It's crunch time for teachers. School starts Monday and the walls and floors of the school buildings are full of "learning tools"
Bulletin Boards are fierce competitions to see who can place the most elaborate eye catching phrases and images, most times not related in any way to the achievement of students, out for your viewing pleasure.
We have pirates and ducks, chili peppers and dragons, transformers, frogs, jungle trees with monkeys-whatever plays this year is on the wall.
Wall space in classrooms must be graded by how much JUNK can be pasted on the walls. The amount of stimulation via posters, pictures, rules, quotes, and various pop culture garbage is so overwhelming it is a wonder there is no smell to the amount of clutter.
If that doesn't totally distract the students the classroom clutter of rocking chairs, bean bags, pillows, games, videos, rugs, boxes, bags and various paraphernalia kids will wade through to get to their desks will plunge them asunder, boggling their minds and send them reeling as if they had too much sugar.
Welcome to the new generation of teachers. More is better. Feed the kids rather than teach them how to eat. Slide and slurp.
Disneyland classrooms. Keeping minds so overwhelmed and busy, the art of quiet reflection and time to think is lost in the myriad of buzzes like some kind of laser show to the brain.
I recently read something I thought critically important to learning.
It is the spaces around us that have meaning, not the objects in the way.
Learning is much like that.
We need the spaces in our brain, those pathways to neurons to be available to us in order to construct new meaning , store it and retrieve it.
As much criticism as I have with Kid Nation's approach to leaving kids unattended I have to say the crucial component of the show is this-kids had to use their brains-they had to problem solve without the Disneyland approach-they had to construct meaning-they had to work together in groups and they had to use those spaces and learn from them.
If you are impressed by the glitz and glamour of all that stuff on the walls and floors, think again-student learning, inquiry based student learning-which sticks inside the brain and clamps down in awe and wonder does not come from spoon fed videos and big, flashy posters on the walls.
In fact kids will struggle with the distractions all year long -struggle to focus-struggle to think-struggle to develop some sense of structure, as their little minds try and focus.
We have lost the art of quiet reflection, clearing our brains of stimulation and relishing quiet solitude.
Those days of lying on the grass, alone, watching clouds pass, without an agenda -those moments of noticing what is around us -that belongs around us -those are the pathways to the brain that we teachers need, desperately need-to foster learning and understanding.
Don't be impressed by Disneyland classrooms. Be more impressed by open spaces, room to wander and think and great lessons.
Ask to see those-the rest is smoke and mirrors.
