Chapter Six “Turning Book Burners Into Lifelong Learners” Gena Woodard On Common Ground Chapter Six “Turning Book Burners Into Lifelong Learners” Gena Woodard Good morning. Some of you may experience this feeling at times. How many of you will own up to being a book burner?

“We are burning our notes and books. We are outta here!!” How many of you have witnessed this? Ron Barth witnessed this with a group of high school students and it troubled him. It made him think of at- risk students: students who have little likelihood of continuing of learning.

Schools and Universities alike are sending students a chilling message: “Learn or we will punish you.” Educators have coupled learning with punitive measures. Passing TAKS/Retention Failing Grades/No sports, etc. This is a practice we need to move away from. With this new generation we can’t keep up with the technology and information so easily accessed therefore we have to inspire and teach children to enjoy learning.

“The most important attitude that can be formed is that of the desire to learn.”—Littky,2004 W.B. Yeats said it this way: “Education is not the filling of pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Learning and Education should the ultimate goal of educators. Dennis Littky author of “The Big Picture: Education is everyone’s business.” and WB Yeats

As a PLC it is our responsibility to change this practice and create life long learners.

Lifelong Learning: A love for learning for its own sake Voluntary engagement in activities Asking one’s own questions and taking responsibility for addressing and finding answers Ability to marshal resources: books, technology, time, money, people, and tools Sustain engagement over time Continious reflection on oneself as a leaner and learning Capacity to set one’s own high standards of learning and determine if one is succeeding at resolving question posed The capacity to know and celebrate success You may ask yourself what is lifelong learning? It is: bring in bullets

The Principal and Lifelong Learning With in a school community it is a principal who leads the way. Some ways you can do that are:

Model lifelong learning Ghandi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Build a staff of lifelong learners Must hold high expectations for the learning of every educator in school Require evidence of learning Place lifelong learning in sight What are some ways you might model learning for your staff? How can you make learning visible? How do you involve parents? Make educators learning visible Enlist parental participation

Students as Lifelong Learners Learning has to become a common goal in the learning community. Every student will then show increasing evidence over time of becoming an independent, self sustained learner. Schools must have systematic means of assessing the progress of each student

What will educators do when they learn that students perform well under our direction while at school and then “burn their books” when they are on their own? This is something we have to ask ourselves. Think about your school. What are you doing when your students are not performing well and burning their books. The answer should be promote lifelong learners. You ask yourself how do we do this?

Promoting Lifelong Learners Give learning a good name Pose and answer our own problems Reduce didactic instruction Promote pleasure and success Reward instead of punish We have to embrace and make use of all the ways a person learns Foster independent thinking Reduce teacher-directed lessons Reward and recognize student accomplishments Change from “learn or be punished” to “learn or hurt yourself”

Lifelong Learning as the “Standard” Difficult and Important Job but this should be the norm instead of the unusual. By Building a Professional Learning Community there will be no more book burning.

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.  ~Clay P. Bedford We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.  ~Lloyd Alexander I want to end today with a these quotes. The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.  ~John Lubbock