Today a video of student Jeff Bliss, a sophomore at Duncanville High School in Texas, went viral fast. In the video below we are privy to Bliss passionately speaking his truth. He knows that learning is more than packets to fill out, more than passively fulfilling simple and mindless tasks.
You want kids to come into your class, you want them to get excited for this? You gotta come in here, you gotta make them excited. You want a kid to change and start doing better? You gotta touch his frickin’ heart. Can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell him,” he says, as the teacher repeatedly tells him to leave the class.
While his message was pointed toward his experience in this classroom, it was born from a feeling that is boiling up in classroom after classroom across the country. It is why students are standing up and walking out of schools, protesting because they know there are better ways to learn together. They know they learn best when they are able to learn with teachers that teach to their hearts and not just to the test.
Students are not alone in this feeling, teachers and community leaders are also standing up and walking out. It is important to remember that we should not watch this video as an attack on teachers, but instead an opportunity to talk about what we want in our schools.
What struck me most about the video is that Jeff Bliss felt he needed to voice his ideas in a way that would get him kicked out of class. Why is this the only way for him to voice his visions about learning and education? Why did it take a 90 second video for us to realized that students “get it”? Why do we wait for students to burst or break before we listen?
Many of us are not waiting for students to reach a breaking point, we are proactively engaging them by providing positive venues and space for them to express their ideas, stories and voices. My work with Imagining Learning along with other organizations like IDEA, SoundOut, and Student Voice has has convinced me that we must proactively help students activate their power to change education and the world by providing this space.
Just yesterday, Imagining Learning launched a campaign to fund 35 listening sessions (see video) around the country. Our Listening Sessions are designed to create an appreciative environment of trust and openness so young people’s natural wisdom can emerge. All young people have ideas about their education and how it should be changed. They also possess deep wisdom about how their lives are affected by the world around them and how they can make it better. In the last 4 years we have done 20 listening sessions around the country. They are effective in providing the space to activate students toward using their voice and ideas to positively change the world and education not just to protest or react to it.
THIS IS WATER (by SeeTheGlossary)
” the real value of a real education Which has almost nothing to do with knowledge And everything to do with simple awareness”
Pumpcast News, Part 1 - The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (by tonightshownbc)
mental health break! So good!
“When you yell at someone, who hears it more: you or them? You’re only hurting yourself by getting angry. I want to live to be 100. I haven’t raised my voice in 40 years.”
Here is where I will hang the students published fairytales. They loved this unit. CCSS no longer allows a fairytale unit for second graders. I do believe with all of this classroom academic rigor the imagination is being lost.
“They loved this unit. CCSS no longer allows a fairytale unit for second graders.”
This line makes me sad, and then mad! A teacher should have the flexibility to teach subjects and lessons that meaningful to their students. I say push the CCSS aside and teach fairly tales…just call them something else!
After the test is gone, next will be the outdated idea there is one set of learning that all “second graders” must learn. Standards should be a guide book, a reference guide, not a set of directions, not a script to be followed line for line. Teach to the heart not to the standards. I know Ursoteachable will find a creative way around it, her blog showcases lots of amazing heartfelt relationship based teacher! I applaud her for spotlighting how the CCSS will limit real learning and as she said lost of imagination in the classroom and our kids.
_adventures in learning
Help Imagining Learning fund their tour to do listening sessions around the country! Listening Sessions are designed to ask young people how they would transform education if they had no limits! Help us now by donating even a dollar! Every dollar donated goes to help us amplify and activate young people’s vision and voice on education!
http://bit.ly/15IE8P6
Please help me boost this message by reblogiging! and join me in donating! I donated 10 dollars can you match that! Hoping to help them raise 500 dollars by tonight!
If you enjoy my blog and all the great education stories, please support this cause! Even a dollar is enough!
-Adventures in Learning
this is my motto!
High School Student gives a lesson to its teacher at Duncanville, TX (by Volvodea1)
Roses 2
Beautiful messages of support for Imagining Learning’s IncitED: The Crowdfunding Community for Education Campaign. Follow in their footsteps and donate at http://bit.ly/15IE8P6
Attempting.
Wonder if we had this as a class in high school… more students would actually feel engaged! This to me is where our world is headed. My hope is that schools can be a place where students discover what they want to be and then spend their time trying to “be it”… I don’t even think it needs to be work focused and I hope it is not “I” focus but how “I” become an unique “I” within a more collective “we”……
Just thinking…. that is why I love my work with Imagining Learning. Visioning different types of schools with young people stops you from thinking about school in the traditional sense and opens your mind to all the different possibilities of what school could and should be. See some of their unique visions here and donate to help us travel to other cities to vision with more students.
——Adventures In Learning
(Source: makemestfu)
Humanity needs a new story. #magic #love
This is exactly what we are trying to do Imagining Learning! We are trying to help Young people be the authors of this new story and to help bring forth their visions of a world full of magic and love!
Check out more about our work here
Imagining Learning - Creating a National Collective Voice through Listening (by David Loitz)
Please join us by donating today! Click here (http://bit.ly/15IE8P6)
Imagining Learning (www.imagininglearning.us) is working with young people across the country to create a national collective vision of how they would transform education. We believe that young people have an innate wisdom and authenticity about how future generations would best be educated, but they aren’t usually invited to participate in discussions or decision making in their communities.
Please join us by donating today! Click here (http://bit.ly/15IE8P6)
What do you do when you go to work?
Teacher: I do what I want.
(via Imagining Learning - Creating a National Collective Voice through Listening on IncitED)
Imagining Learning is working with young people across the country to create a national collective vision of how they would transform education. We believe that young people have an innate wisdom and authenticity about how future generations would best be educated, but they aren’t usually invited to participate in discussions or decision making in their communities.
Imagining Learning is built on the idea of Listening. Our Listening Sessions are designed to create an appreciative environment of trust and openness so their natural wisdom can emerge. Within each Listening Session, young people, ages 13 - 19, co-create paintings containing their visions for transforming education. These paintings are visual stories containing the key themes that each group believes is essential to changing education. Visit our gallery to see some of these paintings.
As we do Listening Sessions with young people all across the country, certain themes appear over and over again. These represent their collective voice, a voice rich in passion, ideas, and wisdom. Currently, we have done 20 Listening Sessions in locations such as San Francisco, CA; Birmingham, AL; Seattle, WA; Jackson, MS; Portland, OR, etc.
Please take a moment and check out Imagining Learning’s Crowdfunding campaign! Imagining Learning is my passion work and important part of how I think we can transform education! I ask if you enjoy my blog, please visit the campaign and see what lights my fire every day!
