ve gotten used to it.”

Ha.

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The education podcast I listened to this morning, featuring Ted Sizer, focused on three types of schools: bad schools, barely good enough schools, and excellent schools. It seems the benchmark of the excellent schools was discussion in classes. Silent rooms were bad things.

I object.

My fourth block class is stone quiet. There are 28 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird propped open. Kids are reading and answering questions on a review guide.

I know this is a tendency of a barely good enough school, but the worksheet is not busy work. I designed it to not only high light the key parts of the chapter, but to also invite them to connect it to their lives and to also really take a whack at analyzing the multiple sides of various characters.

I’m treasuring this silence. I can almost hear the thinking.

Is that bad?

I think there should be a clear distinction between mindful silence (in which honest thinking is occurring) and mindless silence (where students are just biding their time).

For once, there is precious little of the latter thinking going on in here.

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