Lessons & Challenges
Dear Readers,
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When Sarah was young, she remembers feeling disconnected and disengaged in school. She wasn't a strong reader & writer.
Her teachers often reminded her of her deficits every year by the groups they would put her in or the activities they would have her do compared to others. When she became a teacher, she wanted to do something more for ALL of her students.
And while Robyn enjoyed school and identified as a strong reader and writer, she witnessed her brother survive similar school experiences. And she wanted, like Sarah, to make sure that didn't happen to her students.
Sarah back in the day. Didn't she look ornery?
To assist students in disrupting the narrative that holds students down, we work to help them build empathy and break the cycle of feeling defeated in school. We help students explore the "art" of being human - thinking about what it means to be them, understanding how others may view the world, and considering what they're going to do moving forward. One way we do this is to pull from Michael Wesch's work in cultural anthropology, using his concept of lessons and challenges to push students out into the world. We've put his lessons and challenges into student-speak, asking them to think about our world in various ways. We share these here as a way to spread his good work and to encourage you and your students to engage in these lessons and challenges. In doing so, think about the connections you can make to your own experiences as a learner...and, even more...as a human.
Each "Lesson" supports a "Challenge" with specific texts and guidelines. Students are encouraged to read over the material in efforts to support their understandings.
Students post their challenges to either their personal instagrams, using hashtags so the class can find them and/or to their student blog.