Chickens in the Classroom

[Linda in San Diego]

I teach at a middle school, 6 - 8 grades. Mostly 6th grade all day. One of my students could not understand the difference between fur and feather. She was certain that chick had "fur" it did not look like feathers to her. Nothing changed her mind, it was too strange.
I hope to have a 4H group started at my school this next school year, so many of my students are too far removed from reality and it is scary. A few years ago I had a student who understood that monkeys were mammals, but did not connect to the fact that humans are mammals too. It was so strange.

 

[unionwirewoman]

I believe that kids these days are more into what's "cool" than actually learning anything . From my experience they play dumb just to get attention . They do this to get out of doing work , not to actually learn anything ...believe me .... I have 2 of them at my house that are soon to be my stepkids . It all stems from how they were raised .

 

[Linda in San Diego]

Good luck! I am enjoying my vacation, but it is almost time to start planning for next year and the next batch of students. That's the joy of teaching, you get to start over every year. Not like parenting LOL

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Kids ARE into learning things, but the society they have grown up in has caused them to learn in different ways. The delivery has to change. Teachers who teach "the same way they always have for 30 years" are not successful because they don't understand the changing needs of today's kids. Today's kids adapt quickly to learning and using a variety of technologies, can search for the information they need quickly, and know how to deliver information to others in a variety of creative ways. They like learning things that are practical and have "I can use this right now!" benefits. They don't have a lot of patience because they don't need patience. Communication and information is available anytime and at lightning speeds.

I do agree that the way kids are raised has a lot to do with if kids are into learning or not. Literacy is a HUGE part of it: both traditional literacy and media literacy affect if a kid is going to do well in school. If a kid wants to know something, asks a question, and always gets, "Shut up!" as a response, they will learn not to be curious and not to look for answers. However, if the parent responds with, "Let's write that question down and find out the answer together online/in the library (etc.)" the kid is going to turn out completely different.

 

[Linda in San Diego]

Old Way - There is a teaching "tool" called KWL - The K is what you Know, the W is what you Want to know, and the L is for what you learned. 3 columns and get filled in. We were going to have a worm bin in the classroom for worm composting and I wanted to know what they already thought they knew about earthworms. So students started offering ideas then all of a sudden I was getting facts that I knew my students wouldn't "know" off the top of their heads. I had forgotten - every student in my class has their own computer right in front of them and several had simply Googled earthworm and were getting all kinds of facts. (This was several years ago and it was my first year with 1:1 computers in the classroom - yes every day and every student)

New Way - KWL again but with a twist - I tell them that they will have 8 minutes to find out all they can about the topic - Then we blank the computers and then share out what has been found. Sometimes I give websites for them to start out from so they don't Google the topic and get some questionable sites.

But, Chicken Lady, you are right, they want to learn but they expect it to happen much quicker. And obviously we have encounterd the students for whom the lessons at home have not enabled the student to want to learn.

 

[trailhound]

I am a teacher too, but Kindergarten. Kindergarteners are whole other creatures unto themselves, but it never ceases to amaze me the differences between my student's childhood and my own. Some of these kids don't know about making wishes from dandelions, making clover neckaces, just plain entertaining themselves outdoors on their own.

On the other hand- I love your modified KWL- and am envious of your computer situation. I just took a smartboard class and am all gung-ho to use it, but I have to check it out from library because my whole school has to share one, so we will see how that goes. The W can be really fun with kindergartners- they are very serious about wanting to know things like "Do leprhechauns take showers?".

I did chicks with my kids this year-bought them as week olds because I don't have an incubator- and it was great! Chicks are great for them to hold and learn from. Next year all of the K teachers had the idea that we would write a grant to each get an incubator and then each hatch out a different kind of bird- chickens, ducks, geese, etc. Not sure how to make that happen, but it would be fun!

Andrea

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Mmm, SmartBoard... We have one at our school, too. It's fun to use.

I wish we had a 1:1 ratio of computers in the English classes I teach. It would make writing a lot more fun for the kids, I think. You are extremely lucky; I like how you adapted KWL for use with the computers, too. That was clever!

The science classes in our school have computers like that. Maybe my department will be next.

The toy I like that I have is a special kind of video camera that can zoom in on the books I'm reading and project full-color images of each page to the screen on the wall via a data projector. We just got it last year and I love having it. Studies have shown that kids benefit from reading a text along with a skilled reader (the teacher), so I use it any time I'm doing shared reading.

 

[Linda in San Diego]

Nice - that reminds me, I need to talk to one of our science teachers and borrow back a document camera since I am going to be doing science and ELA next year. Thanks for the idea of how to use the document camera, I have a projection unit, no white board (wish list) so I gave away my overhead projector. The document camera would be handy....

Yes the 1:1 ratio in the whole school is great. And it is only made better since students have free connection at home with direct access to all their school pages, documents and programs - for free. It does indeed make writing as a class easier. Everyone has equal access.

 

[chickiebaby]

Do all of you wonderful teachers know about the excellent embryology curricula available in the store section of Murray McMurray? I used them with my daughter's class (cooperative school, parents included, plus I used to teach too). They have several for diff age groups and they are really all so good.

I cant think of the publisher or name but if you google Murray McMurray you'll find it in the good selection of books. If I can get back to the computer I will paste in the URL here, but my oven timer just beeped and it looks like it about to rain and there's wash on the line--ack.

WE LOVE YOU, TEACHERS!

 

[chickiebaby]

okay; clothes in, pies out. This just goes to show when you compulsively get back on this message board even thugh you know you have about 9273 things you should do instead. But here's the URL for these classroom embroyology books. Turns out they are, of course, produced by good old 4-H. Lots of other great kids books and grownup books here, too.

Thanks, teach.

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/embryology_in_the_classroom.html