Mike Wesch Ted Talk: Learning from Baby George

What does Mike Wesch believe about how students learn?  How does he act on those beliefs?

“Asking questions, making connections, and taking chances took us down from the trees and took us to the moon.”

~ Dr. Mike Wesch


Dr. Wesch began his talk by pointing out that the way universities are set up, and the attitudes of college students and faculty, are largely contradictory to real learning.  He used his son George to demonstrate his beliefs about how students learn. His young son showed us that learning happens when students are doing something they love and when they are challenging themselves.  He said "real learning is fun so you keep doing it" as we watched his son keep attempting his steps on the stairs countless times.  Dr. Wesch thinks learning happens when you are not afraid of failure, when you are connected, and when the score is not the outcome you are after-rather than the learning itself.  




Dr. Wesch used his observations of his son to transform his way of teaching and to align his pedagogy with his beliefs. He knew that making personal connections with his students, and understanding each one of them individually, was a way to foster learning in his students.  He also finds ways for his students to be able to show their individual strengths.  And really, isn't that the task of every educator?  He encourages creativity and knows that there's not just one way to do something.  He also encourages collaboration among his students.  His illustration of the mountain and how he “scaffolds all the way up the mountain,” and how students need to all pitch in to help each other reach various plateaus, was a powerful way to demonstrate his beliefs- learning happens when students are connected, having fun, being challenged, and focused on the learning and not the grade.  


I really appreciated the lengths that Dr. Wesch went to to understand his students and to connect with them. I have always felt that connecting with students is the most important thing that teachers can do. It's also what I think makes teaching so rewarding.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP7dbl0rJS0




Comments

  1. Carly OguschewitzJune 30, 2020 at 12:14 PM

    Leigh,

    I love how Dr. Wesch makes it a point to get to know his students, especially in college where classes can be large lectures. I, also, think making these connections are so important! I agree that it is every educator's job to push students in the direction of their interests. We are doing our students a disservice when we keep them in the lane of standardized testing and stifle that creativity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LesleyJune 30, 2020 at 5:36 PM

    Sounds like you are really articulating your own beliefs here -- CONNECTION is at the center for you. How do your actions follow this belief? Glad this inspired you :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Emily SheaJune 30, 2020 at 7:26 PM

    I really liked how Dr. Wesch made little meetings with his students to get to know them better. In the classroom, I conference with students about academics but I think I want to start having lunch bunches to build deeper connections. I also think house visits would be fun too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 1, 2020 at 3:51 AM

    Leigh I totally agree with you when you say that connecting with students is the most important thing that teachers do. It definitely is what makes our job so rewarding! This is something I have been working on through blended and personalized learning (I was part of a FUSE cohort that focused on this) and something I am currently thinking about how to go about doing if we start school in September with distance learning.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJuly 1, 2020 at 5:59 AM

    Leigh, I completely agree with you about the most rewarding part of teaching is connecting with our students. I have had the opportunity to loop with some of my students for three years. It has been an wonderful experience connecting with my students.

    Christina D'Ambra

    ReplyDelete
  6. Elyse PflegerJuly 11, 2020 at 12:37 PM

    Learning is so much more than working towards good grades! Our schools are not set up to accommodate this method of thinking. You make a good point at the beginning of your post when you say that the ways in which universities are set up are often contradictory to the real ways students learn. Hopefully, we can work to change some of these habits in our own classrooms. I think our final projects can give us hope! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sugata Mitra: A School in the Cloud

Image
Sugata Mitra is an educational scientist who studied what would happen when he gave self-supervised access to the internet.  He claims that modern schooling came about in the Victorian era when it was essential that everyone be able to read, do math in their heads, and have good handwriting.  He made an interesting argument in stating that schools as we know them now are obsolete. They’re outdated.”    Mitra’s curiosity about what children would do if left alone with a computer led him to the conclusion that children would learn- in a language other than their own and content that is a decade ahead of their time.  He argues that all they need to succeed is access and encouragement.  His video clips of children gathered around a computer show children who are engaged, excited, and seem to be learning. Prior to distance learning, my 3rd graders did not use the computers and internet in my classroom a whole lot.  They would use them for additional ma...
Read more

Disney's Moana From a Critical Lens

Image
I have seen Disney’s Moana probably a dozen times.  I know the soundtrack by heart and have bellowed “How Far I’ll Go” at the top of my lungs in the car with my two daughters a few times.  But I will never watch Moana, or any other Disney movie for that matter, the same way again.  Viewing it from the critical lens as suggested by Christensen in Rethinking Popular Culture and Media , I see it in a whole new light.  Prior to today’s viewing, I thought it was a good movie.  Moana is a strong female character and seemingly independent, thus the film portrayed a positive female role model and message for young girls. I appreciated how it wasn't the typical “happily ever after” girl-meets-prince, prince-saves-girl story that I’ve seen many times.   But when I watched Moana with a critical eye and thought about how women are represented, I was surprised to find so many stereotypes perpetuated throughout this film.   Some basic gender roles are made cle...
Read more

Sherry Turkle & Mike Wesh: Enemies or Allies?

Image
While at first it might seem that Sherry Turkle and Mike Wesch are on opposite sides when it comes to beliefs about technology, it seems to me that they are both actually on the same team.   Turkle says that technology is “so psychologically powerful that it's changed how we behave.”  She argues that texting, email, and social media all allow us to “edit” ourselves rather than reveal our true selves the way we would with old-fashioned conversations.  She contends that technology is setting us up to be “alone together.”  I agree with many of her points and I have observed them first-hand in both myself and in others.  Such as going to dinner and the people at the next table are slouched over scrolling through their iPhone, or forcing myself to take a break from the classroom to go have lunch with my colleagues and walking into the teacher’s room only to find everyone spread out, eating in silence while they check their Facebook. And good luck with getting me...
Read more