How do you get a lesson to stick?
I recently read Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. It was the last in the perfect trilogy of books I read this summer which also included The World Is Flat and A Whole New Mind. It is a book on why some ideas die, and others thrive. They explain how to make an idea “stick.” I wrote many notes as I read the book changing the context of their writing to be more in line with helping me plan a lesson rather than a marketing campaign. All of the ideas in the podcast and PowerPoint are from the book. I decided to type them onto a file so that I would not misplace them and that turned into a PowerPoint document. I am going to post the PowerPoint on teachertube.com under the title “How do you get a lesson to stick?” http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ebc05d66a0568a333196 This podcast is simply me reading the PowerPoint presentation. While I don’t consider the PowerPoint done, I know with school starting it is probably as finished as it ever will be and decided to post it as is. Hope it helps make your lessons “stick” this year.
Podcast Summary
This is a podcast about education and my attempt to use classroom 2.0 tools in my classroom. I examine topics that often go unmentioned in education classes, professional development, and journals. In this crazy world of NCLB and amazing technologies entering the classroom, this podcast is a reminder that we need to first give children our love, not our thoughts. If you are focused on getting your kids to get higher test scores and learn facts, this is not the podcast for you. If you are focused on building relationships with your students and letting them develop the skills needed to survive in the 21st Century, then take a listen.
The following story captures the spirit of my podcast.
I awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.
As I approached, I sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the bay, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves," the youth replied. "When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the sea."
As the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth's plan became clear to me and I countered, "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference."
The youth paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, "I made a difference to that one."
I left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. I returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea.
...based on the story by Loren Eisley
