Jonathan Mooney
I have listened to Jonathan Mooney speak several times in the last few years. His message is powerful and important. As most know, Jonathan Mooney is twice exceptional; he is both highly gifted and has dyslexia and ADHD. As a young student he did not fit society's definition of a "good student". He was labeled "that child". School was hard for Jonathan and he left school for a time in middle school, returning during his high school years. Jonathan eventually went to Brown University, where he graduated with an honors degree in English literature.
At InnEdCo, Jonathan described two transformational experiences in his life. I want to focus on the first, which was facilitated by his mother. She insisted that Jonathan do something he enjoyed and could be good at. They called it "get good at something day". It was a time for Jonathan to be in the world experiencing what adults do in their fields. We might call that an internship or mentoring experience but I love the "get good at something day" description Jonathan used. We all need time to experience the real world and "get good at things". This is how we discover who we are and move on the path to becoming that person.
In my graduate work at University of Connecticut, I studied Joseph Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model. Type II and III experiences are designed for students to get good at something. " Type II enrichment teach the skills of the field. "Type III enrichment involves students who become interested in pursuing a self-selected area and are willing to commit the time necessary for advanced content acquisition and process training in which they assume the role of a first-hand inquirer. "(Renzulli and Reis http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semexec.html) Enrichment Clusters provide opportunities for students to try out new interests and get good at something.
Fast forward to 2015, many of these experiences can be easily facilitated through technology. Students can be exposed to "tools of the field" through YouTube videos. Students can connect with experts and mentors through Google Hangouts and Skype. Maker Spaces and Genuis Hour provide opportunities for students to be involved in inquiry and discovery. We need to embrace the transformational nature of these experiences for students. Students need to discover and develop their passions.
As educators, we need to embrace the authentic learning that takes place when we allow students to pursue their passions. This year I am going to try something new with my fifth grade students. Students will undertake a year long passion project. I will scaffold their learning through mini lessons on digital citizenship, research, and inquiry. I will provide exposure to a variety of digital tools that they can choose to use for their passion project and then I'm going to get out of their way. I am going to embrace those differences in readiness, interests, skills and passions to meet students where they are, provide them time and tools investigate, learn and create. I plan to embrace my learnings from InnEdCo, from reading Learn Like a Pirate, and empower students to be leaders in their learning. They are going to teach each other. I imagine that it's going to be messy! I imagine that I will learn as much from this experience as my students.
My hope and dream is that my fifth grade students leave elementary school having developed increased self esteem, a better understanding of themselves as learners, a relationship with the world of digital learning that empowers them to continue to learn on their own. My hope and dream is that at this time next year I have 80 amazing passion projects to share that demonstrate the growth and learning has taken place this year. I have a lot to do to get ready for this experience but I'm excited and eager to get started.
