Teaching Thought #66

Teacherscribe's Teaching Thought #66

Set your sights high.

What if we could design an academic experience that was as memorable as prom?  

This was the concept that an English teacher, Susan Bedford, and a Social Studies teacher, Greg Jouriles.  Bedford was teaching the iconic Lord of the Flies, and Jouriles was teaching about the Nuremberg trials.  Here is more on their story.

One thing they did was put William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, on trial for crimes against humanity.  Did he get the whole concept of Human Nature (Golding’s take is that without stringent rules and order set up by a society, humans will devolve into savages again.  Yes, this is the same thing Conrad focuses on in Heart of Darkness)?  Or is he correct?  That’s the case students in these classes build over the course of several weeks.

Their story is incredible.  But it had to have been a massive amount of work, but the engagement and results are undeniable.

When I began teaching, I never thought I could have students write a six-page paper (let alone have them write it and have it published by the first day), have students create a Linchpin board, have students create and deliver a mock Ted Talk, have students read two ‘classic’ novels and write an 8-12 page paper on them, and so on.

All of those came with a lot of work.  But at least I’m not doing the same thing I did 20 years ago in Communications 10.

I want to design lessons and experiences that are just as engaging as prom and homecoming.  

But you can’t start out that way.  You have to take your time and work up to it.