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I really am shifting toward a curriculum that is less cluttered with more opportunities for student-led inquiries. Not that I didn't agree with this idea before, but now I am trying to "live" it. We are working with a curriculum planning tool, Chalk (www.chalk.com), to develop templates that will guide teachers to create this space as teams develop and manage curriculum together.

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Well, I am jumping out of my skin with enthusiasm for your highlighting the importance of a permeable curriculum. This is the key to this work which goes back to our beliefs. If we say we want life-long learners, and most educators and school districts have that as one of their overarching goals, then we have a responsibility to understand what that means and how we get there. Often we say the “correct” thing that sounds wonderful but our practices do the exact opposite. It’s the old say, “Are we walking our talk?” It’s letting go of our old ways of thinking and being researchers to understand why we need to let go of them. So let’s work backwards. If we look at each of our students and ask, “Are they learning and growing and becoming in powerful ways?”, that one question should set us off on a journey of learning. If we say we value our children’s thinking and then we have a rigid set of lessons that we have created despite what our students know and are able to do and what they need, then we simply don’t.

Here’s what to do on day one and for at least the first two weeks of school. What I am going to suggest is different from what typically happens as we jump into set units and lessons before even knowing what our students need. That model actually is saying that we believe all kids need the same thing at the same time and it really doesn't matter who is in front of us. That is typically driven from a coverage mindset. So, how to change that? Invite your students to make books and see what happens. You can have a discussion about what we know about books together. Kids know books. If they get stuck have them send them off as researchers to look at the books in the room. Then watch to see what they write, the genre, their process, the level of engagement. or not and equally important, their ideas. If you see a child just sitting and not engaging, those are the students to confer with first to see why. I once had a child say to me when I thought they were not engaging with writing, “Mrs. Champeau, I have to think first before I write.” That sobered me up from my presumptions about why I thought the child wasn’t writing. Create an assessment system of recording those observations. Many of the teachers have a class “window pane” which is in the book, and jot down the title and the genre that each kid gravitates toward. I guarantee you will see the kind of writing instruction they have had before. If the whole class is writing the same genre that tells you something. This is the start to a permeable curriculum. Here you are asking the children to be noticers, doing their own research and inquiry (looking at books individually or together) to figure things out. You are building writing and learning identities and creating a sense of agency. That helps children feel competent and as they go off they can help each other and that builds community.

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We are starting with the Nurtured Heart Approach at our school and noticing is a BIG component of that. I also love that Merry has such "huge" words on her word wall. I think sometimes adults forget that even young children can learn "giant" words if we use them in context and teach it. For example, my 5 year old's are really working on being "innovative" they love that they know know what it means to be innovative and they have not even started kindergarten yet. Building vocabulary in students can be so empowering!!!!

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In the Stenhouse meet the authors description of Engaging Literate Minds, it says "With Peter Johnston and his books, Opening Minds and Choice Words as their guide, they spent the last ten years challenging themselves and each other to hone their instruction and promote a school curriculum that is thoroughly permeable to children’s interests and proclivities." I think creating a curriculum in honor of 'the interests and proclivities" of children requires us to know them well from all perspectives and then to be willing to create a curriculum in their honor so that those interests and proclivities can come alive in practice (not just theory). I keep thinking about ten years of studying children and coming to understand how we can make this happen and I wonder if THAT is how we begin - by deeply studying children and using what we notice through teaching in action to understand not just our children and their interests but our responsibility to ensure that we are able to craft a curriculum that reflects that. The authors show us what that kind of deep study looks like and if we could begin there then the transformation they talk about can begin beyond the book in classrooms everywhere! It doesn't have to be ten years of action research but even making that the priority in schools next year can work wonders because once you know what to look for you being to change the way you look and what you see! I hope that makes sense but still thinking this through in my head.

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Enjoyed reading the back and forth between Matt and Stacy just now. Really great discussion! I'm interested to learn more about the Nurtured Heart Approach. It sounds like it may mesh nicely with the thinking from Engaging Minds.

I too was thinking about the value of having kids be "Noticers." Children are naturally curious and ask 1,000 questions, which I know sometimes drives their teachers crazy, yet...if we zeroed in on that curiosity and used it to drive the instruction, we'd certainly see more engagement from our students. Too often their curiosity gets batted aside in the hurry of "covering" curriculum. I love that the authors explicitly state that "Approaching learning through inquiry does not mean we avoid the curriculum required by the school district or state." (p.148) Teachers need to know that before they are able to move into inquiry based learning.

I really want to be more intentional about using students "Noticing" coupled with their natural curiosity about the world, when we resume school, regardless the venue.

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