It's been a while.
A long while.
As I'm sitting here reflecting on some of the encounters I've had with a couple of students (and one in particular) I think, with whom can I share these thoughts who will actually get it? Relate to it? Care about it?
But really I think it's just about me. Processing it.
I have a student named "Eleanor". And she just keeps blowing me away.
Several weeks ago, during a literacy lesson on non-fiction, we were talking about needing to read the text and really stop to think about what we are reading. I hear her say "we have to make sense of it, like in math". Like SMP 1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. That's not just a math skill, and she knew that.
Later in that same hour, she was reading about soil and plants (we are in the midst of a totally integrated unit on plants) and she came to ask me "do all plants need soil?". I gave her my standard answer-What do you think? After some conversation back and forth, we ended up talking about where soil comes from and decomposition. So I ask, do you know that word, decomposition? Yes, she exclaims, like in math! <<MIND BLOWN>> Tell me more, I request. Like in math, when we decompose a number. Yeah... We take the number apart. She immediate understands organic decomposition, too.
This student was able to make a connection between what we were learning about in math and connect it to something else that she was interested in. Something she wanted to know more about.
And today when a guest speaker came to talk to us about recycling and where our trash goes and how to help our environment, she knew all about decomposition and soil and the connection to our natural world. And when I bring in my vermicompost (worm compost) pile to share with my students next week, she will get to see how the food I have placed in there is literally decomposing, being broken apart, just like the numbers in math.
And when she is doing a pre-assessment about subtraction and starts decomposing numbers all over the place and totally confusing herself, she is brave enough to say to me, I'm totally confused and can't figure it out.
And when we skipped our daily number talk today, she called me out! She knows subtraction doesn't make sense to her and she knows number talks help her. She knows what she needs. And she knows to ask for it.
These are the moments that stick. With both of us. These experiences solidify my belief in meaningful education, integrated and connected education, and interest guided education.
I can't wait to see what she comes up with tomorrow.
