Week 15 post

The Edible School Yard video podcast was about Martin Lither King Jr. Middle School's gardening program.  The students and teachers are responsible for planting, maintaining, and harvesting the garden.  As the garden is being taken care of the teachers use every aspect of gardening to teach the students in a way that is most beneficial.  It is almost like the students are learning and don't even know it.  The garden helps the students develop a huge amount of pride in what they are doing and learn teamwork and basic life skills.  In the video the students seemed to very engaged and interested.  In this type of setting the normal classroom problems did not seem to occur.  The gardening experience is so novel that traditional classroom management does not apply.  The smartest kid may not stand out as such and every type of student has a chance to shine.

The second video podcast was about students spending a day in the shoes of the less fortunate.  The students are placed into groups and then sent to different "camps" to live out the night as hungry, poor people.  Each group is given different supplies and no one has everything they need to cook food.  They have to interact within their own groups and go out and work together with the other groups.  Through this experience they are able to get a small glimpse into the lives of people that live in countries like Guatemala, countries in Africa, Thailand, and refugee camps.  The global village activity is an outstanding way to get kids out of their comfort zones and get them to thinking about others and how to help those who need our help.

Both of the podcasts have given me ideas of things I can do, on a smaller scale, in my classroom or in my school.  Teamwork was highlighted in both these podcasts, and I think that this is one of the most important parts of an effective and positive learning experience.  In science classes the teacher gets to have lab groups and the students are placed in groups and are expected to work well with one another.  At the beginning of the school year I would have to give points to groups that worked well together in order to get them to work as a team.  As the year went on and the students became a team, the points were not necessary.  Students must be part of the team and learn to work with those who are not the easiest to work with.  This is a life skill that is necessary for a healthy adult hood.  

Another aspect that was mirrored in both podcasts was the real life application.  The students with the edible schoolyard were able to use what they learned in their own lives and it helped them understand the world around them.  The students in the global village were able to understand better the circumstances of people of different races and cultures. These students were nudged in a direction of action.  Some of them wanted to find out more about how to help others in need.  As a teacher I need to find ways to help my students learn science while at the same time learn real life lessons.  By looking at the big picture and analyzing lessons in that perspective I could fit more life skills into my class and know that these lessons could open the eyes of students to a needy world they live in.