I loved school when I was little, and learning came very easily to me whether I listened to my teacher, wrote my own notes or watched something being done. It's mornings like this morning that help me realize how different learning is for some of my students.
Being sick of the All Irene, All the Time broadcasting (which, as a side note, we're all good!) my hubby was flipping through the channels to find something he wanted to watch. He settled upon a car guy show, you know - the shows where they take a car apart and put it all back together to make it all awesome and cool looking.
After about two minutes of trying to watch this show with him, I found my mind wandering. I hear the words the man is saying, I'm watching what he's doing, but I have NO CLUE what is going on. Ask me to retell what he just did - HA!! I feel like I'm listening to him speak in a different language. My mind quickly started to wander to what I have to work on today, what's happening on Facebook, checking the roof to see if we lost any shingles... you get the idea.
This is exactly what school must be like for some of our students. They hear our words, but they have no idea what we are talking about. I need to take this TV experience I had this morning and keep it in mind as I work with my kids this year. It's my job to help them connect these new learnings to past experiences and prior knowledge to make it meaningful. And if they don't have the background knowledge then I need to make sure I develop enough of a foundation for them that they don't feel like I do when I was watching this show.
And who says you can't learn something by watching TV! ;)
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