Why You Should LOVE School AND LOVE Education

            When trying to decide what to write about for my last blog post for this course, I decided to start searching up various videos on YouTube. With such a huge variety of videos on 21^st Century learning and skills (for example: Aligning 21st Century Learning with 21st Century Learners from 21 Foundation) it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all the information on it. Ironically, one of the goals of the 21^st century learning model is for students not to be overwhelmed by facts! Then I came upon a video that came out a few years ago, one that many university students like myself, watched, liked, shared, and tweeted about. The title stands out from the rest, “Why I Hate School But Love Education” by Suli Breaks; something that sounds contradictory to most. As I began to watch this video, and was quickly captivated by this man’s words and poetic-rhythm of the rant, I realized that promoting 21^st century learning can help students not only love education and learning, but love school, too! Education can happen anywhere, at anytime, in any place. It is up to the teachers to further enhance educating students of all ages in various subjects, ideas, and innovations in a way that the students’ self-learning is enriched, thus helping to increase their love to learn! Same as I wrote in a previous posting, school cannot be just about marks, (Watch I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate by Suli Breaks) but unfortunately that is what the society we live in today focuses on – from preschool to post-secondary schooling. Enriching a student’s 21^st learning skills should be done across all levels of education – not just in the elementary and high school levels, which were governmentally governed – but also in high level education institutions i.e. tertiary institutions.

            Teachers need to make the effort to incorporate 21^st century skills into the learning process, like inquiry, collaboration, critical thinking, media literacy, and creativity. When I look back on some of the assignments and teachings I had to do throughout my education journey, I had some teachers that incorporated 21^st century learning skills, which may not have been advocated as in today’s education world. Like in the first video posted above from 21 Foundation, I had a teacher give us the exact project of creating our own country; many teachers promoted the use of technology, PowerPoint slideshows, short films, Photoshop and more, with the use of computers. We had “computer lab” time, where we worked on our typing skills, just like in languages we would work on our penmanship – both equally important to know. In today’s world, we are hearing more and more about the celebrities that were successful in the world, and did not graduate university, did not graduate college, and some did not graduate high school! However, like in the video, they loved education and developed an education in their successful fields, like Beethoven, and Shakespeare.

            Education is the key to success, but school should not be “the look”, it should not be “the distant cousin”. School should be the key TOWARDS education! Students spend so much time in school, so many years in school, and so much money for school; so why do so many students still hate school? Incorporating 21^st century learning may be “they key” to helping school get out of its bad representation, and get students of all ages to start loving school again.

            Sure, education can occur anywhere, at anytime, at any place; but if students continue to hate school, and as a result begin to hate learning…how can the education happen? Now, this post may not be the longest, but words are just words…and actions speak louder than words. I encourage watch the videos I posted within this blog, reflect on them and see what you can do to match a change in how students perceive education, learning and school. For school, education and learning should be closely related to help promote positive student learning and the love to be life-long learners!

 

 

Suli Breaks - Why I Hate School But Love Education//Spoken Word (@Sulibreezy)

Don't Forget about Physical Education!

Integrated curriculum – a well-known term for some, and possible a scary term for others. In EDUC 4P19, integrated curriculum is a key part of the course, and something all of us students must learn to incorporate within our future teaching endeavors! Now, this may be quite challenging in a secondary school setting, as you must work with other teachers, other students, and a whole lot of other possible scholastic issues, so let’s just look at this method within an elementary school setting. In today’s society, math and science are the key subjects for ‘life’; the subjects adults are promoting and pushing the students to succeed in. However…not everyone can or will succeed in those subject areas. This is why when creating an integrated curriculum unit, teachers should use all sorts of different types of subjects, like art, languages, religion and social sciences…and especially try to include health and physical education.

            If you have read my blog before, you know how important health and physical education is to me, and my advocacy for today’s society to not diminish the importance of this once thought of “useless” and “pointless” class. International news stations and reporters all state the same things when it comes to childhood obesity rates, physical inactivity, and the laziness of today’s society…it is all on the rise! In today’s society, most children spend most of their day sedentary, and are not fulfilling the government’s daily recommendation of physical activity. For some children, HPE class is the only way for them to be physically active, as they live in a low socio-economic status (SES)environment, where their parents/guardians cannot afford to enroll them into extra-curricular physical activity programs. In Canada, public education is free for all students to enroll in… so why are the schools not ensuring that the students are receiving the basic needs in life!? Incorporating HPE into an integrated curriculum unit is one solution, one idea, to help encourage students to spend time being physically active, all while enhancing student learning, and their self-motivation towards school and learning.

            In a previous class of mine, a group of my fellow Concurrent Education students and I created a Physical Education lesson, that incorporated a major social science topic…the importance of recycling, and the 3 R’s. We wanted to create a lesson where students learned the importance of recycling, and how to be a better global citizen, all while ensuring their daily physical activity needs were met. When we introduced this game to a group of elementary school-aged students, they all loved the game! These students may not have realized that this lesson was an integration of  2 subjects, for they were having a blast running around the gymnasium, enhancing their throwing accuracy, all while learning how important, and how fun recycling actually can be. After reading the text in EDUC 4P19, I realized that through our integrated activity, we were enhancing the students’ 21^st century skills, such as culture and ethical citizenship, and learning how to know, to do, to be and to live together.

            Thus, it is important to not forget about HPE class, and the importance of its curriculum. As one of my PEKN professors told us…“It is important that we keep the PHYSICAL in EDUCATION!” Once again I am preaching that Health and Physical Education is a very important and a key subject in the education system. Physical education in schools help dictate students’ motivation of physical activity in their daily lives and the importance of living healthy lives. How many children believe they are active, by taking part in organized sport, but meantime they spend hours sitting in a car being driven to a game or practice? Teachers need to learn how to incorporate more physical activity into their integrated units and lessons, in order to further promote a healthy lifestyle outside of school, one that will hopefully continue throughout a person’s lifetime.

Picture from a PEKN 4P32 lecture