Tuesday, October 16, 2012

From Inertia to Editing Teaching - A Challenge

Blurred Movement
Many times we are trapped in our own routines, hectic lives and infinite tasks. It is hard sometimes even to breathe. Inertia takes over, and we see our personal and professional lives as if it were part of a film.

I know there are many challenges around for teachers, and I could name a few that you could follow for 30 days to make our lives more bearable and pleasant, but what if we set TWO WEEKS at first not to make revolutionary changes, but just small ones.

Our brains love surprises. The unexpected, unpredictable hooks us up, grabs our attention, so how about very simple changes that won't be radical at first, but could cause some tectonic shifts in the long run in terms of our pleasure in teaching our classes and our students' joy to be in class, connected, absorbed, hyped.

What if you invited your co-workers to join us for TWO WEEKS and take action, move and shake a bit? So, here I am making it public the idea of the EDIT TEACHING movement.

For the next two weeks, I'll blog every single day - which is already part of my own call for action - about a very simple idea that we can do in class to EDIT our TEACHING a bit, to make those changes that in the long run can ignite us to keep in the loop to continuously seek for the new experience, crossing the boundaries of our daily inertia, making us effervescent, upbeat, lighthearted educators.

THE FIRST #EDITTEACHING IDEA


Start your next class with a very simple question to your students, "What's in your playlist?" Give them five minutes to talk to each other about it, to see what they have in common and something new they learned about a song, singer or band. I'm sure that they will have something to say and you will connect in a more personal level with them!


Our twitter tag will be #editteaching . I'd love to hear from educators if they try this idea out for the next  TWO WEEKS! Ready to edit your teaching routine to smile and connect more often?

4 comments:

  1. So, when I asked my 14 year old student this afternoon what would be on her playlist, she told me that it would be something like: Naturally (Selina Gomes), Finally Falling (Brillantine Victoria) Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams) and It must have been love (Roxette). We even recorded our little chat on ShowMe - http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=ZoIUfHE

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  2. I asked the question and got a very musical answer!
    http://vocaroo.com/i/s0WQONEteBaQ

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  3. Girls, though I know that simple changes in the class can really make an impact, I'm in awe! Just loved what your students are already doing!!! Amazing! Loved both recordings. Danis, was that our group singing New York??? Lovely.

    How about you, girls? How do you feel about those small changes?

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