In class today we ritualized leaving off the previous un-friendly, binding, constricting model of teaching which I was following. It was this scheme that was broken with The Revolution. Although we are well advanced on this path, I felt it was very important to verbalize two things:
1) To ask for forgiveness. The traditional model of education does not favor good student-teacher relationships. It puts us on either side of a dividing line which turns us into enemies. It constricts us as individuals who have different paces and different approches to learning. I asked for forgiveness for the ways I may have made my students feel bad, for the times in which they may not have felt valued by me, for the times in which they may have felt I did not value their work and effort.
2) To say thank you! I thank my students for never having given up on me completely, for giving me chances to grow and evolve. And...I thank them deeply for they have taught me more about teaching and psychology then I would have learned in years of formal classroom training!
Having done this I asked the students to write down on colored sheets of paper (they each chose a color that represented un-positive things) the things they still remembered about the Dark Ages that they wanted to leave behind in order to start afresh.
Once we had all the little papers we went down to the Lab and burned them all down!!! I must add that we made it more dramatic by having music playing in the background. Then we went down to the park and spread the ashes.
And so the slate has been cleaned!!
I think this is a very good idea because it permit us having a better relationship and having a better learning. Also this is a very good thing for starting over and having better results.
ReplyDeleteThis activity chose as that is going to be a new start, a better start. This activity let as express what we feel and though about the class. I think from this activity we are going to have a better class, and a better relations with others.
ReplyDeleteit was a great idea to do that, by this way we could erase all the things from the past and could reorganize many others, it help us to could rebuild our relationship.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this idea because we burn all the bad things that happend in our class, ans not only in the class but also in our life we felt very good because now we can start from ceros :) Thanks
ReplyDeleteThat activity really like me because I take out every bad feeling I had, then I forget it by burning that horrible feeling. Finally we take it away from our minds and let it just in the past! GOOD ACTIVITY
ReplyDeleteIn this activity I really enjoy because I write a sentences that I like and I hope that burning the sentences is being fulfilled. We clean the bad thing today, tomorrow is ha knew day.
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