How often do we have the opportunity to actually engage in doing something that we love and be able to see the fruits of that work to the harvest?
In a previous career, I taught middle school. I had the honor and privilege of teaching Writing and Grammar and Social Studies to sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. It was a complete joy to watch students begin the course of work in September and see their progress through until the end of the school year. I always had a special fondness for the end of term reflections that students were required to submit.
This "reflection project" was not mandated by the school or the school district, the state or the US Department of Education to meet some subjective outcome-based agenda. I required it as a way for students to see what I had been able to observe during those months of school and finally the end of the year: their growth not only for the "grade" they may have earned, but for their growth as thinkers and writers. Students were required to look at and reread their writing assignments at the end of each quarter, then at the semester, then the end of the year. They then selected those pieces which they considered their "best" work and kept them in their portfolio. At the end of the year, they opened that portfolio of their self-described "best" work, reread each assignment and selected what they believed was their overall best effort.
As a way to engage them in this process, -- and to be completely objective -- each student had a questionnaire to guide their reflection. Many students chose work they remembered as being fun (like the poetry or other creative writing projects they did); others chose work that was a "writing across the curriculum" project where they could combine writing (which they did not like) and another subject like science (which they did like).
Funny though, I read reflections where the student could not believe that they "actually wrote that essay in September" and "thought it was my best work" because, compared to their "best work" in May, the September work was "terrible." They reflected on the process of writing, be it an essay of some form, a poem or a story -- the process was the same. From the initial brainstorming to the rough outline, first draft, revisions and final product, each step was part of the process and this paper trail was part of the work to be turned in for a grade.
Of course there were those students who were more engaged in this process than others; that is to be expected. What was amazing to me, however, was that by the end of the year, all of them felt that they were better writers and better thinkers. As they looked back on the year some expressed amazement that they groused and complained at the writing process as the assignments were given (sometimes four completed writing projects each quarter) when they saw how successful they had been by the end of the year.
As a teacher I experienced the wonder of sowing the seeds of learning to (sometimes) reluctant minds, cultivating and then seeing the harvest, but it wasn't what I expected. The greatest satisfaction for me came not by successfully completing the curriculum by the end of the year; the greatest joy was watching the students realize their own success as writers and being able to share in that success through their reflections...a wonderful life experience.
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