Ancient India lesson plan ED 2135

Ancient India lesson plan - Class 2 - ED2135

WHY.
Some Steiner schools teach the cultural epochs in one 3 week block in Class 5. Other schools such as ours prefer to alot one epoch per year throughout the 7 years. In Class 1 we look at the Atlantean times when man was still in his Garden of Eden and part of the spiritual world around him. In Class 2 we move to the Ancient Indian epoch where man was very aware of not being part of the spiritual world and yearned for it or spent years striving for understanding via the Buddha's teachings or other meditations.
The other epochs studied go as follows:- Class 3 - Persia and the story of Zarathustra, Class 4 - Ancient Egypt, Class 5 - Ancient Greece, Class 6 - Ancient Rome, Class 7 - Arthurian legends.
Each epoch resonates with the soul development of the children of the appropriate age group and can be explored in a variety of ways, through all sorts of lessons and experiences.

In Class 2 we will be studying some of the gods of Ancient (and modern) India, the clothes, animals, dance, music, food and customs. It is culminated with an end of year play.
It is such a broad subject that it is hard to cover it in one 3 week main lesson block so it is spread out over the year. Fortunately I have parents in the class involved in dance and music who are happy to contribute time and expertise.

This lesson is part of a 3 week main lesson set in ancient India. The Class two children have been hearing the serial story of Mahalia and Bharata, two young people who have broken with the strict rules of the caste system and have run off together. Mahalia is the daughter of a laundryman and Bharata the son of a rich Brahmin. Through listening to this story the children have been learning about the Hindu gods, Indian customs and wildlife. They have learnt some basic dance steps,listened to a musical performance, made some Indian food and are making saris and T shirts for their end of year play which is based on this story. Throughout the year they have made a felt elephant and modelled clay animals. Everyone is involved in some way. The lesson described below is one day in the life of this 3 week main lesson and has a Natural Science flavour.

MAIN LESSON TERM 4 2007

KLA - SAT

Outcomes - LTS1.3

LTS1.6

KLA - CAPA

Outcomes - MUS1.1

VAS1.1

9 am-9.05 - Morning verse and greetings. (Glasser)

9.05 - 9.25 - Weekly spelling list work, students choose a word and read and spell it, everyone has a turn. (1.) Times tables practice with percussion.(2.)

9.30 - 9.40 - Tiger song sheet is handed out and the children listen and join in. (1, 3.) The class wonder audibly why they have a song about a tiger, they start to get excited.

9.40 - 9.55 - General discussion about cats, who has one, how they move, how quiet they are, how they can go from sound sleep to action very quickly.(6) Ask some students to demonstrate cat movements, get class to close their eyes to see how quietly their friends can walk. (5)Ask class what size cat door they would need for a tiger, ask who has seen one, where it was, what sort of environment it was in. Tell children how big a tiger can be and demonstrate size.Important points to make are that tigers love swimming, have a large territory and are solitary unlike lions. (6) Ask what general knowledge they have about tigers and then lead into the story after some quick revision about the previous day's story.(Vygotsky). For the sleepy heads I insert some nonsense scenarios that did not happen and enjoy the confusion and laughter.

10.00 - 10.15 - Students listen to the new part of the home grown story introducing Dream-Eyes the tiger who was wounded in the hunt for Mahalia and Bharata. This is followed by more tiger discussion, in my class everyone is an expert.(1)

10.15 - 10.40 - Students set up their paints and do a painting of a tiger as directed by myself. They use the colours yellow, gold, orange and purple. The painting takes most of the children about 15 minutes and they start to pack up. We sing the song again.(3,4.)

10.40 - The students stand quietly while I congratulate them on their beautiful paintings. I ask them to bring in a drawing or a model of their idea of a perfect tiger enclosure. (Piaget)

Class is released for recess.

SONG.

"I'm a tiger, let me sleep.

Don't wake me, let me dream.

It's so cool here in the shade,

As cool as a flowing stream.

But now I'm awake! Alert strong awake.

Let the forest be aware, I'm a stripey here-and-there.

With my ever ready jaws and my velvet paddy paws,

Now I'm on the prowl, as quiet as an owl.

A quiver and a creep, a longing and a LEAP!

Now I'm tired."

This lesson has yet to be taught so no evaluation available . I have tried to incorporate at least three Intelligences into the lesson, but I believe I have covered more.

1.Linguistic

2.Mathematical

3.Musical

4.Spacial

5.Bodily kinesthetic

6.Naturistic

I know if deep learning is taking place by observing play activities in the playground, (Vygotsky)fielding questions in casual conversations and seeing the books they get from the library. If the lesson has hit the spot they always do their own research.(Piaget) (Bloom)

By approaching a subject in a threefold way - through their head forces in discussions, through their heart forces through story and through their will in the painting activity, the learning process is usually very thorough and deep.

Generation Y

I am the mother of three Gen. Y's. When they were babies we were living in a situation that involved a very small solar power system so they were free from technology until they were in primary school. They took to it like ducks to water! First they mastered the TV remote and the DVD player. They showed my parents how to operate their's (quite a few times). When they were deemed old enough they got mobile phones and they have been connected ever since. When we were in Bali my daughter made it a mission to find the nearest internet place so she could connect with her Australian social life and brag about being in Bali.
Watching homework being done is an interesting experience as several things are usually happening at the same time- sound system, msn, homework and mobile phone. How can they get things done in such apparent chaos? (Generation Jones here.)
In their friendships they are honest and very upfront about anything that upsets them. They have healthy and relaxed relationships with the opposite sex . One of my sons is very "blokey" but also enjoys discussing facets of human nature with me.
I have a class of baby Gen Y's and they are scary. No topic is sacred and they rip the scabs off other's sore feelings with a frightening detachment. At the tender age of 8 they are feisty and ready to take the world on and tell it off if it doesn't live up to their expectations. Watch out everyone!

BUSINESSWEEK
COVER STORY Generation YToday's teens--the biggest bulge since the boomers--may force marketers to toss their old tricksAt malls across America, a new generation is voting with its feet.At Towson Town Center, a mall outside of Baltimore, Laura Schaefer, a clerk at the Wavedancer surf-and-skateboard shop, is handling post-Christmas returns. Coming back: clothes that fit snugly and shoes unsuitable for skateboarding.
Schaefer, 19, understands. ''They say 'My mom and dad got me these','' she says.At the Steve Madden store in Roosevelt Mall on Long Island, N.Y., parents, clad in loafers and Nikes (NKE), are sitting quietly amid the pulsating music while their teenage daughters slip their feet into massive Steve Madden platform shoes. Many of the baby boomer-age parents accompanying these teens look confused. And why not? Things are different in this crowd.
Nike has found out the hard way that Gen Y is different. Although still hugely popular among teens, the brand has lost its grip on the market in recent years, according to Teenage Research Unlimited, a Northbrook (Ill.) market researcher. Nike's slick national ad campaigns, with their emphasis on image and celebrity, helped build the brand among boomers, but they have backfired with Gen Y. ''It doesn't matter to me that Michael Jordan has endorsed Nikes,'' says Ben Dukes, 13, of LaGrange Park, Ill.
Missteps such as Nike's disastrous attempt to sponsor Olympic snowboarders two years ago and allegations of inhumane overseas labor practices added to Gen Y's scorn. As Nike is discovering, success with this generation requires a new kind of advertising as well as a new kind of product. The huge image-building campaigns that led to boomer crazes in everything from designer vodka to sport-utility vehicles are less effective with Gen Y.
''The old-style advertising that works very well with boomers, ads that push a slogan and an image and a feeling, the younger consumer is not going to go for,'' says James R. Palczynski, retail analyst for Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. and author of YouthQuake, a study of youth consumer trends.
Instead, Gen Yers respond to humor, irony, and the (apparently) unvarnished truth. Sprite has scored with ads that parody celebrity endorsers and carry the tagline ''Image is nothing. Obey your thirst.'' J.C. Penney & Co.'s (JCP) hugely successful Arizona Jeans brand has a new campaign showing teens mocking ads that attempt to speak their language. The tagline? ''Just show me the jeans.". .

Labor, the lesser evil

Re the article in the Weekend Australian about a national curriculum. It seems that Australia is falling behind in its educational goals and is constantly being outdone by South Korea and Finland. What do these two countries do that we don't in our education? Quick research on the net revealed that Finland requires that its teachers have a masters in education and that they specialise in their subjects.Therefore students in Finland have teachers that know their subjects inside out and can be constructive and creative facilitators for learning. Finnish teachers are not inspected as we are, it is assumed that there are expert teachers in every classroom.
South Korea is different. Instead it has a strong culture that imbues its children with respect for adults, leading to quieter classrooms! But it also puts enormous pressure on its students resulting in a very high suicide rate.
In Finland there are expert teachers and in Korea a strong culture and unrelenting pressure to do well. I prefer the expert teacher scenario of Finland. Perhaps we don't need a national curriculum, rather we need the human element of better educated teachers.

David Ausubel

DAVID AUSUBEL AND THE ADVANCE ORGANISER

Definitions
1. A "statement of inclusive concepts to introduce and sum up material that follows" (Woolfolk, 2001).
2. Cognitive instructional strategy used to promote the learning and retention of new information (Ausubel, 1960).
3. It is a method of bridging and linking old information with something new.


Advanced organizers are a concept developed and systematically studied by David Ausubel in 1960. He was very influenced by the teachings of Jean Piaget (Geier, 1999). Ausubel has worked consistently to prove that advance organizers facilitate learning and much of his research has influenced others since the 1960s. However, throughout the history of using advance organizers, it is still undecided whether or not advance organizers fully promote learning or if other processes are more beneficial, but much of the research promotes the ability of advance organizers to be useful in improving levels of understanding and recall (Mayer, 2003).
Since the advent of advance organizers, research has been able to prove that these work best when there is no prior knowledge involved, because an advance organizer becomes the students prior knowledge before learning the new material. If prior knowledge is available, advance organizers do not work as well for these students (Mayer, 2003).
Ausubel's advance organizer can best be classified as a deductive method. Deductive methods or reasoning provide the rule to follow then the example leading to the correct answer or learning (Mayer, 2003). This is opposite from inductive methods or reasoning that provides the example to follow then the rule.
Advance organizers are also highly useful in the process of transferring knowledge. Because of the deductive reasoning, students are able to use the rule then the example for learning to occur. Mayer writes in his text, "...the effects of advance organizers should be most visible for tests that involve creative problem solving or transfer to new situations, because the advance organizer allows the learner to organize the material into a familiar structure" (Mayer, 2003).

Examples and Types of advance organizers
1. Advanced Organizers
2. Expository - describe the new content.
3. Narrative - presents the new information in the form of a story to students.
4. Skimming - used to look over the new material and gain a basic overview.
5. Graphic organizer - visuals to set up or outline the new information.
6. Concept mapping
Ausubel's definition is that advanced organizers should not contain "to be learned content" and the information being presented should be at a higher "higher level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness" than the information to be learned (Ausubel,1963).

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Advance_organizers


In order to enhance meaningful learning Ausubel believed that it was important to have students preview information to be learned. Teachers could do this by providing a brief introduction about the way that information that is going to be presented is structured. An example of this might be opening a lesson with a statement that provides an overview of what will be taught. In presenting outlines of information, teachers can help students see the big picture to be learned. http://vanguard.phys.udiaho.edu/mod/models/ausubel/index.html
This approach encourages students to build upon prior knowledge and mentally organize their thoughts before being introduced to the details of new concepts.
By making new material more familiar and meaningful to students, it should be easier to retrieve. (Gagne, 1988)
http://chd.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/cognitivism/AdvancedOrganizers.htm

B.O.S. English K-6 Syllabus

Q3.

I went to the Scope and Sequence of Grammar page. This gave suggestions for the level of grammar that students are expected to learn in certain stages.It had useful comments about the variety of achievable levels within each stage.

The programming section also mentioned flexibility in student learning levels and gave suggestions for quality input into lessons eg Aboriginal perspectives. It is suitable for focussing teachers on their objectives and reminding them of all the points they need to cover.
The Assessment section had lots of information about the variety of ways assessing can be done apart from tests and marks.

A good lesson plan is much more than just covering the outcomes. a good lesson plan takes into consideration the students, what they know, who they are, what they need to know and why. The content should be relevant, rich and fulfilling. The students should participate in a variety of activities to do with that content- Listening to the story, writing, singing, speaking,painting, moving - however or whatever is practical. Part of the lesson should be given over to quiet individual work which gives the students time to think about what they are doing. And always before they leave the room, a quick review of the lesson.

Piaget and Vygotsky

"To understand is to discover, or reconstruct by rediscovery, and such conditions must be complied with if in the future individuals are to be formed who are capable of production and creativity and not simply repetition."

Jean Piaget

Piaget found that children have 4 stages of development where they learn about the world around them. He said that they have different understandings about their world according to their cognitive stage of development. He felt that play was not aimless but vitally important for the development of their understanding of the reality of their world. He said that repeated experiences helped the child to construct his own knowledge of the world, that learning should be made from within rather than be forced in from outside. Therefore curriculum should be developed to take into consideration the stage of development of the student and that teachers become facilitators who provide the students with the opportunity to construct their own knowledge - hence Constructivism.

Vygotsky argued that the child’s social culture is the basis for learning, that they learn through social interaction with peers and adults and that language is a vital part of development. He came up with the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development, the difference between what a child can do without help and what they can achieve with help from a friend or adult. Scaffolding, the support given to a child as it learns, needs to be constantly adjusted to accommodate the progress of ability. Curriculum should be developed to allow for careful progress of knowledge and every effort should be made for learning to be collaborative.

Both theories go hand in hand with good education. In this huge world teeming with people it is vital that students learn to work together and appreciate each other’s gifts and differences. How could we have school without peer influence? Students can affect each other's learning in positive ways. The careful scaffolding of new information geared for the individual’s stage of development ensures that students feel confident with their ability. Combine this with an understanding of age development , different intelligences and the possibility of students collaborating to construct new understandings together and we have a model of education that produces creative individuals who will have a lot to offer the world.

Qualities of a teacher

There is a saying that you can’t be all things to all people and yet as teachers that is what we have to be to our students. In a Steiner school we are often asked the question “what if the child doesn’t like you, he has you for 7 years?” The reply usually is that as the adult in the situation it is up to us to find the key to that child and make ourselves likeable. Some teachers may say that teaching is not a popularity quest, but it helps if our students actually like us and it makes it easier for them to learn if they like the person imparting information.

Rudolf Steiner gave these indications about what makes a good teacher:

: “Firstly the teacher must see to it that he influences and works upon his pupils – in a wider sense - by letting the spirit flow through his whole being as a teacher, and also in the details of his work, how he utters each single word, or develops each individual concept or feeling. The teacher must be a man of initiative. He must never be careless or lazy; at every moment he must stand in full consciousness of what he is doing in the school and how he behaves to the children. This is the first principle. The teacher must be a man of initiative in everything that he does, great and small.

Secondly, we as teachers must be interested in everything that is going on in the world and in all that concerns mankind. All that is happening in the outside world and in the life of men must arouse our interest. We should also be able to enter into all the concerns of every individual child in our care. The teacher should be one who is interested in the being of the whole world and of humanity.

Thirdly, the teacher must be one who never makes a compromise in his heart and mind with what is untrue. The teacher must be one who is true in the depths of his being. He must never compromise with untruth, for if he did so we should see how through many channels untruth would find its way into our teaching, especially in the way we present our subjects.

And now something that is more easily said than done; the teacher must never get stale or grow sour. Cherish a mood of soul which is fresh and healthy!

How do these compare with Hattie’s definitions of a good or expert teacher? They can:

Identify essential representations of their subject

Guide learning through classroom interactions,

Monitor learning and provide feedback,

Attend to affective attributes (how they relate to the students and how they feel about teaching, passionate it is hoped)

Influence student outcomes.

While Steiner’s indications are very broad they manage to encompass all of Hattie’s points. Both are saying the same thing, that teachers have a huge responsibility towards their students and they should be attentive to everything they do with their students on every level, both academic and personal. If a teacher strives to achieve the indication given by Steiner in the first point alone he would be encompassing all of Hattie's details at the same time. If the teacher is part of a continually learning community he would find it hard to grow "stale" or "sour".

There are so many qualities a teacher needs that it is hard to put them in order, so only the first one is meant to be first, the others are parallel with each other.

1. Love and appreciation of children and an ability to relate to them and see things through their eyes. It is marvellous when a child shows us something that they find amazing and the adults in their life can show genuine appreciation of the object or picture. To experience wonder through the eyes of a child is a sure-fire way of never growing stale.
2. Fascination with what makes people tick and a desire to learn how to deal with it and influence it in a positive way. I found Glasser’s Choice Theory to be an interesting and relevant way of looking at some of the children in my class and agree with the theory that a lot of behaviour problems are a struggle for power. Having said that though I can also say that there are a few children in the class who have too much power at home and are regular tyrants there.
3. Love of teaching and an interest in the world go hand in hand to me. By teaching the children well they are learning about the world through someone who also finds it stimulating and thought provoking.
   
4. A sense of humour. You have to laugh and so do the children, often.
5. Honesty or being able to admit when you’re wrong. In most cases children appreciate a teacher who apologises for a mistake and rarely make fun of them, as long as the teacher is not apologising all the time - one tries not to make too many mistakes.
6. Truthfulness, not telling your students stories that have no foundation in truth. Each story needs to be researched carefully before being told and the teacher himself needs to believe from his inmost heart that what he is saying is the truth.
7. An even temper even in the face of a student's really annoying melt-downs.
   
8. An open mind to try new approaches, the internet can be a marvellous place to go for suggestions as we don’t all have libraries fully stocked with teaching material.
9. A really strong work ethic as this teaching business is all-pervading and demanding.
10. Excellent organisational skills of time, work, students, home.
11. Good communication skills, how to get the message across without offending anyone.
12. The ability to know what to do all the time, every time.
13. Knowing when to retreat to that lonely mountain top to find one's own centre.
    

I should also add that a good relationship with fellow team-mates is of vital importance.

Everyone has a view point that deserves the courtesy of being heard even if you don’t follow the advice.

Good working relationships can be fostered when people are put in the position of learning something new together. In our school this is a regular occurrence with regular classes in speech, eurythmy, painting, and now university. We also have regular seminars where teachers are asked to do the talks and activities. This is valuable on many different levels. The teachers have to learn in order to teach their colleagues, there are new and varied viewpoints offered, we all come away feeling listened to and appreciated for our offering and it can highlight the talents of someone that we may not have known about. Above all we come together in a harmonious life-filled and creative way.

Reflections of a learning community

Every day the community of teachers at our school arrive at about 8am. People head off to speech and eurythmy classes or to the coffee room to touch base. Then its off to the classrooms where the students are greeted. In our school we take our classes through for 7 years so we teachers become a “special place” ourselves.

Their room has been warmly decorated with curtains and collections of their artworks on the wall. They know where their desks are and what to expect from their neighbours on either side. They know where I’ve hidden the Marble Run and help themselves at morning tea. They know that I know them and their interests and after a series of home visits there is now an even stronger link between home and school.

Each day follows a predictable and safe routine but is varied enough to maintain interest. Good behaviour is acknowledged and praised, really bad behaviour has consequences. All this creates a sense of security and belonging. The children love to arrive at school to hear the latest episode of the main lesson story, or to participate in some Aboriginal dance. Another child might have finished weaving their cushion cover and will be excited about displaying it, yet another child has brought her duck to school because we have a cage for visiting animals. School can be such fun!

As an “Expert Teacher To Be One Day Maybe"

I need to hone my ability to ensure that each student sees our classroom as a safe place to learn and work in. I should make myself more conscious of every action, word, thought and feeling that I convey to my class. Each minute should be accounted for in a lesson, perhaps by over-preparing material. An unrealistic dream is that my rowdy class sit quietly and expectantly at their desks, their eyes wide open as they wait for the pearls of wisdom to fall from my lips. Fat chance!

community

The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.

Abraham Lincoln

The scientific search for the basic building blocks of life has revealed a startling fact: there are none. The deeper that physicists peer into the nature of reality, the only thing they find is relationships. Even sub-atomic particles do not exist alone. One physicist described neutrons, electrons, etc. as “. . .a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.” Although physicists still name them as separate, these particles aren’t ever visible until they’re in relationship with other particles. Everything in the Universe is composed of these “bundles of potentiality” that only manifest their potential in relationship…

A simple means to support and develop relationships is to create time to think together as staff. Time to think together has disappeared in most organizations. This loss has devastated relationships and led to increasing distrust and disengagement. Yet when a regular forum exists where staff can share their work challenges, everything improves. People learn from each other, find support, create solutions, and gradually discover new capabilities from this web of trusting relationships. This is no surprise. We’re all “bundles of potentiality” that only manifest in relationship.

Margaret Wheatley

Communities come in many sizes, from family size to global. Each part of a community is linked by strands as delicate as a spider’s web and can be easily broken by insensitive words or actions. Even though communities should be mutually supportive among the members, each member has a huge degree of self-responsibility to act when needed. However they should also temper this with a strong awareness of their nominal role within that community. While it is important that everyone be supportive and active, communities can come to grief when there is a conflict of basic ideology and when people trespass beyond their nominal roles. Some communities appear to function well as long as everyone remembers who is ‘”boss” and act accordingly. This goes against everyone feeling that they have as much say as the next person.

As an “Expert Teacher some time down the track," I would like to make sure that my students are part of a creative learning community in the classroom where no-one feels silly if they make a mistake and no-one makes anyone feel a fool. I would like to imbue the children with the feeling that they all have responsibilities towards each other, that they can work together in a constructive way.

Reflection.

Critical reflection is something that a lot of teachers do unconsciously but as a will and mind strengthening exercise, should do consciously. An exercise given by Rudolf Steiner involves the teacher calling to mind each evening every child in their class and asking themselves did they reach that child that day. To do the best job that we can in our teaching we need to constantly check ourselves and our performances. We can make use of our teaching community and ask our colleagues for their viewpoints, we can research educational literature in books or on-line, it is really important to maintain a fresh outlook and keep learning. I have taught numerous class ones in Steiner Schools, I’ve taught the damn alphabet 8 times! (I know it now). What made it interesting was the flexibility allowed me by Steiner education to find fresh images for the letters and the different groups of children before me. Still, I think I’ve had enough now.

To become that elusive “Expert Teacher” not only is it important to critically reflect about one’s performance, one has to act on one’s findings. Something else I really need to work on is those last vital minutes of each lesson because – shock, horror – I forget to round the lesson off properly with the class by reflecting on what we have learnt. I need to develop a stronger end of lesson routine.

Deep Learning

Deep learning is achieved by not only regurgitating the knowledge in a superficial way, but by asking the students relevant questions that engage their imaginations in creative and practical ways.

New information should be given in a succession of carefully constructed stages, starting with the familiar and each leading carefully onto the next. The students should be given immediate feedback on their progress, thus encouraging some of the more unmotivated children to try. Once the students feel they have a grasp of the information they can then be asked to start applying their own thoughts and opinions. This would enhance their feeling of power in their education - something that they do rather than something that is done for or to them. The more that the students apply themselves in a variety of activities that highlight their intelligences, the more they have the freedom to make their learning their own.

As a struggling not-yet Expert Teacher I assess deep-learning taking place largely through observation of my year 1 students. I observe when the children take the lesson content into the playground and take note of extra questions that are asked as they deepen their understanding. As part of our end of year reports each child will create a main lesson book which will be a reflection on the year's main lessons.

My Journal for Alan.

“Today, by way of introduction, I want to prepare the ground for what will occupy us during the next few days. Education is very much in the news today, and many people connected with the education of the young are discussing the need for reform. Many different views are expressed – often with considerable enthusiasm – about how education should undergo a change, a renewal. And yet, when hearing the various views upon the subject, one cannot help feeling a certain trepidation, because it is difficult to see how such different views could ever lead to some kind of unity and common purpose – especially since each point of view claims to be the only valid one.”

Dr R. Steiner – Dornach, April 15, 1923

Eighty three years later and the education debate goes on with continuing theories and changes. Constructivism is the buzz word now but one has to wonder what it will be even ten years from now. It’s a bit like child-rearing methods through the ages, from the ultra strict regimes of the past, to the preserve-their-self-esteem-at-all-costs philosophy of the present day.

I’ve just been looking up the word “taxonomy” in my pocket Oxford dictionary so that the words Blooms Taxonomy won’t be as daunting, or meaningless for that matter. I know they represent something very useful and display incredible thinking capacities but “taxonomy”? Anyway, according to my dictionary it means: classification of living and extinct organisms. Huh? Its from the Greek word taxis meaning arrangement and noma meaning distribution. Ah, BUT… this is a Cognitive Taxonomy and that’s different. Here is one explanation.

Bloom's Taxonomy *

Benjamin Bloom created this taxonomy for categorizing level of abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings. The taxonomy provides a useful structure in which to categorize test questions, since professors will characteristically ask questions within particular levels, and if you can determine the levels of questions that will appear on your exams, you will be able to study using appropriate strategies.

.This is an easy-to-understand graph of this particular taxonomy.


I went on the net to try and get an idea of what inspired Bloom’s great interest in education. I did not have much luck with that but I did find a site written by a previous student of Bloom who was extremely inspired by him. He wrote pages about the man and it at least gave me a slight inkling of Bloom’s personality. He was quite short for a man – 5’5”- in the U.S. measurement and full of life and enthusiasm. In anthroposophical terms this could indicate a rather choleric temperament which would give rise to someone who believed in action. Certainly all these verbs in the taxonomy would agree with that!

The educational environment in the 1950’s had a curriculum evaluation system that compared the students’ achievements with each other. It was taken for granted that some students would get A’s and B’s but most would get C’s – a basic fact of life. Students were given a chunk of information to learn and a time frame to learn it in with no regard for the individual learning rates of the students. Bloom felt that this needed to be addressed. He felt that if the information was processed in a series of stages with a variety of structured processes to suit each stage and a more flexible time frame, then all students would be given the opportunity to succeed. By using the stages of remembering/understanding, application, analysing, creating and finally evaluating the information each student would make the information their own. It is a very active way of learning which most students enjoy as long as the content is relevant to them.

As a teacher Benjamin Bloom appears to have been very constructivist in his approach, getting his uni students to be active rather than just expecting them to limply absorb a barrage of information. During student presentations he seems to have been very supportive even when the presentations fell flat, earning the site-writer’s undying gratitude as it was his presentation that fell flat. Apparently Bloom seized the opportunity to make that experience an opportunity for higher learning for everyone in the room rather than heaping scorn on his student’s head.

Do I apply his format to my teaching in Class One? Well no, not all of it. Certainly the Remember/ Understand category comes into play, as does Apply and Create. We do not however ask students under the age of 12 years old to analyse or evaluate as it is not considered developmentally appropriate to use those aspects of thinking at such a young age in Steiner schools.


Well hello again, (16/9/06) a week after Tony’s Saturday with us. No wonder I would not be asking Year One for analysing and evaluation of information, apparently it is usually expected of Year 12 students. Tony’s day was full of information, however I felt that it was mainly aimed at the high school spectrum of development. Some of the things he said made things more clear to me, one thing in particular was “ the theory follows the deed.” It might have been glaringly obvious to everyone else but I’ve been under the impression that these theories of student development and learning have been thought up as a kind of random experiment and then applied as a sort of desperate measure to remedy the ongoing education problem. It makes a lot more sense to realise that it has been observation of developmental behaviour that has lead to various experiments and thus the theories explaining the behaviour.

Isn’t teaching an endlessly complex and fascinating subject? It is also a terribly, frighteningly responsible job. Every day we are faced with a room full of diverse, complicated and ever-changing young people who are the products of a whole range of influences, from the very positive to the quite horrific. Regardless of what these influences may be we set to work to bring the world to them in a way that they can comprehend and find interesting enough to do their own reflection on and research about. Some of us are more successful than others in this task. Some people are “born teachers” - from the very beginning they have had the ability to go into a classroom and inspire the children within. Most of us have the Initiation from Hell to go through before we can even control the students long enough to teach them.

What makes a good teacher? We all have memories of our own experiences as a student. I remember a very kind teacher I had in class one who defended me in class. Another gave permission to the school bullies to beat me up and indeed gave me the cane himself as a bit of stress relief. I can remember that same teacher giving us lengths of coloured paper to stick in our books but for the life of me I never knew why and I still haven’t worked it out. I do not think he would make it onto Hattie’s expert teacher list. In high school we had a terrifying history teacher with laser eyes who made it dangerous to not learn. He was not constructivist in the slightest, just gave us pages of information, but he knew his subject inside out and was able to make it interesting- we all got good marks in history. The high degree of discipline he had meant that no-one ever misbehaved. He was well-respected but not loved. Then there were the other teachers who probably knew their subject but presented it very boringly. Just knowing one’s subject well does not mean that one can teach it well. There are many very learned people who should never set foot in a classroom to teach. So what skills do we need to take on the daunting, strangely addictive task of educating children? Tony asked us why we became teachers. It was odd but I had actually never seriously asked myself that question before, I still find it hard to put into words. But it is totally addictive and equally terrifying. As for skills… Being a teacher in a Steiner School means that I refer to the lectures given by Rudolf Steiner for most of my instruction and understanding of child development. In his book Practical Advice for Teachers he had this to say about teachers and the qualities they should have:

Closing Words: “Firstly the teacher must see to it that he influences and works upon his pupils – in a wider sense - by letting the spirit flow through his whole being as a teacher, and also in the details of his work, how he utters each single word, or develops each individual concept or feeling. The teacher must be a man of initiative. He must never be careless or lazy; at every moment he must stand in full consciousness of what he is doing in the school and how he behaves to the children. This is the first principle. The teacher must be a man of initiative in everything that he does, great and small.

Secondly, we as teachers must be interested in everything that is going on in the world and in all that concerns mankind. All that is happening in the outside world and in the life of men must arouse our interest. We should also be able to enter into all the concerns of every individual child in our care. The teacher should be one who is interested in the being of the whole world and of humanity.

Thirdly, the teacher must be one who never makes a compromise in his heart and mind with what is untrue. The teacher must be one who is true in the depths of his being. He must never compromise with untruth, for if he did so we should see how through many channels untruth would find its way into our teaching, especially in the way we present our subjects.

And now something that is more easily said than done; the teacher must never get stale or grow sour. Cherish a mood of soul which is fresh and healthy!"


These are by no means the only suggestions he ever made about teachers’ qualities, they are dotted throughout a lot of his books, sometimes in unexpected places. While this list is relatively brief it manages to cover the attributes that an “expert” teacher should try to attain. I’ve gone through Hattie’s list and will now attempt to rate myself accordingly.

A1. I’ve had the occasional flash of success with this but I need to keep working at it.

A2. I think I have the right attitude in that I always look at the individual’s problems and try to sort them out but sometimes one needs to try a few solutions before one finds the right one, in which case I’ve just partially flunked A3.

A4. My lesson plans exist on paper as well as in my head but never in much detail. Sometimes I don’t accomplish the aim of the lesson because occasionally something else has arisen from the lesson that we have explored instead.
B5,6,7, no, still just experienced level teacher material here.
C8,9,10, still a long way to go.
D11,12, at last, two areas that I feel pretty good about.
E13, at the tender age of 7 years old my particular students have not developed some of the qualities I'm meant to have engendered in them but most of them have developed self-regulation as far as their previously frequent tantrum throwing episodes go. They just don't bother any more. Phew!
E14, not yet but I'll develop this one as my class get older.
E15 &16 Time will tell.

And the education debate goes on while teachers everywhere try to do what they can to make school a useful place in the eyes of the students and their families. Everyone has something to say.
Glasser and his theory of choice: children need a sense of place where they can feel safe and comfortable to learn in.
They need to feel that they are understood, welcomed and that they belong to the society of their classmates.
They need a certain amount of freedom to learn in, perhaps choices that they can make in a learning situation.
They need a sense of power
And they need to express their sense of fun and see that their teacher has that within them as well.

COMPUTERS ARE FUN BUT LAZY.

I’m having trouble with the cursor and I will curse at the cursor
which is probably how it got its name in the first place.

I have great fun inserting various animals etc but the fact is that even though its really cute having these little illustrations available at the touch of a button, it is a really lazy thing to do. Where is the struggle to get the proportions right, find the right colour, shade it so that it has roundness and depth? No struggle at all! After drawing one of these animals by hand my knowledge of the animal’s form is much more intimate, and there is a sense of achievement at a job well done. My sense of achievement now is minimal except that I now know the right button to press and my typing is getting faster. I have merely chosen this font, which is a very nice one, but I have put no effort into carefully shaping each letter by hand.
There is no doubt that this is fun, the writing will look great, there will be no smudges, scribbling out or mal-formed letters but what have I gained? What will generations of children gain from this lazy way of artistic presentation? How are they going to behave when life throws something at them that requires more than the push of a button? When undoing something takes more than the delete key? IT is here to stay but everything needs balance. Frankly the thought of active schoolgirls being sent out to lunch to communicate with each other through their laptops scares me. Where is the eye-to-eye heart-to-heart communication in that? And what about this weight problem that we Australians are developing? How is sitting at a computer all lunch remedying that? (Hang on, I’m going to play with the font colour.) Hm maybe some papyrus font would be nice.