Christmas is over. We had a Christmas tree in our house. It was covered in tinsel as well as blue and silver balls. My 21 month old son and I put the star on top. With it's twinkling lights, the tree was the most striking thing in the room, bound to be irresistible to an inquisitive toddler.
He has myriad toys in the same room as our Christmas tree. We insisted he not touch the tree. What do you think happened?
That tree resulted in many trips to the naughty corner (time out, for Americans and other foreigners). There are many reasons why we didn't want him to touch the tree (the baubles could break and injure him, stewardship of our son's understanding of personal property, etc) but it was inevitable that he disobey.
A big tree, in the middle of a space, more interesting than anything else, absolutely forbidden to touch. Remind you of anything?
The creation story is a rich allegory of human behaviour and can perhaps be applied to the classroom as well.
What do we mean when we say a student is “distracted”? Is distraction inevitable? Does technology create distraction, as many teachers say?
Saying that a student has become distracted means that they are not following the prescribed learning path. Prescribing a path for twenty or so students is limiting. It presupposes the needs of the student and that the teacher has godlike properties of pedagogical provision.
Recently, I've come to the conclusion that the person getting distracted is me.
The product of my distraction is vigorous lesson planning. I even prided myself on it. This year, I'm waiting until I meet my students and get to know the way they learn. I won't prescribe a theory of learning, technology or work schedule until they show me how they best learn. Even then I won't write the lessons. They can do it. I'll focus on feedback, facilitation and getting out of their way.
Following their passion in the classroom should be the default state for our students. How often do I factor this into my teaching?
