Fifty Nifty United States

Today I stopped by Cerrito Creek to see a mixed 4/5 Cultural Studies lesson. The 45-minute period was broken into several chunks of time. In the first activity, lasting 5 minutes, students gathered at the SmartBoard and sang along to the Fifty Nifty United States. In the second activity, lasting 10 minutes, students worked in pairs (set by the teacher) to label a map of the United States of America with all 50 states. Students then had 5 minutes to compare their maps with another pair's work, and make any corrections or additions they needed. In the third activity, lasting 10 minutes, students again worked in pairs, this time to identify skills of the head, heart, and mind possessed by the adventures they would take with them if they were to set out on a Lewis & Clark style expedition, building on the homework assignment from Friday. In the fifth activity, lasting 5 minutes, students played a version of musical chairs in which they tossed two balls around the circle; when the music stopped, whoever held a ball had to name a "push" (poor economy, etc) or "pull" (untapped resources, etc) reason that people immigrate or move (lists of which adorned a classroom wall from a previous discussion). And in the sixth and final activity, students were read-aloud to from Scott O'Dell's Streams to the River, River to the Sea, "a work of historical fiction based on the journey of Lewis and Clark from the perspective of their Indian guide, Sacagawea" (I'm quoting from Mike's blog there).

Two aspects of the classroom jumped out at me during this observation. The first was the use of varied groupings, tasks, and modalities to engage students - singing as a group; labeling in pairs; comparing in small groups; analyzing and assigning in pairs based on individual work; throwing and catching as a whole class; speaking to the group. Each student was drawn into a rich learning experience that was teacher-directed while also honoring the independent and interdependent learning needs of the students. Perhaps students increased their ability to identify which states are located where on a map; perhaps some began thinking about the abstract ideas of individual qualities and how an individual affects a group; perhaps others started to think about how history has affected their lives, and how they were creating personal and group history in the moment of class - whatever it was that each child was learning, his/her motivation to learn was activated, awareness of learning moments was heightened, and knowledge/skill was being grown.

The second dimension that stood out about this lesson was the rapid pacing of the sections, for two reasons. First, no single idea was sat with for more than 10 minutes, and the tempo of the lesson met the children's needs for late afternoon activity. Second, by approaching the discipline from a variety of entry points, rather than simply a textbook reading of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the students experienced history as a complex, multi-faceted discipline.