Tamara's Blog: I am Winston

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I am Winston

Today I was handed a science lesson to teach from Primary Connections. It has this great name, Catapult Capers, and I imagined building siege engines and battering the sports shed to rubble. Not so... it was in fact one of the most over-structured boring lessons I have ever taught. I tried very hard to inject some fun demonstrations and excitement and plenty of language the kids would relate to but in the end they were suffocated with the paperwork which must be done for the sake of OUTCOMES.

15 years ago science in primary was practically non-existent. NOW they're KILLING it with data and filling in boxes and just CRAP. Yes, I understand we need to be teaching the scientific methods but...we don't need to strangle it with bookwork to prove frigging OUTCOMES. I want science for kids to be full of activity, excitement and intrigue because THEY are the ones who will be the scientists of tomorrow.

Sigh....here I blog in the depth of night ...like Winston hiding from the telescreen writing,

Down with big brother.

3 comments:

Tamara KellyOctober 12, 2010 at 9:21 AM
Have found a cheap and easy catapult to make and hope to do so with the interested kids on Wednesday. I'll call it a physics lesson...
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Tamara KellyOctober 14, 2010 at 8:00 PM
All the kids made catapults and had a great time!
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AnonymousOctober 19, 2010 at 10:29 AM
I agree tammy, once i read that a famous opera singer was asked what was the most important element in opera: school music teachers! They keep love to music alive in the new generations. If they werent there, the whole business would stop! And I agree, being a nerd my whole life in a country that worships athetic skills and beauty, i know that my favorite subjects can make a difference. But if you get kids to hate them for overpushing! Its "contraproducente", as we say. Ale
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