Kids with Differences- Part 3 Opportunities

For the moment, this is may be my last take on Differences.  Prior episodes were about Difference as a Problem and Difference as a Challenge.  This episode is about Difference as Opportunity.   Enjoy

Excerpt:

 I have given attention to differences in the context of schools.  Step out of school. We live with our differences every day. We live with the differences of others every day. There is no real world script or requirement that tells us how to respond to difference. Difference makes us human.  What matters, as teachers and as humans, is how we respond to difference.   Holding difference as opportunity allows us to become better teachers and better humans.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everybody, this is Johnny. I've been talking about kids' differences. I started with differences as problems, followed with differences as challenges. This will be about differences as opportunities. I challenge us to make our classrooms places where the differences kids bring to their learning are understood as normal, not a problem. Let's move from merely accepting difference to embracing it as a way to improve teaching and learning. I would like to think about two subjects close to my heart, both of which I have taught and deeply enjoyed teaching art and math. I know we tend to think of these as very different from one another. Let's consider these subjects in light of difference as opportunity. In art, the differences students bring to their work are necessary. Differences in the artist make any work uniquely reflective of its creator. I think difference matters in art in two ways, both important. The first is about art as an act of creation. We expect artwork to be about the person who made the work. Something in that work expresses something unique and meaningful about its creator. Think about how we always talk about art or music by who the maker was. When you talk with a friend about a concert you went to, you always start with who you went to hear, not what you got to hear. If you go to an art show, you probably start with wanting to see the work of a particular artist, a person, because of the art that person makes. It is always about the artist and how they express themselves that draws us in. It is what makes them different that makes them special and worth our attention. The second difference that matters in the arts from other subjects is in that art makes us feel. We engage with art because it moves us, connects to our emotions and experiences. We each experience art differently from one another. Those emotions and experiences are unique to each of us based on our histories, interests, and different ways we perceive. So what would it mean to have more of our teaching be artful, and to see our class as people making sense of their world and each sharing that sense through meaningful expression? It would mean understanding and appreciating the differences in what students do and make as they learn. Not a kind of tolerance for difference, but holding difference as essential to being and learning together in a classroom. If we begin with difference being built into how students learn and show their learning, we might do more than offer our students choices in how they engage or what they make. We might involve them in deciding for themselves how to go about their learning. This would move students to more self-awareness of themselves as creators of their learning experience, rather than dependent on the teacher to construct that experience. I want to be careful here. This could sound like students can do whatever in whatever way they want, and we should be alright with it. I'm suggesting something different. You still have the job to teach. You are the one who knows the lay of the land, what is important to know, to be able to do, and the subjects you teach. You set out the problems, questions, and resources that guide students' learning. In art, it is always about what you can make based on the limits and possibilities of the materials, your own ability, and the idea or thing you want to represent. These can all be taught. A potter, a painter, a musician needs to learn the medium. All become more expert and more skilled when working with someone who is masterful in that medium. Ideas for art are made richer, more salient, when considered and worked with others. As much as we like to think of artists as singular talented beings, they are each shaped by the people they learned from. What does this mean for our teaching? It means that we pay attention to other things, not quickness or brightness, or the same expected representation of learning for all our students. We might instead look for some deliberateness, some thoughtful consideration of what is being learned, and a representation of that learning that reflects the maker, the voice, the ideas of that learner. What does this look like in the real world? Imagine essays that address the same topic in different ways, each holding the voice of the author. Imagine during the teaching constantly asking students what they might make, write, or perform in response to what is being learned. This does not sound like school. It does sound like real life. Think about any great history or a biography you have read, any song that really captured a human experience or emotion, a poem that did that same kind of work. None of these were school assignments. None of their makers was required to make that history or song or poem. There was something in the experience, something in the person that moved that creation. What I am suggesting is that we tap into that motive, that desire we humans have, to express how we live, how we feel, how we experience the world, as we make sense of it. You might find this strange, but this takes me to thinking about how we teach math. Math, as we teach it, is about getting the right answer using the correct method. All students showing the same work to a solution is considered a triumph of math teaching, quite the opposite of the arts, where there are multiple possible answers to the same prompt, different methods to address what is being asked for, and certainly an expectation that every student's work should be different from every other. So what would an arts approach look like in math? How might difference as opportunity look like in mathematics? Imagine looking at the different ways people have expressed understanding of right triangles over time. Not just the formula from Pythagoras, but a look at how the ideas Pythagoras set out were dangerous? What math ideas nowadays are not easy that are worth wrestling with? How have other relationships in geometry been shared, expressed by different people over time? How might students show different representations of their understanding of geometry? How might students share these with each other in a gallery walk? How might they learn from each other when different ideas and different representations are available to them from their peers? What would it look like to present to them real-world problems, where the math might tell different and still relevant stories that matter? Imagine a math problem that looks at wealth disparity or income possibilities for different careers. There would be no expectation the students would come to the right answer. There would be many right answers possible based on the questions and the investigations that the students choose and undertake. Think of the math that would be learned along the way as students pursued their interests. Such problems set up the possibility for deep dives into interesting and rich mathematics, different dives for the students depending on the questions they pursue. This is difference as opportunity. I have set out difference as a problem, hopefully in the honest ways that kids and their teachers experience some kinds of problems. I set out difference as a challenge to consider the real work kids do to manage and make their differences work for school, and to challenge us to better understand kids' differences and what they should mean for our teaching. I leave you with differences as opportunities. What strikes me moving through these three considerations is this. Differences as problems is so much about school and schooling. Differences as challenges is so much about students and teachers increasing self worth and belonging. Differences as opportunities is about opening possibilities for everyone, possibilities for kids in their learning and for teachers in their craft. A final thought. Step out of school. We live with our differences every day. We live with the differences of others every day. There is no real world script or requirement that tells us how to respond to difference. Difference makes us human. What matters as teachers and as humans is how we respond to difference. Holding differences opportunity allows us to become better teachers and better humans. Thanks for listening.