Developing CARING learners for the 21st Century

Developing CARING learners for the 21st Century

...this is our district goal.  It's on our website...in our pamphlet...maybe even on our stationary.  I recently examined my role as a teacher supposedly trying to reach this goal.  As I reflected, I had to admit that YES, I do quite a bit to prepare my kids for the 21st Century, YES, they are learning quite a bit of Spanish, but caring....hmmm, do I make efforts to develop them as CARING learners? Well, I won't let them be outwardly mean to each other...but do I show them what caring looks like? 

Today we took the first part of class for a little bit of "Character Ed."

What we did:

I set up the activity by handing each kid a square of scratch paper and told them to get out something to write with.  I further set up the activity by telling them "There is only 1 rule... you must all remain silent while we watch the video..I know you will want to talk when you see this video, and I promise to let you react..but at first we want everyone to see the entire thing, so rule #1 Remain silent during the video."

Then I showed this video..if you haven't seen this video before and you work with teens, get a tissue ready:

1. I paused the video at : 40  seconds in and have the students write #1: The initial impression of this team is...
2. We continued  watching the video.
3. I paused the video again at 4:00 and have students write #2: The most obvious lesson to be learned from this video is...
4. We continued watching the video.
5. After the video is finished, we wrote #3: Another/secondary lesson to be learned from this video is...
6. Then they had 45 seconds to share out within their groups (I think this stair step is really important when trying to get critical/reflective thinking from students..let them have time to figure out their answers themselves, then share in a small group before sharing out in large group. This almost always helps the students feel more courageous and will get you a better class discussion.
7. After discussing in groups, we discussed as a whole class.
8. Finally I asked them to turn over their papers and respond to this prompt: If Jonathan was a student at SHS, how do you think he would be treated if people had never seen this video?

 Here are a few of the reflections from my students: