Last Monday I had a wonderful opportunity to speak with some students in Chilliwack at Bernard Elementary who were eager to share their story about what they saw as an unusual experience last year in their grade five classroom. They were the students of Grace Jones, a teacher who has been a part of the LUCID project since it’s inception in 2003. I was eager to see how culturally-inclusive imaginative development was being put into practice.
My colleagues and I headed off to an unoccupied room with the six students for a quick chat. They started to tell me about how they had learned about the gold rush the previous year, and their excitement was obvious.
“We all had to run our own business,” explained one student. “You had to draw a business front and you had to advertise with posters.”
“Yah, and then we got to dress up and stuff.” added another.
They went on to explain the various occupations they took up: saloon owner, blacksmith, laundress, stage coach operator and a tin worker.
“It was like the actual day..” one student explained.
“Ms Jones brought out all these old fashioned clothes…”
“Just to make sure we felt like really big dorks,” interrupted another student with a laugh. But, you could tell that feeling like a “dork” had been half the fun. They went on reminiscing about their last year’s experience, laughing and interrupting each other now and then to make sure they hadn’t forgotten to include some detail.
“Did you tell her about the Lemmonbread,” one student asked after stepping out for a minute.
“Lemmonbread?...Oh! The sourdough! We got to make sourdough bread.”
The students went on for a while, debating whether sourdough was “nasty” or “awesome” and gave me a list of interesting things to make out of sourdough when it fails to rise and comes out ‘rock-hard’. Another food experience, required much less debate; all agreed that the bannock (with blackberry jam) was delicious.
“Lots of people made bannock,” one student explained, “just because it is easy… ‘cause they are away for a long time.”
It was agreed that the experience was unique and that they had never done anything like it before. And when I asked if they had learned a lot, they answered with an emphatic, “Definitely”.
“This was the first year I figured out a lot of things…”
“My favorite part was when Yukon Dan came… he showed us how to gold[pan]… you’ve got these gold flakes and then you’ve got this microscope thing… you put it down on the ground and see all of these minerals and stuff.”
“Yah, that was cool!”
The kids were deeply engaged in their discussion and I sat back listening in to a delightful conversation as they reminisced. I was curious however, what made this particular experience different from their typical classroom experience, so I asked them how they might have learned about the gold rush normally in a class.
“We’d probably use the computers lots… and books.”
“…As in the boring ways.”
“But when you are just sort of reading a really factual book or something like that, or looking things up on the internet... you’re just like….. this is boring.”
“But we did it the fun way. It actually worked good and stuff.”
“You seem to learn more the fun way, because you are actually paying attention.”
“What made it fun?” I asked.
“The Field trips… and the bannock.”
“And then going places, not just staying at the school all the time.”
“Yah, and just being able to just do projects and imagine it.”
“…and actually think you are… in the old times, building these projects and stuff.”
It was obvious to me that the students had enjoyed their experience – that they had had “fun”. But even fun, simply for the sake of entertainment is not the key to greater learning opportunities. We can all have a great time without learning a thing. The key is to harness the students’ energy, that same kind of emotional engagement that keeps students still eager to talk about the experience months later, and use that to help them find what is truly wonderful and inspiring about the topic they are learning.
How, then, do we assess this kind of “emotional engagement” with true learning and separate it from the simpler “fun” that that it is sometimes confused with?
When Ms. Jones’ students spoke of “fun” it was obvious that they were speaking of more than simple entertainment. They certainly did have a good time, but there is also evidence of a deeper emotional engagement with the Gold Rush that, perhaps, is a bit more difficult to articulate. This year Ms. Jones’ students are off on another adventure – as are all of the other students who have had the opportunity to join the LUCID team. I wonder where their journey will take them this year.
Tannis Calder
