Edutopia!

The two podcast that I just watched were very interesting. The first one I watched was "The Edible Schoolyard." It was about a school in California that uses gardening as a teaching technique! It was very interesting to see how excited and cooperative the 6Th grade children were in the gardening. They loved it! Through the gardening the children were learning math, science, life lessons, and much more. It taught these students to have a sense of community. In the past, the things that the children are learning from gardening, were taught at home. Now days most children have no experience in this department. Alice Waters created this "gardening program" in 1994 as a way to improve the lunch program. I love how the kids see something through from beginning to the end. They grow the food and then good it and eat it. They learn to be generous and also how to be cooperative, like a family. I think that this is a great program for child development.

Another podcast I watched was, "A Night in the Global Village." This was my favorite! I have such a heart for the nations. To see children learning about other cultures and people was so encouraging to me. This helps them to not be blinded by our society and not to think that everyone in the world is as fortunate as many Americans. The Global Gateway Program takes children out of their natural environment to an area like none they have experienced. Teachers can bring students to this "global village" to help them learn about poverty, hunger, sanitation, and other problems that many villages face. The camp has life-like villages set up from Guatemala, Taiwan, refugee camps, and other areas. The students along with a chaperon stay the night in the villages with all the amenities that a villager has, nothing! Actually they are given a few goods such as rice, water, matches, and cooking pans. They spend the night and function as true villagers from other countries. They have to depend on each other and work together to make it through the night with a full stomach. I think that this is such a great program. I think that it shows children just how blessed they are, how much we take for granted, how to work together, and how to be responsible. They have to cooperate with other students or else everyone loses. There is also an in school project that the podcast mentioned, called Read & Feed that teachers can participate in, in the classroom. I love that the global village opens the students' eyes and helps them to see that they need to take action in their own community and maybe one day it will encourage them to take action in other communities, as well.

In my classroom I could see myself utilizing both of these podcast ideas, maybe not to the full extent, but somewhat. I would love to be able to have a small garden that my class could help plant, maintain, and be a part of. Something like tomatoes or some other fruit or vegetable that they could watch grow and we could eat in class. It would let them be a part of a community of growth and would help us to all be responsible for something.

The village program is really awesome. If teachers had the chance to take students to the actual program that would be awesome. I think that in my classroom I will just have to settle on virtual field trips to show my children the means by which some people live. I would also give practical ideas of things we can do to help as a class. I would also encourage my class to give up something for a week that they think they can't live without, cellphone, video game, etc. I think it would show them that we have so many things and we are so blessed by the abundance of our resources. I would love to have my class connect with a class from a different culture than ours and learn about each other. I think it is always good to open there eyes to knew perspectives and views on life.

Please go watch these pod casts...they are really short but really cool!