My students felt that they were learning more ‘things’ that would make them ‘street-smart’ rather than ‘book-smart’ while learning about activism and developing actions on issues that affect the wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments. This was concluded after a group of five student volunteers agreed to be interviewed by Prof Larry Bencze (from OISE) as part of the study of the implementation of the STEPWISE framework in my Grade 10 Academic Science.
Excerpt from October 17, 2011 Journal Entry – Inspiring Activism and Allowing Time for Students to Work on Research and Planning their Actions!
“Today I showed the photos and videos of my visit to St. James Park in Toronto during the Occupy Toronto event. Many students did not know about Occupy Toronto or other related movements around the globe. We discussed some of the images that I was showing and I related them as much as I could to student action projects. My ‘take action’ pep-rally lasted 20 minutes and after this I took the students to the computer room, where they had an hour and a half to work on their research.”
[Reflection: When look back I realize that this lesson on October 17th was motivating and it supported the idea of activism. I modeled this to students by going to Occupy Toronto event. In terms of the streetsmarts, the images and videos that I was showing to kids were real and current! I talked about the sings that the protesters made and the information they included on their posters. I stressed the idea that masses should to be educated for a protest or a movement, like Occupy Toronto, to make sense. We talked about violent protests and what is and what isn’t accomplished during such public upheavals. All of these conversations fed into the idea of streetsmarts more so that just booksmarts.]
Except from October 21, 2011 Journal Entry – Students’ Presentations of their Actions!
“I learned that students have tremendous potential to be creative and innovative as I watched their STSE action presentations. They like this project since it was customizable allowing them the freedom to do what they wanted as far the issues they decided to study and the kinds of actions they pursued….”
[Reflection: One of the words that stands out to me is ‘customizable.’ Nowadays teenagers want most things around them to be ‘customizable.’ Classroom experiences are still traditional, for the most part. They are not very customizable by the students. Students should be able to ‘customize’ their learning experiences by tailoring them to their interests. The STSE action projects allowed students to do exactly this – to ‘customize’ their learning by choosing their own topic, forming same interest groups and deciding on what actions to take. The concept of ‘customizable education’ relates more to street-smarts rather than booksmart since it has more in common with kids' everyday life experiences.]
These are just two short and recent reflections of many more reflections to come (not necessarily on this blog), but as part of my effort to try to understand the factors or events that have made the students feel that they were learning street smarts over book smarts in my Grade 10 Science class.
Please feel free to share your thoughts about the value of street smarts in education and what kind of teaching would promote street smarts over book smarts.
Image Credits: http://www.themichelpage.com/Humor_StreetSmarts.htm
