Taking Risks

We want our students to take risks, yet are we as teachers willing to take risks? This was a question set forth on Twitter one day and our principal challenged us to accept.

If we want our students to take risks, calculated or not, we as teachers really need to learn to take them as well. I rose to the challenge and decided my risk would be the chance of chaos, or it could be the chance for fun and learning.

The Civil War was a big risk for America and that also provided two great opportunities for me to add in some kinesthetic learning so to speak. I had already devised a team game for the entire unit. Each team would be part of the North or South. As their group completed activities, they earned points. Now I had a couple of groups who were not as motivated academically and almost always scored the lowest points. One day I brought in a tug-of-war rope from gym class and told them they could challenge any team they wanted, and the winning team would earn points.

Not only was this motivational for them, but really reinforced the tug-of-war between the North and the South for battles, land and freedom. It was so successful, that we kept the rope in the room for two weeks and any team could challenge any team. No, nothing broke, no one got hurt and we only disturbed one class once - the risk was worth it!


The second risk I took happened after reading Henry's Freedom Box - a picture book about a slave who mails himself north to freedom. We didn't have a box, but we did have the nice white cabinets you see in the picture above. The bottom right cabinet was a pretty good size, and we had a contest between the classes to see who could stuff as many people in the cabinet as possible. While loosely related to the book, it emphasized the tight quarters of slave ships and the sense of being stuck in a box for what seems like eternity. One of our students receiving special education services, who usually would not participate in anything, was so intrigued he had to try it himself, but by himself.

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