The Paper Rocket: Thoughts on Improving ‘Hands-On’ Learning (Doug Lemov)
This piece comes from “Doug Lemov’s Field Notes,” a blog that he writes about current issues and practices in schools. Author of Teach Like a Champion, he is a managing director of Uncommon Schools, a network of over 50 charter schools serving 20,000 students in various cities on the East coast. This post appeared November 13, 2019.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked my littlest what was going on in Science. It’s her favorite class so it doesn’t take much to get some chatter going. She announced with no small amount of excitement that they were going to be building and flying rockets later that week. “Oh, cool,” I said, “Are you studying air resistance? Or aerodynamics?” That sounded super-geeky, so I re-phrased: “You know, what sorts of things might make a rocket fly better.”
“I’m not really sure,” she said, “We haven’t yet,” which was interesting because the rocket flying was just three or fours days away. If it was to demonstrate some ideas they had learned it was getting late to learn them.
If there’s one thing that most parents seem to want for their kids in school it’s hands-on learning. If there’s one thing many teachers believe will make them be the right sort of teacher it’s hands-on learning. At meet-the-teachers night, if a teacher says, “We’ll be doing lots of hands-on projects in my class this year,” everyone is happy. Parents imagine their kids up to their elbows in learning. Teachers imagine them building rockets and suspension bridges in the future, CONTINUE READING: The Paper Rocket: Thoughts on Improving ‘Hands-On’ Learning (Doug Lemov) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
