School Appropriate Or Stifling a Kid's Self Expression

As a teacher/librarian, one of our roles is to guide our students into choosing appropriate ways of expressing themselves in the class & school setting. But when does guiding them lead to stifling their own creativity?

My first reaction was to ask the question, "Well, if you have to ask?" then maybe what you want to do/say/write/draw is not appropriate for a class assignment.

One of my student's has an assignment where they write a surreal poem. His initial expression was to write that this student's addiction to gum was analogous to an addiction to crack. Then his second choice was an addiction to cigarettes. I told him that probably was not the best analogy. Then he did something about a dog & a bone.

Still, I'm not sure I was very comfortable steering him away from his initial response only because I do feel like I'm "forcing" him to conform and poetry is more expression that convention. Not sure if it was right or wrong but a dog & bone is probably more appropriate than crack & cigarettes...

Book Drops: "Burn My Heart" by Beverley Naidoo (YA) (rated 5 stars)

Burn My Heart

by Beverley Naidoo

Originally published in 2007, “Burn My Heart” by Beverley Naidoo (http://www.beverleynaidoo.com/index2.html) is a story about cultures clashing and friendships tested because of prejudice and hate. Set in Kenya in the 1950s, the story follows two boys, Mugo and Mathew. Mugo is a Kikuyu teen, who works in the kitchen of a British settler. His family has worked for the Grayson family since they “settled” the land, a land under Kirinyaga mountain. Mathew Grayson is the British family’s son, who grew up with Mugo, who does not understand the tensions brewing around him and struggles to grasp what it means for his friendship with Mugo.

Both stories are interlaced together showing how one’s actions can be the consequences of another. Naidoo talks about the rise of the Mau Mau, a movement that rose out of the need for the Kikuyu to take back their land and fight for their civil rights, and how the British government dealt with the uprising only exacerbated the racial tensions between the settlers and the people they stole the land from.

I never knew about “the Emergency” or the Mau Mau movement and it is important to see how and remember how movements in other countries parallel those in the United States. The lives and struggles of the two boys, though fictional, are very believable and Naidoo expresses their conflict between how they view each other and how society wants them to view each other. This does not have a happy sugar-coated ending and is at times intense for an elementary school reader. It is definitely geared towards middle schoolers.

Excellent and I am glad that it is finally published for the United States market.

See more about Burn My Heart

Web 2.0 lessons - Networking and Kids

For the past couple of classes, we have been having our students explore various web 2.0 tools. One of them happens to be networking (I'm dropping the "social" and the "educational" because that is a whole other post) tools available online. A few of my students are comparing Myspace, Facebook and Imbee. One of them came up with the an amusing analogy after I asked them to describe the difference between the three tools and how the privacy tools work. This student is really energetic so just picture someone talking very excitedly about the topic.

Student: "Ok. Ok. so Myspace is like a kid jumping off a cliff. right?" He then proceeds to "jump off a cliff)

"and Facebook is like, you know, a normal kid." (then he points to himself)

and all the while his partner is agreeing with him and then throws in

"and Imbee is like a kid wrapped in bubble wrap!!!"

Eureka!

I cannot wait to see how they demonstrate and talk about these tools and am steering them towards the educational value of these sites but sometimes it's just fun to hear them talk.

"Middle School Library Geeks" Podcast On Its Way!!!

I am so excited. A couple of my students, who have dubbed themselves the "library geeks," are interested in creating a podcast. We were supposed to meet this week but I have the flu and missed our first meeting. Of course, the sponsor of the project ends up having the flu. Hopefully, next week we will be able to meet and create something to share here or some where else. I still need to figure it out because it is a middle school.

This year, at IL 2007, I attended the "Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp" hosted by David Free and David Lee King. It was a very informative workshop where they showed the attendees how to create podcasts and videocasts as well as discussed the types of equipment needed and where to host these projects. I was really excited about creating a podcast but then I lost a bit of momentum because of the class load I have at the beginning of the year. It is a time-consuming and also getting students onboard has proved to be a bit difficult because even if they are interested, they are just as busy as we are. Hopefully, this works out. We will meet once a week to record and then probably take a bit of time to edit. I am hoping we have a segment a week. Am I being too ambitious?

Podcast Wiki by David Free:
http://davidfree.pbwiki.com/il2007