I got in early this morning to get some work done in preparing for today’s class. Our school starts abnormally early, at 7:15 am, which to be truthful, I like. It is now 6:54am and I am blogging. I am just so excited I couldn’t wait to tell you.
Over the weekend there were 41 blog postings by my students. They are not all deep and intellectual answers to my posted questions, but they are there, for better or worse. What I find most noteworthy is the sheer number. Let’s assume that each posting comes from a unique source. I teach roughly 100 kids in a two-day period, and approximately 40 have posted over a weekend! If my math is correct, isn’t that 40%? So assuming correct math, I can safely say that between 3:00 pm Friday and 7:00 am Monday, my kids were thinking about my class, thinking about my website, and thinking about our community.
Doesn’t that qualify as success?
I could take this much further down a pedagogical tangent about how I am trying as much as possible to make my class engaging so that this very effect will happen, and how I feel this shows a quality result, I will refrain.
I think 40 percent speaks for itself. I say this not to edify myself, but rather to brag on my kids! After all, they are in 6th grade and are (on average) 11 years old!
My question is, will there be articulation? Or will my little experiment into learning communities be an anomaly? Am I an island? For I as an educator am not involved in any sort of community with the other educators who breathe the same air. My community is found with you, other bloggers, and folks accessible through modern communication.
Bottom line, hooray for my sixth graders! I am so proud of them.
Oh, and one last note. I finally cowboyed up and bought the book. Can’t wait to read it.
I’ll keep you posted on how our communities progress. Keep in mind the experiment comes to a halt on October 20. Here’s to changing lives in a month.
