I had one of those moments today that just makes you grin from ear to ear like a total idiot for far longer than is socially acceptable. :D
My kids had Guidance class as a special today and while the teacher was in our room, I slipped out to prepare our flight field (also known as the old cafeteria...) for our big plane launch. This is the actual conversation that was taking place as I walked back into the room.
Student to the teacher: "Did you know you're a genius?"
All students in varying degrees of unison: "Yeah! We're ALL geniuses!!"
One student running to the whiteboard: "This is a list of what makes us geniuses!"
Alright... It was a pretty one-sided conversation and I'm not sure the Guidance teacher quite understood what was going on or why, but it totally made my life worth living at that moment - These students GET IT! They know that they have genius. They know they can make a contribution to the world. And now they want to share it. As an educator, I think this is about as good as it gets!
So. Tomorrow's genius word of the day is "Imagination". I think we're going to imagine all of the different ways we can tell other kids in our school about THEIR genius, then we're going to roll up our sleeves and start spreading the message. If you have any suggestions to get them started, please leave a comment! They ask every day if anyone has left them a new message, and the light shining from those little faces is just beautiful.
On a side note, I was planning to share our data with you about our test flight today, but two of our geniuses went home with suspected strep throat and we didn't want to do it without them! That may be a weekend project for Mrs. Sigler. :)
Thank you for reading with us, and make sure to tell your children or your own students every day about their genius, regardless of their age. If you believe it, they will too.
Hi Mrs. Sigler's Kids, I suppose you read about your class on Angela's web page- http://www.angelamaiers.com/2011/01/nurturing-genius.html She was bragging about you to a lot of people! My students are geniuses too. I wrote about one today on my blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/2011/01/27/annas-genius/
Here is an idea. Could you make a video for the other kids in your school to see? Maybe each of you could hold up a sign with one of the words on your list and tell what it means. I think the kindergartners and older kids would like to hear you tell about genius.
I'm thinking use the post-it notes. Your students could share with the other students what their genius. Then your students could ask the others what they thought their genius is which they could write on the post-it and stick on them. They those students can share their genius too.
ReplyDeleteMr. C
NoelTigers.com
Thank you both so much for your fantastic ideas!! Mrs. Krebs, we did see ourselves on Angela's website and were beyond ecstatic... We felt famous! :) We made a story for your student's video, and we also made posters to tell our school and some kids in high school about their genius. Thanks for the fantastic ideas!!
ReplyDeleteMr. C, we also used your idea today with a little twist! We put notecards (bigger for such little writers!) on our desks and wrote "(name) is a genius because..." on them. Then we traveled around the room and wrote why each of our friends was a genius. How fun to see such great reinforcement and wonderful compliments from our fellow geniuses! :)
Thanks again!
Mrs. Sigler's class